wish list

[bauermeister]

 8)

I already have many, many wishes, but I think we better start by exchanging impressions on the present released version and stepping out a list of wishful new features as well as those enhanced ones,

anyone to help me to build a list of it?

[prochargedmopar]

Present program is awesome IMO.
I use it daily.
I would rather groups with it than online.

[nightstitcher]

I love it also. Given the way Yahoo regularly bounces mail and then stops sending for a while, this is the best way to
locate anything I've missed, as well as to maintain an archive.

Because I'm on a lot of groups, and have collected archives of many of them, I'm worried  that my database will get too big eventually. So,
what I'd like to have is the ability to maintain multiple databases. At least for my groups, they divide into major categories, and being able to
give each category its own file would alleviate file-size concerns.  

[Wilson Logan]

Hi All,

On the subject of multiple databases, I have resisted doing this because you will lose the ability to search across groups. Something you cannot do in Yahoo.

However, I notice in my own pattern of use that I could quite happily group related groups together and not lose this functionality. For example, I could put all my metalworking groups in one database & all my car groups in another database as it is unlikely that I'd search across unrelated groups.

What do you all think?

Cheers,

Wilson.

[Len]

Wilson;
I really like the configurable download, it works well.

The Yahoo algorithm seems to count messages recvd, not only in one hour but longer than that.

The suggestion I have as a "wish" is this.

When downloading messages, if the 999 Invalid Page occurs, PGOffline continues to hammer away trying to download the messages. In my testing it has become apparent that Yahoo counts these hits against the invalid pages as well, resulting in the 999 blocking page being up for a longer period of time. >:(

Could the next version of PGOffline have a feature added where if it sees a series of invalid pages occur, (say 10 consecutive) PGOffline stops trying to receive messages?

This would work well in concert with the existing download "pause" feature. ;)

Len

[Wilson Logan]

Len,

>>When downloading messages, if the 999 Invalid Page occurs, PGOffline continues to hammer away trying to download the messages. In my testing it has become apparent that Yahoo counts these hits against the invalid pages as well, resulting in the 999 blocking page being up for a longer period of time.


Are you sure about that? I'd have thought that once Yahoo erects the IP block, thats it, the IP is blocked & they pay no notice to anything coming from that IP address.

Assuming that they do pay attention... we'll need more than just 10 invalid pages before we give up. Message gaps in Yahoo can be quite big e.g.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/newmarowners/messages/21918

this group is missing messages from 21923 - 22071 inclusive. Nearly 150 messages.

What we might be able to do is check the yahoo groups home page after 10 invalid pages. If we can still access that then we're not blocked.

I'm going to need more convincing that yahoo continues to log activity after they've blocked the IP though.

Anyone else have any ideas on this?

Cheers,

Wilson.

[Len]

Hi Wilson;
I'm 99% certain, yes.
An easy test that will verify. (I already did this inadvertantly)
(1) set up to receive say 100 messages, keep running until the the invalid page comes up. Stop immediately, and wait the 1 hour or so until Yahoo becomes accessible again. Record the duration of "blocked" time.

Then...
(2) set up to receive 600 messages. When the "Invalid Page" appears, let PGOffline continue to run. After the "blocked time" period in (1) expires, try to access. You will be denied for a very long period of time, much longer than the hour or so in (1). The duration seems to be a function of how many "invalid page" hits occurred, so it looks like their counters continue to count the hits from the IP address.

If you were able to make the number of invalid pages that will cause PGOffline to stop trying a configurable parameter, we could set it to our groups situation. The groups I am downloading have very short gaps, mostly 1 or 2 messages, likely spam messages deleted by the moderator.  

Len

[Wilson Logan]

Len,

I agree. The only way to set this up is to make it user configurable.

I'll get on it.

Cheers,

Wilson.

[peterb]

Hi,

When you get the Invalid page message: Would it be possible to test with some other command if you are blocked out or not and stop if you are?

Peter

[Wilson Logan]

Peter,

Yesterday I'd have said yes, we could check to see if you can access the groups home page & if you can't then you're locked out.

However, today I got a mail from a guy who is locked out but can still browse the group using IE.

I am beginning to suspect that the Yahoo limit is a moving target & they are still fine tuning it.

Cheers,

Wilson.

[peterb]

Wilson,

Perhaps the guy's browser was using cached data.
When I have got locked out I have allways (20+ times) also been locked out from the groups home page.

Today I could download 300-330 / hour instead of 150 - but it was on another group which have shorter messages. Probably they count the bytes and not the messages.

Peter

[Wilson Logan]

Peter,

>Perhaps the guy's browser was using cached data.

Good point.

>When I have got locked out I have allways (20+ times) also been locked out from the groups home page.

My experience also.

>Today I could download 300-330 / hour instead of 150 - but it was on another group which have shorter messages. Probably they count the bytes and not the messages.

Interesting observation... I've often wondered about the seeming variability in how many messages people could download.
Download quotas are usually set in terms of bandwidth so the limit could very well be something like 2400k.

Cheers,

Wilson.