SABnzbd Forums

I've searched and searched the Astraweb faqs and tech recommendations, searched Google, and I've done all the recommendations to get a decent connection, but no dice.

I have used nzbmatrix, binsearch, and newsleech, and when I toggle add nzb, I get it, put it into the file box, click on add, and rarely I get 50-60Kb/s, which is just right for my system. BUT, there are many, many nzbs that I try to download that run at 5 to 6 Kb/s, and that is honestly about 99% of the files I try to download. In fact out of about 25 nzb's I have tried (less than 30 days old), I have got two downloads at 50-60 Kb/s, the rest are 5 to 6Kb/s. When I delete the file by clicking on the red x at the end of the cached item, it still shows 5 to 6Kb/s as if there is some kind of communication going on in the background (like housekeeping files?)

I have 512K service, am on PC with Ubuntu 10:04 system installed, and I subscribed with astraweb as my client.

I have about 10 whole days of usenet experience under my belt, so please have patience.

Is this normal with usenet?  Do I need to search for hours to find a file I can download at a good rate? Somehow it doesn't make sense, but maybe I was dissolutioned with this usenet thing. If it's my setup, then I would be really grateful for some ideas on getting

Please let me know if you need any more info, and if you have some idea.

Thankyou

Normally Usenet should max out your connection, especially on a slow connection like yours

* Do you see any errors in sab ? under the connection-tab
* With how many connections do you connect to Astraweb
* do you have a firewall/router  that is maybe blocking the port ?

Thanks for responding, rascalli,

This is what is in the connections tab....

us.news.astraweb.com:8080: 10
Thread #1 -> WwSxls4JHrrrQbYWnZtc@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #2 -> ANdfQKfqLQuXUk1SFAo5@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #3 -> AS5enpDQBlHrtKKQZqi@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #4 -> FlpIqq69ciLF0Lu1CEH8@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #5 -> 75UCoW65n9Q62b1vINKA@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #6 -> 1mNtmOhNyT7yYpBim5QJ1@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #7 -> xeeyL3iadRbQ3sjDOQP6@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #8 -> Jy8ZOhskgdNHaJLtIr03@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #9 -> hIeSsKG0Xsbbu9Zt8ee9@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename
Thread #10 -> 5zQSBHyTmeP3yYRoSnhA@JBinUp.local -> None -> filename

I'm now running 10 connections, but have tried 1 through 20.

No firewall, Ubuntu doesn't use one.

No router

The contradicting part of this problem is that I have twice downloaded files at my maximum rate, and I have not changed any settings throughout my setup after I downloaded the good 50-60Kb/s file download.

Does your ISP do any "traffic shaping"?
Are you using servers from the right continent?
E.g. Astraweb and Giganews have European servers for Europe.

How do I find out if my ISP does traffic shaping? All my downloads, Ubuntu updates etc are always good, never had one dip below say 45Kb/s.

I tried both Europe and US, both give me the same low download speeds.

Is any data being downloaded at 6Kb/s, or is it just handshaking signals?

Thank you

Does anything get downloaded?
When the NZB requires articles beyond the retention rate of your server,
it also takes time and seems to consume some bandwidth.
Also some servers become slow when you ask for stuff at the
edge of their retention time.
Try something that's no older than a week (you can see that in SABnzbd's queue).

Yes I was able to download (on two separate days)  a movie and a tv show, both gave me 50Kb/s or better, but everything else gives me this crazy 5Kb/s or so.
I used nbzmatrix, which under free use, only gives 20 day max retention files for download. As a test, I tried 6 of them a little while ago and none of them gave me better than 6Kb/s.

For example from nbzmatrix I tried to download BBC A History of Britain by Simon Schama 2000 DVD Extra Interviews with Simon Shama XviD.zip which is 9 days old and got 6Kb/s.

It's almost as if 6Kb/s is really not downloading the file, as it continues after I x out the file with the red x on the right column of the queue in SAB

How long should I wait after putting the file into the queue before I should be getting downloaded data? The two that I was successful with came up immediately with 60Kb/s.

I'm really grateful for your help, I have been reading and searching for an answer to this problem, it's probably something simple that I am overlooking, just can't see it for my ignorance.

Everything depends very much on your Usenet provider.
Of course you can use an alternative program to find out if SABnzbd is a factor at all.
For Windows you could use Grabit.

I'll go after Astraweb and see what happens - logically it makes no sense that it would be SAB because I did get a good couple of downloads and I can't believe SAB has the ability to change options on it's own.

Thank you for all the info and help

Hope Shypike is still out there, cause I found an irregularity which "might" be related with Sab,

I just subscribed to another usenet provider, newhosting, set it up and got 5-6Kb/s, went back to Astraweb server and using the same downloaded file, got 56Kb/s!.

When I combined the two, I got 56Kb/s.

Any ideas?

I have no idea, other than newshosting sucks?
There's not much you can do wrong.
The servername, username, password are either right or wrong.
The only two factors are timeout (anywhere between 60 and 120)
and # of connections (depends on your provider, but 8-15 is usually a good choice).

I can think of one long shot.
In Config->Switches, enable the option "Send group".
Just in case newshosting needs this to look up articles faster.