Please edumacate me about .nzb

Hardware and technical stuff
1

And no, I’m not downloading games.

I can download other things just fine the normal way, by opening the Usenet newsgroup, looking for the header names etc. but whenever I try to download using nzb.exe for instance, even when the rar files seem to download fine from my news provider, I double click on them and get “unexpected end of file” errors. Is there a tutorial somewhere on the proper way to use nzb files? Do I have to download the .sfv file as well as the files that end in .rar (which I don’t have to do when I download the old-fashioned way).

2

The files might have been corrupted by some kind of mangling of the article text that occurred somewhere along the way. If there are parity files (.par/.par2) you could try using those to repair them.

3

nzb files are merely descriptions of where things are on usenet, they aren’t executables. And not all nzb files are equal, especially ones generated on the fly by websites. Any download failures/corruption would be the result of bad data in the nzb or bad data on the servers of your provider.

4

I think that’s actually the name of the program he’s using to download with them.

I personally use grabit, because it’s free and it works and quickpar to fix the corrupt stuff.

5

.nzb’s are like someone already said, just a list of the group and partial posts for specific items that in total will define an entire binary (usually) post. They can often be found summarizing a long list of parts of a compressed file (usually in RAR or ZIP format.)

You need a good program that handles them, I would recommend NewsBin Pro, the best of the best.

You’re also going to want something to handle the stepchild of newsgroup binary posts, .PAR files. Think of them as the fix for crappy hosting, people who post with crappy connections, etc. The files and the programs that use them are like the super CRC check / file fixer for newsgroup binary files. Not every post uses them, but the ones that do give you a higher guarantee of getting a file that works correctly. The PAR functions are built into the latest NewsBin Pro, but you also want the stand alone program just in case (it’s free anyway) and the best one for that is QuickPAR. NewsBin Pro will also automatically help you extract the files at the end of the download process if they are in standard RAR or ZIP formats.

Newsgroups are one of the only ways I can keep up with obscure TV shows that don’t air in this region.

6

Back in the day, someone I know loved Newsleecher enough to register multiple copies.

Multiple server support (free as first priority + premium for missing posts), very easy to use interface.

7

Newsleecher is pretty nice for… well… leeching. news. yeah.

They’ve got a ‘deal’ where if you subscribe to Giganews (via this page/referer link on the Newsleecher site), you get a freebie license to Newsleecher for as long as you’re a Giganews subscriber.

8

Slyck.com’s guide to newsgroup explains how to use PAR/PAR2 to fix your broken files. Look around the guide for other pages explaining nzb files & other stuff.

.sfv files is a simple CRC checksum file. QuickPAR can use this file to check your .rar files and tell you that they’re broken, just like what winrar is doing now.

9

Grabit is remarkably good at its core functions. Some of the non-core stuff is less impressive, but the guy has a right to make a buck.

10

Thanks for all the replies, folks. I already knew about par files and QuickPar, and I’m going to try GrabIt. The open source .nzb project exe doesn’t seem to work at all.