Blocking issue
 

Hi,

I have a friend who uses/used Newzbin.es and Grabit/Usenet to download US TV shows.
Virgin have recently blocked the Newzbin site, but 'my friend' found a way to still access it using the Opera browser on turbo mode. Problem solved he thought.

However, when he downloaded the NZB file and tried to open it, Grabit failed to respond at all.

He tried changing to port in Grabit to 443 (from 563) but this made no difference.

Does the block mean all traffic from Usenet is denied as we thought it was just access to the Newzbin site itself?

More importantly, is there an easy way around this (without resorting to VPN or proxy, as these are a little above our understanding)? I'm hoping there will be some little tweak to Grabit that will resolve the issue.

Any help would be most appreciated as we're currently stuck halfway through the final season of Breaking Bad and need that episode 6... ;)

Ta.

Re: Blocking issue
 

Usenet isn't blocked so probably an issue elsewhere.. Which servers is he using?

Re: Blocking issue
 

news.giganews.com

Re: Blocking issue
 

They'd be hundreds of people moaning if they blocked giganews.. Personally I use Astraweb every morning and don't have an issue..

Try the VM news server to make sure it's not a program/firewall fault and also check to see if giganews or the account has an issue

Re: Blocking issue
 

Not sure how to do those things to be honest. Thing is, it all worked fine until the Newzbin block, so the settings must all be correct. Unless they're blocking Usenet traffic. As you can probably tell, I have a rather limited understanding of how these things work... ;)

Re: Blocking issue
 

Just had a play. If I pass the newzbin post ID to SABnzbd, then the download fails (as it's trying to access Newzbin to retrieve data). If however, I 'download' the .NZB then open it with SABnzbd the download works OK. The same, I would imagine, would apply to Grabbit.

Hope this helps you (sorry your friend).

MODS - if this post breaks the rules (much discussed in the piratebay thread) please accept my apologies and feel free to delete.

Cheers

Grim

Re: Blocking issue
 

Re: Blocking issue
 

Good - didn't want to get my legs slapped :)

Cheers

Grim

Re: Blocking issue
 

Strange, most people want me to slap their legs!!!

@OP, get your friend to try to download manually (headers then manually mark something to download, does it queue the files and download them, does the NZB queue the files? What's the log saying as it fails on the NZB files? Try another news client (I've used Newsbin for over 10 years now)

Re: Blocking issue
 

Hello again. My friend, hereby known as "I", was shown the process of downloading using Newzbin/Grabit by a tech minded friend, so I only know one way to download the NZBs!
What I do, now via Opera on "turbo mode", is download the NZB file to my desktop and then double click on it to set Grabit running.
Only now Grabit doesn't respond (since the Newzbin block).

I would tell you what the log says, Kymmy, but I have no idea what that actually means let alone how to see it. :/

Grim, I download SABnzbd but when it opens on the Start Wizard in my Chrome browser and I try to click the "Start Wizard" button at the bottom, nothing happens! Sounds quite promising if I could actually get into it though...

I made the NZB associate with it during the setup and the NZB icon on the desktop has switched from Grabit to SABnzbd but, when I click on it, nothing happens!

It's all most frustrating! Thanks for the help though. :)

Mark

Re: Blocking issue
 

The newzbin block will only stop the website from being visible, it will in no way interfere with grabit communicating with giganews.. If NBZ files are not working there could only be four things wrong.

1. The NBZ files are corrupting in some way (load one into a text editor as they are only XML)
2. Grabit is misconfigured in some way (uninstall, reinstall and reconfigure)
3. Something on the system (firewall..etc...) is blocking the ports (but you said other ports have been tried.. Have though you tried non-ssl ports? (119)
4. His giganews account or the giganews service has an issue

Re: Blocking issue
 

Ahh, well it was the nature of the block I was wondering about! So, really, as long as I have the NZB sitting there then it should all download as usual regardless? Hmm...

Not sure how to do step one and, if I did, I wouldn't know what I was looking at!

I might try to reinstall Grabit though. I tried port 119 but to no avail!

Thanks

Re: Blocking issue
 

An example file format is available on the wiki page for the file type

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZB

Re: Blocking issue
 

Thanks, if I open up an NZB with Notepad++ then can I save the results and post them here for you to look at? I just Googled Text Editor and that was the first free program that came up!

Re: Blocking issue
 

Newzbin has a software program you can use to download there NZB,s which will get around any blocking, However i can no longer tell you where you can get it as i don't have access to the site anymore, i dont trust the owners of that site and therefor tend to use NZBmatrix instead.

Re: Blocking issue
 

Hi, I tried that (the Newzbin Client) but it seems to only work for the BT block and does nothing against the virgin Media block! Thanks for the idea though.

Re: Blocking issue
 

The Newzbin client does work, but you have to click "Start Ultrasurf" first, wait a while then click "Find Newzbin". Its a bit slow but does connect eventually.

For those of you getting "empty" nzb files by using Opera in turbo mode, if you drop one into Notepad you will see some HTML code including the familiar "Virgin Media is blocking..." etc, so it appears when the nzb files are generated they are not sent through the turbo mode.

Re: Blocking issue
 

Ahhh, I saw a lot of that in the Notepad textfile so, I guess, even though an NZB shows up as downloaded, it's contents are worthless.
I did try the Ultrasurf button but it just comes up with the attached message after a minute of thinking about it.
When I try it again, I get that second message. I activated that as it says but then couldn't get rid of it without deleting the file as it wouldn't let me use Google and automatically referred me to the Ultrasurf search engine which I didn't want.

Re: Blocking issue
 

If you can get to the website in question, have a look at the news item on VirginMedia blocking and the comments, and you should be able to resolve your problem.

Re: Blocking issue
 

make sure Opera is downloading the NZB File not Grabit (sounds like Opera is passing the Link to grabit so it downloads it not Opera)

you need to make Opera download the Nzb

Tools > Pref > adv > Downloads > [quickfind type nzb] > edit >
Open with Other app point it to grabit (it should all ready be) make sure the Pass web address is not ticked (as that will just send the link to grabit and then VM gateway will block it)

Re: Blocking issue
 

It is not the method of download, it is that even using Opera Turbo and specifically instructing Opera to download the NZB file (i.e. just doing a save as to a folder), VM are removing the contents of the NZB file and inserting their "don't" statement.

As I mentioned before, the solution is on the website in question in the comments on VM's actions.

Re: Blocking issue
 

Aha! Sorted! AFM is quite right, both about the empty NZBs and the comments being the place to look. To save you the bother here is the method I found has worked.

I went to http://www.securitykiss.com/ and downloaded the free software. Then I connected Opera in turbo mode and downloaded the NZB file to my desktop.

I then disconnected the SecurityKiss thing and clicked on the NZB to open it in Grabit and it seems business as usual.

Worked for me anyway. Ta. :)

Re: Blocking issue
 

Using SecurityKiss you don't need to bother with Opera Turbo, just stick the IP address of the website you want to visit into your normal web browser.

Re: Blocking issue
 

if you download the file with Opera with Turbo enabled the download is Done Via Opera Turbo servers (i know as that's how i am doing of 2 mins ago and it works fine),

if your still getting invaild NZB file, something has changed how the NZB file is downloaded on your Opera install (one note make sure when using Opera with Turbo make sure your not on the HTTPS site as it may download the file directly then the VM gateway gets ya)