New kind of obfuscating posts

[Kaigi]

Hello Quaid, long time!

There is a type of post that has started to appear in the last couple months that have played havok with Newsbin's ability to unRAR (or even use PARs).

The files I've had problems with have been video files.

The main NZB lists RAR segments like "asdfghjklzxcvbnm yEnc 8" with other segments shown in the "Subject:" area having the exact same random letter/number/character name [everything from the yEnc backward] but with a different number after, usually in order.

However, when they are downloaded, every single one has a different random name, with NONE of them having a file type extension (i.e. none have either ".RAR" or ".PAR2" after them).

Newsbin has no clue what to do with them. And, until tonight, I had not figured out any way to actually access any part of them. [What I ultimately tried was to figure out, by size, which was likely to be a larger PAR2 file, add ".PAR2" to the end, and use QuickPar to figure out the parts and rename them. However, this didn't fully work... only some of the files were renamed, while others were ignored, despite being from the same NZB and being identical in size to the ones that were renamed.]

I can e-mail an NZB I tried this with, or link to an NZB that does this, if my description is unclear or if you want to test it yourself.

[Quade]

What version are you using? Are you feeding the NZB's to the download list directly?

Sure if you can send some NZB's to "ts @ newsbin dot com" I can check them out.

[Kaigi]

I'm using v6.82 build 5142. I don't always feed them directly, but the time just before my post I had a directly-fed one that didn't behave any differently. (After upgrading to 6.82 from 6.81, for some reason it changed the "add directly to download list" switch, so I got to test direct-fed also.)

I'll send a couple of NZBs right now.

[Quade]

Both of the NZB's repaired and unrared but only because I fed them directly to the download list. I'm going to try again and make sure I'm using exactly the same version you are but I wouldn't expect this to change. 6.82 was specifically changed to work with these obscured postings. These things have to be fed directly to the download list without first passing through the post list.

[Kaigi]

That is rather frustrating, because there are some posts where I only need part of it (things like complete season collections, but where each episode is a separate set of RARs). And I NEVER want the samples (which are included with so many vids).

But for now, I'll simply deal with those as they come up.

Thanks! At least I know what is possible.


For the NZB for the larger file I sent you, your Newsbin was actually able to unRAR it? Mine downloaded it (with help [will post on that feature request in the appropriate thread]), renamed the files seemingly OK, but then got 'stuck' at that point. WinRAR would also not unRAR it, saying there was no archive inside. That, despite over 1000 people downloading it, and none leaving a comment about it being unRARable on the site I got the NZB from.

[Quade]

New school obscured posts, like the NZB's you sent, contain nothing but RARS and PARS for the obscured post. Even the filename of the MKV file inside the rars is obscured. So, there's no reason to not feed these obscured files to the download list directly. By feeding directly, the obscured MKV gets renamed based on the NZB Filename too.

How you download is completely up to you. I'm simply telling you the most reliable way to download these files.

You could always load to post list, check if they're obscured and if they are, drop the NZB again, into the download list to download. If it's not obscured you could feed from the post list. That's if saving bandwidth is the primary goal.

You could install QuickPar if you haven't and keep it handy to check the RAR files outside of Newsbin. I had no issues with either NZB. It's possible it needed repair and the repair failed. That's what Quickpar will tall you. The fact they got renamed tells you Newsbin attempted to repair them.