General Help

[rsearing]

I am very new with newshosting and am using SABnzbd along with Sonarr and a few indexers (NZBGeek and PlanetNZB). I'm having a difficult time finding shows that are really not that old. Dozens will say 'missing articles' and then fail. I will admit, I have a difficult time understanding the differences between all the different pieces of this. When I try to compare this to, say, Torrents I try to compare it like this (please tell me if I'm wrong):

NZBGeek & PlanetNZB are similar to, say, Piratebay and/or sites like EZTV, 1377.
SABnzbd is similar to UTorrent
Sonarr - similar to something like - episodecalendar.

What I'm trying to understand is if my lack at obtaining files would be more due to not good indexers or, perhaps I need something in addition to NZBGeek?

Please forgive me if I'm stating anything wrong or being ignorant - definitely not trying to be annoying - just trying to figure out what to do to fix the issue.

Many thanks!
Rob

[OneCD]

Hi Rob and welcome to the forum.

Your examples are correct, but Usenet operates in a different manner to torrents.

You’ll generally need more than one Usenet service provider. This is most useful when articles are missing (via DMCA takedown, retention limits, etc…)

Different Usenet service providers have different missing articles, so the idea is to get enough overlap between providers to ensure your download can be completed.

This is done by purchasing access to Usenet servers on different “backbones”. Look for an up-to-date Usenet provider list - there’s usually one on Reddit that can help you choose.

[rsearing]

Thank you so much for the fast reply. So - when you say "Purchase access to Usenet Servers" - are you meaning indexers? Or is that something entirely different?

Again , thanks for your patience!

Rob

[OneCD]

No, indexers are a bit like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and so-on. Indexers are essentially search engines, but only for NZB files.

Usenet providers are companies like Newshosting, Astraweb, Frugal, Giganews… there’s a bunch of them.

Don’t purchase access from different providers on the same backbone… all those providers will be missing the same articles. A single backbone can have dozens of provider names.

[rsearing]

AH - ok - so I found that setting in SABnzbd....frugal (must have been the person that helped me get all this set up..lol). So, using my example above - would indexers be ... well, like you said - the Google Search - but the Usenet Provider be like...well the replacement of individual people seeding/hosting files - now they're on different servers (ie frugal..etc) that may not have all the 'articles'?

I don't want to keep up a long string - or wear out a welcome - so if I don't have that - I'll just try some more "LMGTFY" searches It's just a little difficult as I don't necessarily know the right questions to ask at times.

Thanks again!

[OneCD]

That sounds like as good an explanation as any.

Yes, torrents are hosted by many people, and if you’re lucky, enough of those people will be online so your specific chosen torrent download will complete.

Usenet servers are very large data arrays. There are a few of these. You pay to access them. But the content they hold isn’t perfectly identical. You will sometimes need more than one of them to ensure your downloads complete.

Of course, you can get by with a single provider if your downloads are small, unpopular, and were only recently uploaded. I’m only using a single provider at the moment, and I rarely get missing articles for the types of downloads I’m interested in (movies and TV episodes).

You’ll usually get missing articles on large, popular, older uploads.