Download speeds crawl when using sabnzbd

[royalnewjersey]

Hey guys, hopefully someone can shed some insight into my problem. Over the last few days I've done quite a bit of troubleshooting so I'll try and be as clear as possible:

Version: 0.6.14
OS: OSX 10.7.2
Install-type: OSX.app
Skin (if applicable): default
Firewall Software: none
Are you using IPV6? no
Is the issue reproducible? yes

Here's the issue. About 4 days ago I started using sabnzbd and usenet. Everything was great, I was getting 1.5-2MB/s download speeds. Speedtest.net showed that my comcast speed was getting 16-22mb/s download and 2-3mb/s upload. Perfect.

~150gb of downloads later and things start to crash and burn. I noticed that my internet connection had slowed to a crawl (all browsing, downloading, etc). I checked sabnzbd and found that it was running at about 100-200KB/s downloads. So I restarted the system, tried again. Now every time I run sabnzbd on my mac mini server the entire network slows to a crawl. web pages hardly load, downloads crawl, speedtest shows about 1-2mb/s download speeds. WTF

I have tried changing the number of connections from my usenet host (from 20, to 13). I have tried changing the cache settings down to 120M. I have tried limiting bandwidth to 1000KB/s download. I have tried reinstalling the app. I have tried resetting my router and modem. I have run a Glasnost test which said "my ISP is not shaping or throttling my connection". I have checked comcast and I'm still at 75% of their 250GB limit. I have cleared my queue and made sure my files are under 10gb (I only have 1 file in my queue at the moment).

I have done so much testing, and narrowed it down to something with sabnzbd specifically. Torrents run fine, other downloads run fine. As soon as you run sabnzbd and start a download the network slows down like crazy and stays limited to 100-200KB/s if I'm lucky. Sometimes I'll catch it at like 79KB/s. This is the whole reason I started using usenet and sabnzbd. What should I do next? I have no idea where to go, or how to fix this issue. I can't use it if I'm only getting kb/s download speeds

Any help is appreciated

[shypike]

Comcast and not throttling? Are you sure?
Do you use wireless or wired?

[royalnewjersey]

Comcast and not throttling? Are you sure?
Do you use wireless or wired?

I don't know that comcast for sure ISN'T throttling, I have no idea. I ran the glasnost test online in various configurations and the results seemed to say that it wasn't a throttling issue. Also torrents seem to download / upload just fine, they don't kill the network while they're running either. Is there a 100% conclusive way to tell?

I'm using a wireless connection. Have been since I started using sabnzbd and problem just started recently.

[shypike]

SABnzbd will saturate any wireless connection.
That's because in reality the wireless bandwidth is quite limited
and you need to share it with your neighbours, microwave ovens and DECT handsets.
Have you tried to set the router to a different channel?

[sander]

Or, for the measurement, go wired, and see if the problem is gone. If so, the cause is 100% clear :-)

[royalnewjersey]

Update:

I know the issue is not with the wireless network. As I stated before, it was downloading at a solid 2MB/s without causing internal network issues just a few days ago. The only thing I can think of that might be different is that I performed an update from version 0.6.5 to 0.6.14. I think it may have been around that timeframe when all the trouble came...

So I decided to poke around at the support files in OSX and figured out that when you reinstall the application, it doesn't actually trash the support files in your user library. So I went to User>Library>Application Support>sabnzbd and removed the folder. BOOM. problem fixed.

Of course I had to set up all my configuration, usernet providers, port settings, password, etc for the sabnzbd+ client.... but it's working now. I'm getting a solid 2MB/s download speed and absolutely zero network congestion. Something must have gone horribly wrong when I updated, and messed up all the system files.

I have the logs if there are any developers that are interested in taking a look. I hope this doesn't happen to anyone else, it took me a few frustrating days of component isolation and process of elimination.

[royalnewjersey]

well... it's back. After a pain-free 8 hours with very high download speeds (1-2MB/s), I'm back to downloading at around 80KB/s....

What's going on? What could cause this? I clear out the user library application support and the download speeds are great. then after a download or two, the speed is back to crap and the network tanks.

Any ideas?

[shypike]

Very strange indeed.
When things slow down again, can you zip all files in the support folder and email
the zip file to bugs at sabnzbd.org?
You should remove all passwords from the sabnzbd.ini file first.

BTW does 0.6.5 behave the same now?
You can swap 0.6.x verions at will.

[royalnewjersey]

UPDATE:

check this out:




could this be causing issues? I'm getting warnings that there are too many connections to my usenet server. Should I change the port? Or lower the connections? After deleting the application support I forgot to lower the connections again.

So I lowered it 12 connections, is that too low? It seems to have temporarily fixed the speed issue.... does that sound right?

[shypike]

This would definitely slow down downloading.
When connections between SABnzbd (or any other Usenet program) and the server
are dropped, servers don't always notice this at once.
So when for some reason the wireless connection would drop connections,
SABnzbd notices this quite fast and tries to setup a new connection.
The server isn't so fast and will count new connections without discounting the old connections.
You can try with less than the maximum.
Most servers don't really need the maximum amount of connections anyway.
Try lowering until you get a stable connection, hopefully without losing much speed.
Also, don't set the server timeout too low.
30 sec is the minimum, but many providers prefer you to use anything between 60 and 120 seconds.
This also can explain some of the problem.

BTW: I suspect that your efforts to "repair" the situation just gave the servers
enough time to realize that connections were indeed broken.
Usually this takes less than 2 minutes.

[royalnewjersey]

Okay, speeds seem to be stable right around 12 connections. I'll keep it that way for now. If it starts to slow down again within the next day or two, I'll zip the support folder and send it to the email posted above.

Thanks again guys, hopefully it's just a weird configuration issue and not a serious bug as I previously thought

[royalnewjersey]

[screenshot redacted -- admin]

I feel like I'm chasing the wrong rabbit down the hole. I woke up this morning to super slow internet speeds (pages wouldn't load, people in the house were complaining, etc). Sure enough, checked sabnzbd and it was getting an average of less than 100KB/s.....

This is beyond frustrating. I'm going to email my application support folder to the email posted above and hope someone has an answer. I have asked on the live chat support, I have posted here, I have asked a few of my usenet friends and no one can figure this out. :/

[shypike]

pages wouldn't load, people in the house were complaining, etc

This looks more like a breakdown of your wireless modem.
Can it not handle sustained high traffic?
Does the problem of the connection being slow for everyone go away as soon as you stop SABnzbd?
If not, then your modem is definitively the suspect.

BTW: I cannot find anything problematic with the files you sent.

[shypike]

Are you sharing your WiFi with other people in the house, who use their own PC or Macs?
If so, then downloading heavily over WiFi is not a good idea.
At least try to limit your speed so that the rest still has some bandwidth left.

[royalnewjersey]

Does the problem of the connection being slow for everyone go away as soon as you stop SABnzbd?
If not, then your modem is definitively the suspect.

Yes, immediately. As soon as I pause the downloads, everything returns to normal. I don't even have to quit the server process.

I have put a limit on the download speeds. I set the limit at 1200KB/s. When running smoothly, this limits my speed and I can see downloads running at exactly 1.2MB/s. This gives me enough extra bandwidth (about 0.8MB/s) for loading websites and such.

And yes, other people do use the wireless in the house but it's mostly for web browsing, nothing serious like streaming or anything. Unfortunately the modem is not accessible from the room with the server since I live in an apartment. I don't have the option of using a direct connection or else I would.

Any next ideas? What should I test next? Comcast is coming within the week to install a new modem with "teleworker business class internet" which should qualm any issues with modem/ISP speeds. But I seriously think it has something to do with sabnzbd. Especially considering that if you wipe it back to factory and re-set up the usenet information, speeds return to normal for a day or two....