SABnzbd Forums

So I feel like a bit of a fool but _sometime_ in the last 9 months or so a SAB upgrade has left me helpless... I can no longer download (and process) a collection that only includes par files... I used to be able to no trouble but now, whatever configuration I try results in:
It's because post processing is deleting the files before they can be moved to the destination directory, even when set to "Download Only".

My configuration has not changed (I restored a backup to check) but I can no longer download collections that only include par(x) files (for the last "many" months - but I have been reluctant to sign up to a forum to ask a seemingly ridiculous question).

Explicitly, what flags need to be set to allow me to successfully download a collection that contains par files exclusively?

I feel like a 'tard but as I say, my config is verified unchanged from Dec '13 and it worked perfectly then...

Yes - I searched many times and came up with squat - if you know of the definitive, verified thread please enlighten me.

Do you happen to have set a cleanup filter in Config->General that removes the par2 files?
Otherwise SABnzbd will not delete par2 files when Download-only is selected.
Just double-checked this.

shypike wrote:Do you happen to have set a cleanup filter in Config->General that removes the par2 files?
Otherwise SABnzbd will not delete par2 files when Download-only is selected.
Just double-checked this.

Thank you! And although I do feel the fool I'm happy to identify the problem, it's not an area I checked thoroughly enough.



Edit: small donation inbound.

No problem, don't suppose that I never make such mistakes

Okay so I need to come back to this as I'm not sure what the expected behavior is meant to be.

Now that I've removed .par and .par2 from the cleanup filter they never get cleaned up (even with +Delete). Is this expected? This quote implies not [emphasis added]:

shypike wrote:Do you happen to have set a cleanup filter in Config->General that removes the par2 files?
Otherwise SABnzbd will not delete par2 files when Download-only is selected.
Just double-checked this.

Or did I read too much into that?

What I'd like to do, what I thought I used to be able to do is:

1. Set post-processing to +Delete and have the pars downloaded if/as required and then deleted once the repair was successful.

- AND -

2. Set post processing to Download only and download a nzb containing only par files and have the files preserved.

I can do EITHER 1 OR 2 at the moment (by changing the cleanup filter) but not both... if the cleanup filter is active (.par, .par2) it ALWAYS deletes the pars (irrespective of post processing option) and if I don't have the filter active it NEVER deletes the pars even when finished with them.

Can I have my cake and eat it too?

There's another obscure option in Config->Special, "Enable Par cleanup".
Check that one.
Other than that, it may happen that an NZB contains some stray par2 files; those are not deleted.
Personally I use extension-based cleanup in Config->General to remove stray par2 files.
But that doesn't work well if your doing a raw download.

shypike wrote:There's another obscure option in Config->Special, "Enable Par cleanup".
Check that one.
Other than that, it may happen that an NZB contains some stray par2 files; those are not deleted.
Personally I use extension-based cleanup in Config->General to remove stray par2 files.
But that doesn't work well if your doing a raw download.

Yes I have that checked (in v0.7.18 it's in Config -> Switches).

I'll check that it's only par2 files remaining which would correlate to your comments above.

Are par2 files ever automatically deleted (without a cleanup filter)? What constitutes a "stray" file?

The "obscure" option will only remove par2 files that belong to a set.
Indexers are not perfect and sometimes an unrelated par2 file ends up in an NZB.
Or the indexers omits a smaller set, but does include one of the par2 files.
You need the filter in Config->General to get rid of unwanted files,
but (as I said) that's not effective for raw downloads.

Keep in mind that SABnzbd was not designed to do things manually.
The various options Download/+Repair/+Unpack/+Delete stem from
the very early days of SABnzbd. SABnzbd was then still unreliable enough to want those options.
There's not much reason to keep these options and we'll have a critical look at them later.
(We may end up with always using +Download with a simple option like "keep original files".)

I've confirmed it is only par2 files. I need these less (for raw downloads) so can add par2 alone to the cleanup filter and get 99% of what I want, thanks for the assistance.

shypike wrote:(We may end up with always using +Download with a simple option like "keep original files".)

I only ever use +Delete and +Download so I agree this method would work fine for me.