lost internet connection results in incomplete rars

[tml]

I am using UE 2.52 trial on Windows XP SP3.
I had loaded an NZB and was using command "Download&save attachments" and had hit *YES* to "Do you want to delete headers&bodies after successful save attachments?"

It seems that UE does not notice when my internet connection is lost and blindly keeps trying to download articles/rars when there is no internet connection, apparently (wrongly) assumes that the articles are missing on the server, and skips over these articles when connection is lost - but when connection returns it does not go back and look for articles that were skipped. (other software appliations such as NetMeter pop up a warning cloud whenever the computer disconnects from the internet -- maybe UE could do the same, and pause downloading until connection returns?)

I am using a wireless connection that disconnects often, and whenever this happens, Usenet Explorer will truncate the rar files currently downloading, skip the next few on the list, then continue with the last-part of a rar when the connection returns. Setting only one "task" greatly reduces the number of incompletes (as expected), so for every disconnect/reconnect cycle will typically result in two incomplete rars (and it seems several skipped rars) - or so it seems.

Here is what the results looked like (there are 75 rars in the set, the remainder [not shown] were the correct 48,829KB size) and too much is missing to restore with Par2's.




Two questions:

1. How can I set up UE so that the occasional WI-FI disconnects do not result in incompletes?

2. Is there an easy way to restore the missing articles in the partial rar files without downloading the entire (50MB) article-set/rar-file again?

Thanks

[jonib]

1. How can I set up UE so that the occasional WI-FI disconnects do not result in incompletes?

I think you need to change two settings:
UnCheck Menu->Edit->Properties->Save/Unpack->Delete incomplete bodies prevents UE from deleting incomplete bodies so you are able to complete them and not have to redownload the whole file.
Add a number to Menu->Edit->Properties->Tasks->Retry failed tasks every min so UE will retry any failed articles.

2. Is there an easy way to restore the missing articles in the partial rar files without downloading the entire (50MB) article-set/rar-file again?

If the partial file is deleted in UE you need to redownload the whole file.

jonib

[tml]

Thanks jonib

I see that's a lot of settings to choose from.

I'm also hoping to find a setting that might say something like: "pause download if internet connection is lost"

I'm also just wondering how to set up 'backup' servers. If I have multiple usenet servers, will UE automatically check all servers for missing articles?

I've noticed that for some reason, P2P clients like Bittorrent are extremely tolerant of internet disconnects, and HTTP download managers moderately tolerant, while news clients (at least using default settings) tend to be very intolerant of losing the internet connection.

[jonib]

I see that's a lot of settings to choose from.

I'm also just wondering how to set up 'backup' servers. If I have multiple usenet servers, will UE automatically check all servers for missing articles?

Any server that has the newsgroup you are downloading from attached will be used, you can use server priority to control what servers will be used first.

I've noticed that for some reason, P2P clients like Bittorrent are extremely tolerant of internet disconnects, and HTTP download managers moderately tolerant, while news clients (at least using default settings) tend to be very intolerant of losing the internet connection.

With the settings I proposed it should be as tolerant as Bittorrent.

jonib