Usenet Explorer

I am suddenly having an issue I've never had before.

Anything I download (usually 4 gigs or more) that has some incomplete rar file from the download will not auto repair and then unrar.

If there is no incomplete rar's, it unrar's fine. If there are.....from what I can tell, it doesn't repair, then for some reason, it deletes on it's own all the PAR files.

The Status under the "unpack" tab says CRC error or wrong password with the Rar set. Which is correct as it's not repaired.

If I redownload the PARs into the same directory as the RAR's, it autodeletes them again.

To get around this, I need to download the PAR files into a different directory, I then exit UE, copy the PAR's into the dir into with the RAR's and do a manual PAR repair with quickpar. It usually finds a couple blocks corrupt and promptly repairs them, then I do a manual unrar.

Any idea of what's going on with this?

Thanks,
James

It shouldn't attempt unrar if par2 files indicate corruption.

Edit menu->properties->save/unpack, unpack, require par2 verification, is "Auto unrar" checked?

Hey Alex, my issue isn't that Auto Rar, but yes it is checked.

My issue is, and I watched it yesterday after I posted, it says it needs to repair...it begins repair.....after it's done it supposedly finished the repair successfully, deletes the Par files, then begins the UnRar automatically.

Then the unRar fails because the Pars didn't repair it.

As mentioned, if I download the Pars separately to a different directory so UE doesn't attempt a rapair again that will fail, then exit UE, then run a manual repair, then it repairs it properly.

I can even go back into UE after QuickPar repaired it, then let UE unRAR it and it will succeed.

It appears that UE isn't repairing the archive properly.

Do you have "Verify files after repair" checked in edit menu->properties->save/unpack, unpack, miscellaneous?

If after successful repair it verified the files - checksums + md5 hash I don't see any reason the files will be corrupted.

If verify fails - in the past there were only cases of antivirus interference, I'm not aware of any bugs in this regard, very unlikely since those are matrix operations which either work or don't work. The interference may be well on the save file stage (it means when UE is saving - it writes one thing, but what lands on the disk is something else), not only the repair, you can check it out by reloading par2 set and data file into UE manually, no need to clear the files (through unpack pane context menu like quickpar loads them) and checking if the number of par2 blocks and data blocks reported in the status column remains the same or something changed.

So look at "Verify files after repair" and secondly try to write down number of available data blocks and par2 repair blocks and then compare to the numbers shown after reloading all those files manually (e.g. context menu->add->load exact files).

Yes that option is on. It's always been on. This has worked in the past as I've used UE for years and years. For some reason, it just stopped working.

I don't even have an antivirus on this PC running Win7 64bit, so that can't be an interference.

It's very annoying. I just downloaded a 25gig movie last night for example.

It downloaded everything, ran the repair and verify, supposedly fixed it, deleted the PAR files, then did the unRar...and the unrar failed because the Rar's aren't repaired!! UG!

From doing more testing, it's definitely the built-in PAR repair that is failing.

Or rather, it thinks it's repairing the archive, but it's not.

I went to Edit, properties, save/unpack, unchecked "delete par2 files after repair".
I think right clicked the files in the UE Task Manager and told it to repair, it instantly goes to "complete" and the unrar process begins, which fails because it's NOT repaired.

I am now running a manual QuickPar 0.9 scan on it now and rar 56, 79, and 82 are all missing just 1 block. For some reason, UE is not repairing this.

I'm letting Quickpar repair it that is taking almost 15 minutes right now, then I'll go back to UE, right click on the Rar set in Task Manager, it will Unrar successfully as there is nothing wrong with the Unrar part of it.

Any ideas Alex of what might have broke on my install/pc with UE?

I'll give my thinking....I'm noticing this now since I'm doing some really large bluray type downloads. Maybe it's a size issue? Maybe UE can't handle Rar sets over 20 gigs or something?

On large posts should be no problem, it was tested on posts >4GB in both 32 and 64 bit, then it should work on larger posts as well. Are you sure you don't have the same issue with smaller downloads?

It is strange par2 repair doesn't happen, maybe some exception thrown and UE doesn't detect that condition somehow, did you try to run UE as administrator to give more permissions? The catch filter is only on file exceptions, it cannot be some UE code internal error.

Check if when you run UE as administrator it is the same, but in any case better I compile a version which will log the exception, so it would give some file error and won't indicate that repair was successful after your next reply.

alex wrote:On large posts should be no problem, it was tested on posts >4GB in both 32 and 64 bit, then it should work on larger posts as well. Are you sure you don't have the same issue with smaller downloads?

It is strange par2 repair doesn't happen, maybe some exception thrown and UE doesn't detect that condition somehow, did you try to run UE as administrator to give more permissions? The catch filter is only on file exceptions, it cannot be some UE code internal error.

Check if when you run UE as administrator it is the same, but in any case better I compile a version which will log the exception, so it would give some file error and won't indicate that repair was successful after your next reply.

No, not sure about smaller downloads. I have been having it happen on pretty much everything that requires a par repair I believe.

Ok, well I'll start another download as I already took care of the stuff I was trying to unrar and moved on. I do have another request from my kids, so I'll let that roll tonight and if it fails again which I expect it will, I'll exit, then go in as administrator as you said and test to see what happens then. Thanks for working with me on this.

After a test for the post you mentioned in pm the repair worked here, so it is some file exception which slips through resulting in false repair status, we'll try to trace how the exception got through unnoticed then.

Or, if UE from the outset reports files as complete (not clear from your feedback), it is data corruption which happens during writing outside of UE scope, e.g. antivirus corrupts files being written. Repair is not done when it is not necessary.

I have also been seeing this behavior when downloading large video files and I am using an older version of Usenet Explorer. Version 2.31. I download additional Par files and can complete the download but the original Rar files do not get deleted after recovery and unpacking. I do get the unpacked files but the original Rar files do not self delete.
I just updated to the newest version and I will monitor to see how the newest version handles this situation.

to be honest i cant remember having this issue but im curious..
could somebody PM me several exmples(not very large, up to 4.5Gb, if possible)
thanx

I didn't reply here after I clarified the problem through email - as to the original post the user explanation wasn't clear since he was mentioning repair.

In fact there was no repair at all, all files were listed as complete, it is why UE deleted par2 files and then started unrar.

When files are listed as complete it means what UE writes is the correct files (since it checks MD5 hash and then compares it with the par2 data).

But then unrar failed because what landed on the disk was different from what had been written by UE, some kind of third party interference or hardware problem I don't know, it was narrowed to a single user computer, I don't have any further feedback.

Even if repair has place, by default UE verifies fixed files after repair (since user may change the files), so I was wondering what it could be until I found out no repair had place at all.

I got remote access to that computer and checked the issue, it was not mentioned initially it saved to USB hard drive, it is hardware or system bug.

The problem is similar to one described here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-disc ... -disk.html

Also the thread mentions the problem is more likely when writing is in multiple streams, it is what UE does.

If it worked before with UE database on the hard drive - one might try to uncheck "bypass database storage", in edit menu->properties->save, when UE will temporarily save to database drive and then will save in a single stream, but it may be slower on fast connections when hard drive is the bottleneck.

The error happens outside UE scope (after UE have written the data), maybe it is Win7 bug (probably only 64 bit version), at first glance I didn't find any mention of such issue with WinXP.

Yes, lately on large, multi-part posts the rar's written to my USB are reported as corrupted by WinRAR, incomplete by Quickpar, although the part/files listed in the UE search pane indicate it's not incomplete.

Even smaller ones. In a small post with pars and 7 .avi's the first .avi would always be incompete, until I used <Download Bodies>, let that complete and then <Save Attachments> in separate steps.

For consiracy theorists: This started happening (to me) as aoon as I receieved my "licence expiring in <n> days" messages for UE.

Did you run a thorough memory test lately?

Does this happen when you save to an internal hard drive?

Sounds like hardware problems to me.