Newsbin very slow and keeps "not responding"

[Bodger]

I'm on version 6.81 build 50.80 and over the last few weeks it's gotten slower and slower. I have nothing else running except Newsbin and after a few minutes the 'arrow cursor' turns into a blue circular disk and I get a "not responding" message pop up. This lasts maybe 10-15 seconds then reverts to normal for a few minutes then "not responding" again.

When I have a list of headers on the screen I hit the [page down] button or [down arrow] and it often hangs for a few seconds then responds. It's almost unusable.

Is there a cache I can empty or would you recommend reinstalling it?

I'm running Newsbin on a Windows 7 64 bit PC.

EDIT: I should mention that my PC is not apparently running any disk thrashing activities and there is no light on to indicate that it is off running processes in the background.

[Quade]

In the options select "Open Data Folder" exit Newsbin, then look at the DB3 files there.

Downloaded.db3 contains the "files" list.

DownloadsV2.db3 contains the download, wish and failed list.

DownloadMarker.db3 tracks downloaded files.

Do you use "Poster Lockouts" to try to avoid spam? These are stored in "PosterLockout.txt".

RARPasswords.txt contain rar passwords.

You could delete all these files and see what it does to performance. It won't impact your stored headers. You could try deleting one at a time. Make sure you exit Newsbin before you start deleting.

[Bodger]

Many thanks for your reply.

I've deleted those files and there seems to be a slight improvement but the files only came to about 3.5 MB.

I'll see if it gets too frustrating then I might wait for the imminent new release and re-install the whole thing from scratch. I have been a Newsbin user for many years and the software has always performed perfectly but as I say, of late it's just got slower and slower in performance.

I don't really think there is a lot more we can do and I'm sure your time would be better spent serving the Newsbin community. I just thought there might have been a quick fix. I'll struggle on until the new release comes out then I might reinstall to see if it improves things.

Thank you again for your support and have a nice weekend.

[Quade]

Keep in mind the problem might be external to Newsbin too. If Newsbin didn't change but things are getting worse, it could indicate something like a failing hard drive or security software being too aggressive. Some security software just sucks the performance out of a PC.

If you use headers, what is your "display age" set to"?

If you look down at the "cache" line on the status bar, so you see a number in parens "(XXX)". If so what is this number?

[Bodger]

Thank you for your reply. You are perfectly correct, it may well be PC related as I’ve never had any problems with Newsbin but the ‘problem’, if there is one, seems more noticeable in Newsbin which is not a criticism just an observation.

I’ll get that information back to you. We have guests here for a few days and I’ll have to wait until I’m next in front of my PC which should be tomorrow morning.

[Bodger]

Yes I use headers and my Display age = 30 days. My cache currently shows 400/400 (0) and it's "Running" at "Full Speed"

[Quade]

How much RAM do you have?

My cache currently shows 400/400 (0)

Means Newsbin could potentially be using 400 megs of ram just for caching downloads. That's not much if you have 8 gigs but if you only have 2 it might be an issue.

[Bodger]

Good morning. A brief spec of my PC is :-

Memory = 8GB
Operating system: Windows 7 64 bit
Processor: 3.90 gigahertz AMD A8-6600K APU with Radeon HD Graphics
Hard Drive: 1TB (662 GB Free)

[Quade]

That should be plenty of machine. We're getting to the stage where "I don't know" is my answer. Newsbin doesn't seem to be doing much so, I see no reason for it to stall.

[Bodger]

Yeah, I agree. You’ve been more than fair and I don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time.

Thank you so much for looking into the issue and I think it’s time for you to move on to more important issues.

Thank you for your support.