[Resolved] Completed torrents from RSS feeds being re-downloaded

[Sambo_NZ]

Hi,

I have (µTorrent v2.0) a heap of RSS feed subscriptions from ezrss.it which are working fine, however every so often (I haven't been able to determine the pattern as yet) a whole lot previously completed torrents get re-added at once. These generally don't exist as files anymore, but they should all be in the feed history (this is difficult to verify as I don't know which torrents are re-downloaded until they are).

It almost seems like there is some kind of expiry time on RSS history entries, but I have not been able to find any settings for this (if there are any!).

Has anyone seen this before or have any suggestions as to why this might be happening?

Cheers,

Sam.

[Sambo_NZ]

Ok, I've spotted another clue to this issue. Torrent files appear to exist before they are re-added. When this happens you get a 'xyz.torrent' with the original download date and an 'xyz.1.torrent' file with the new download date. The files are identical in size (to the byte) and identically named apart from the '.1' part.

It's almost like µTorrent is checking for the existence of the actual file rather than the .torrent file.

Also, this might be coincidence, but the issue happened again last night and I just added a new RSS feed to µTorrent. The new duplicate '.1.torrent' files were added a few minutes later. Unfortunately I didn't notice this and it resulted in $25 worth of excess download fees on my account overnight! :mad:

Not a happy camper!!

[Sambo_NZ]

Ok, I added another rss feed tonight and the re-download issue happened again, so that's confirmed as a trigger (but not the only trigger).

Can anyone suggest any way for me to run debugging logs or something to capture this error?

[Sambo_NZ]

Right. I seem to be talking to myself here, but hey, what the heck.

I now know when this issue happens. If I do an 'Update Feed' on the 'All Feeds' RSS icon, it ignores any torrents which are set to 'Previously Downloaded' and overwrites them with 'non downloaded' torrents. This behavior doesn't happen when you select 'Update Feed' on individual RSS feeds. The issue also happens by itself, most often on uTorrent startup.

Is this a bug or 'normal' behaviour?

[Switeck]

I'm inclined to call that a bug.

Moving the whole thread to Found Bugs forum.

[grakkus]

i can confirm that behavior. just added a few more rss feeds and suddenly utorrent tried to download all the old ones again (those that had the status 'Prevoiously Downloaded').

guess the rss history somehow got erased.

EDIT:

the problem doesnt appear to exist in 2.1 alpha!

[Sambo_NZ]

Ok, I'll upgrade to 2.1 alpha and test.

Edit: Hmm, still happening for me in build 19280. It's at the point now when it re-downloads ALL torrents from ALL feeds every time I start it up (assuming I've previously set all existing torrents to 'previously downloaded').

Here's my rss.dat file if anyone needs it:

http://www.zshare.net/download/75622986a4c6367c/

I have already tried a completely clean install with default settings etc.

Also, I started from scratch with my RSS feeds (ie; deleted the rss.dat) and added a single feed and the issue doesn't seem to happen. However, previously, this issue seems to have gotten worse the more feeds I add to it. I have a HEAP of feeds and I don't really want to have to re-create them all only to possibly still have the issue.

Please let me know if I need to provide any further information. I'm happy to run debug logs etc if required.

[Sambo_NZ]

Hmm, I may have found a 'fix' for this issue. I hit the 'reset' button in the 'RSS Downloader' dialog under a couple of my feeds and uTorrent seems to be behaving correctly again. Perhaps there was some screwed up history data in my RSS.dat & resetting some feed download history corrected it?

I'll monitor for a few days / weeks & report back, but it's looking promising so far!

I can upload my new RSS.dat if anyone's interested in dissecting this issue in more depth.

EDIT: This fix hasn't completely resolved the issue, but it a hell of a lot better! I'll try to figure out the pattern (some feeds are fine and some are not now).

[Sambo_NZ]

Ok, that worked for about 3 days, now I'm getting sporadic recurrences of the issue. It's not as bad as it was most recently, but it's following the previous instance of the issue.

What can I do to progress this issue?

[rafi]

you can vote/comment in the 'idea bank' for my idea -to fix and improve the RSS downloader + bump up this thread

[autween]

It happens to me as well Sambo. However I thought it was an attribute of rss in general as in my regular news reader I often have articles or blogs re-appear as new items.

[Sambo_NZ]

Ok, so I'm still battling this issue, it still exists in v2.2 Build 22732 and I have now confirmed it on 2 different PCs (one with a completely fresh build). Is there no-one else who has this issue!? I can't quite believe that I'm the only one with the problem!

I have uploaded 2 different rss.dat files; one broken (18 RSS feeds), and one ok (16 RSS feeds). Could someone else please try these on their system and see if they get the problem as well?

If anyone understands the structure of the rss.dat file I'd be keen for their opinion on my examples and if they can see what's wrong with the broken one.

Edit: I have now seen a machine not fail with my 'broken' rss.dat file, but it did fail with this really broken one. If you can't get the original 'broken' file to fault, try this one.

[Sambo_NZ]

I believe that I have determined the cause of this issue now; I think the issue has to do with the number of history entries stored in the RSS.dat file. When the number of history entries gets to somewhere over 575 the history is ignored and previously downloaded files are re-added. Perhaps the program gets to it's history limit and then starts overwriting from the beginning again, therefore causing the history of earlier files to be erased, thus re-downloaded?

In any case the latest version (2.2.1 build 25130) doesn't seem to have this limitation and so far has been working without this issue for the last 3 or 4 days! - YAY!!

Thanks whoever fixed this

[Firon]

We increased the limit to 2000 entries in 2.2.1 I think.

[Sambo_NZ]

We increased the limit to 2000 entries in 2.2.1 I think.

Awesome, a much more sensible limit! Thanks!

I'm not sure if anyone's going to be hitting the 2000 entry limit any time soon, but is there any chance of some code which either avoids the 'continuous re-downloading' issue or at least warns the user about what's happening?