Usenet Explorer Crashes when downloading headers

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Cynyster
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Usenet Explorer Crashes when downloading headers

Post by Cynyster »

Ok this is probably my fault. I have Usenet Explorer installed on my D-drive which for the most part is just a large storage drive I use almost exclusively for downloading stuff.

This weekend I got tired of my systems acting goofy at time so I reformatted and started fresh with a differant version of windows (previously it was winXP Pro Media edition) and I installed WinXP Pro Corp

so now trying to run UE after a reload for the first time was pretty simple .. it asked for my data directory and everything came right back just as I had it (awesome)

However now when I am trying to download headers it crashes every time after a couple minutes.. I checked the create debug log so I have that.

Should I just start over from scratch? Or would you like me to help debug this?
dengle
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Joined: Mon Jun 30, 2003 2:37 pm

Post by dengle »

first, run chkdsk /f on your d: drive to be on the safe side. (it can't hurt)

Second, goto Help -> Diagnostics -> Integrity to ensure the database was not corrupted.


Do you know which group is causing the crash? If you can see which group crashes, reset only that group's headers and try again.
alex
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Joined: Thu Feb 27, 2003 5:57 pm

Post by alex »

ok, i got the two crashes. yes, maybe to check the drive for errors first.

in short it is corrupted message-id storage for a compact binary newsgroup (the strange thing is it is not supposed to throw exception there since the function is wrapped with exception handler, it is compiler fault i'll check later but it doesn't matter as to the subject).

as the program works now after a crash all loaded newsgroups will be repaired after restart, i mean even with this scenario the crash won't happen after restart for the same newsgroup.

to repair everything invoke from the workspace, newsgroups entry, context menu, compact binary->compact&free, it should bring all compact binary newsgroups in order.

as to restarting from scratch it means deleting the "newsgroups" directory and then resetting all newsgroups, no need to create a new database (but compact&free should be completely adequate to bring everything in order, no need to delete the content of newsgroups).

if otherwise all is ok with the system hopefully it shouldn't happen again since it wasn't case with you in the past, maybe something got corrupted while copying the ue directory or reinstalling the system.
Cynyster
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Post by Cynyster »

Thanks Dengle. Good ideas. I did both after the first crash.

Thanks Alex. That did the trick. All the groups have finished downloading the new headers except a couple really big ones(which are still running as I write this)

Could you explain what exactly is happening in compact and free? Is it the same as deleting the group and re-adding it?(It doesn't seem like it as the big ones seem to be downloading over a million headers but I think one of my groups is closer to 2 million)

Anyway thanks again.. Yet another reason this is the best damn newsreader out there.
Life without Music would be a Mistake!
Cynyster
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Post by Cynyster »

Whoopse spoke to soon ... Here comes another crash for you
Life without Music would be a Mistake!
alex
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Post by alex »

the program is supposed to work also with damaged newsgroup storage, i saw once some issues with microsoft compiler, when standard exceptions get through instead of being caught, i'll check it, but it is not connected to our problem since it is not supposed to go there in the first place.

compact&free checks is not like deleting and readding newsgroup since no valid data is lost, only damaged records are.

there were no other instances of the same crash with other users.

do you remember what groups were downloading headers when it crashed?

maybe to try to set header tasks to 1 especially if you remember what header tasks were running at the moment of crash and try to find out which newsgroup caused the problem, if these are random newsgroups the cause might be outside the program, if it is the same group it would be some reproducible bug, but since you are the only one who has it (also strange it was correlated with reinstalling the system) - it would be difficult for me to find out the cause here without more details.

you can contact me through icq (i've sent request to your icq account), it would be much faster then, i could even compile some test versions, just take into account we have significant time zone difference. you can also post on forum in this thread or through private messaging (better than email), anyway i'm busy with another topic and we have some time before the next release so it is also ok to try to resolve it in slow motion if you'll manage to cause the crash to happen repeatedly.
Cynyster
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Post by Cynyster »

Ok I have installed ICQ and added you ( I am still installing all the software I am used to using) As far as I can remember it was in the process of downloading headers for alt.binaries.boneless and alt.binaries.cd.image

Also even though I am in EST my awake hours are quite strange.. I work from 3am to 12 noon so most of my home computing happens after noon time although I can be reached by IM all through my work hours when I am working on my servers.

Now that all the headers seem to be downloaded I'll start downloading some binaries and see if the problem continues
Life without Music would be a Mistake!
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