OK after having to do a rebuild of win 11 and a reinstall/rebuild of
agent 8 I am having a slightly strange behavior.

I have max allowed connections set to 6;
connections for body retrieval at 5
automatically adjust connections is off

I had it set up like this to only allow 1 newsgroup headers update at
a time to prevent memory problems.
I think this is the same setup as I had it before, but it is now
allowing more than 1 newsgroup to "get new headers" at a time.
Is there something I am missing or should this be working as I expect
by only allowing 1 newsgroup to get new headers at a time?
thanks for your time
ME

On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:45:47 -0600, james moffat wrote:

> OK after having to do a rebuild of win 11 and a reinstall/rebuild of
> agent 8 I am having a slightly strange behavior.
>
> I have max allowed connections set to 6;
> connections for body retrieval at 5

For avoidance of doubt, “Connections reserved for body retrieval tasks.”

> automatically adjust connections is off
>
> I had it set up like this to only allow 1 newsgroup headers update at
> a time to prevent memory problems.
> I think this is the same setup as I had it before, but it is now
> allowing more than 1 newsgroup to "get new headers" at a time.
> Is there something I am missing or should this be working as I expect
> by only allowing 1 newsgroup to get new headers at a time?
> thanks for your time

1. Your settings *should* only allow one network *connection* to the
server, for downloading headers. But even so, you can still have
two active header *tasks* at the same time:
a) One task downloading headers over the one connection not
reserved for body retrieval;
b) A second task which is no longer using a connection but is
busy updating its group's folder with headers which have
just been downloaded.

Note:
* The number of header tasks that can be active in state 'a)'
should be limited by the number of connections available to
header tasks.
* The number of header tasks that can be active in state 'b)'
is limited by the AGENT.INI setting MaxBGThreads (the default
value is 1).

2. How many servers do you have?
With those settings for each of two servers, you could still have
two connections getting headers in 2 groups at the same time, one
connection and group per server.

3. I have just taken this for a test drive, using one server and the
same settings as you have above. I opened the task log window
to capture what would happen, and then told Agent to get new
headers in two groups at the same time.

3.1 Windows showed 2 connections out of Agent. However, one
of those connections was to server alerts.forteinc.com
checking for updates to Agent, and only one connection was
to the news server.

3.2 The status bar showed “Tasks: 2” for much of the time.

3.3 From the task log window...
a) The first task downloaded headers in the first group.
It then gave up its connection to the second task and
carried on running in the background to update the
first group's folder.
b) The second task waited until it got the connection
from the first task. It then started downloading
headers in the second group at the same time as the
first task was updating the first group's folder.
c) At the same time as this was all going on, Agent was
checking for updates, over an HTTP connection to
alerts.forteinc.com.

4. To help me better understand your post, can you tell me what you
are looking at which tells you that Agent is, ‘allowing more
than 1 newsgroup to "get new headers" at a time.’ In other
words, how is this being measured?

--
Kind regards
Ralph Fox

𝘊𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘺 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘷𝘯𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘤𝘩𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘦,
𝘞𝘢𝘺𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦, 𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘦 𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦.

On Fri, 20 Oct 2023 16:38:30 +1300, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid>
wrote:

>On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:45:47 -0600, james moffat wrote:
>
>> OK after having to do a rebuild of win 11 and a reinstall/rebuild of
>> agent 8 I am having a slightly strange behavior.
>>
>> I have max allowed connections set to 6;
>> connections for body retrieval at 5
>
>For avoidance of doubt, “Connections reserved for body retrieval tasks.”
>
Correct.

>> automatically adjust connections is off
>>
>> I had it set up like this to only allow 1 newsgroup headers update at
>> a time to prevent memory problems.
>> I think this is the same setup as I had it before, but it is now
>> allowing more than 1 newsgroup to "get new headers" at a time.
>> Is there something I am missing or should this be working as I expect
>> by only allowing 1 newsgroup to get new headers at a time?
>> thanks for your time
>
>
> 1. Your settings *should* only allow one network *connection* to the
> server, for downloading headers. But even so, you can still have
> two active header *tasks* at the same time:
> a) One task downloading headers over the one connection not
> reserved for body retrieval;
> b) A second task which is no longer using a connection but is
> busy updating its group's folder with headers which have
> just been downloaded.
>
> Note:
> * The number of header tasks that can be active in state 'a)'
> should be limited by the number of connections available to
> header tasks.
> * The number of header tasks that can be active in state 'b)'
> is limited by the AGENT.INI setting MaxBGThreads (the default
> value is 1).
>

I will check the ini file once I have shut down later today.

> 2. How many servers do you have?
> With those settings for each of two servers, you could still have
> two connections getting headers in 2 groups at the same time, one
> connection and group per server.

single server. single port.

>
> 3. I have just taken this for a test drive, using one server and the
> same settings as you have above. I opened the task log window
> to capture what would happen, and then told Agent to get new
> headers in two groups at the same time.
>
> 3.1 Windows showed 2 connections out of Agent. However, one
> of those connections was to server alerts.forteinc.com
> checking for updates to Agent, and only one connection was
> to the news server.
>
> 3.2 The status bar showed “Tasks: 2” for much of the time.
>
> 3.3 From the task log window...
> a) The first task downloaded headers in the first group.
> It then gave up its connection to the second task and
> carried on running in the background to update the
> first group's folder.
> b) The second task waited until it got the connection
> from the first task. It then started downloading
> headers in the second group at the same time as the
> first task was updating the first group's folder.
> c) At the same time as this was all going on, Agent was
> checking for updates, over an HTTP connection to
> alerts.forteinc.com.
>

This is the behavior I was expecting as well.

> 4. To help me better understand your post, can you tell me what you
> are looking at which tells you that Agent is, ‘allowing more
> than 1 newsgroup to "get new headers" at a time.’ In other
> words, how is this being measured?

Task Manager shows more than 1 "get new headers in ...." in active
mode (not paused) and the state window is increasing on each. There
are other tasks occurring at the same time, mostly updating the groups
and the occasional body download but I am not concerned with them.

I will continue to monitor this. I have a few more adjustments I will
be making to get it to what I had and want, so maybe It will solve
itself somewhere down the line.
I was mostly wanting to make sure I had not missed some setting (like
the ini MaxBGThreads) that I could check for.

Thanks for your time and all the detailed help you offer to everyone.

Me

On Fri, 20 Oct 2023 12:28:13 -0600, james moffat
<spam.spam@distributel.net> wrote:

>On Fri, 20 Oct 2023 16:38:30 +1300, Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid>
>wrote:
>
>>On Wed, 18 Oct 2023 23:45:47 -0600, james moffat wrote:
>>
>>> OK after having to do a rebuild of win 11 and a reinstall/rebuild of
>>> agent 8 I am having a slightly strange behavior.
>>>
>>> I have max allowed connections set to 6;
>>> connections for body retrieval at 5
>>
>>For avoidance of doubt, “Connections reserved for body retrieval tasks.”
>>
> Correct.
>
>>> automatically adjust connections is off
>>>
>>> I had it set up like this to only allow 1 newsgroup headers update at
>>> a time to prevent memory problems.
>>> I think this is the same setup as I had it before, but it is now
>>> allowing more than 1 newsgroup to "get new headers" at a time.
>>> Is there something I am missing or should this be working as I expect
>>> by only allowing 1 newsgroup to get new headers at a time?
>>> thanks for your time
>>
>>
>> 1. Your settings *should* only allow one network *connection* to the
>> server, for downloading headers. But even so, you can still have
>> two active header *tasks* at the same time:
>> a) One task downloading headers over the one connection not
>> reserved for body retrieval;
>> b) A second task which is no longer using a connection but is
>> busy updating its group's folder with headers which have
>> just been downloaded.
>>
>> Note:
>> * The number of header tasks that can be active in state 'a)'
>> should be limited by the number of connections available to
>> header tasks.
>> * The number of header tasks that can be active in state 'b)'
>> is limited by the AGENT.INI setting MaxBGThreads (the default
>> value is 1).
>>
>
>I will check the ini file once I have shut down later today.
>
>> 2. How many servers do you have?
>> With those settings for each of two servers, you could still have
>> two connections getting headers in 2 groups at the same time, one
>> connection and group per server.
>
>single server. single port.
>
>>
>> 3. I have just taken this for a test drive, using one server and the
>> same settings as you have above. I opened the task log window
>> to capture what would happen, and then told Agent to get new
>> headers in two groups at the same time.
>>
>> 3.1 Windows showed 2 connections out of Agent. However, one
>> of those connections was to server alerts.forteinc.com
>> checking for updates to Agent, and only one connection was
>> to the news server.
>>
>> 3.2 The status bar showed “Tasks: 2” for much of the time.
>>
>> 3.3 From the task log window...
>> a) The first task downloaded headers in the first group.
>> It then gave up its connection to the second task and
>> carried on running in the background to update the
>> first group's folder.
>> b) The second task waited until it got the connection
>> from the first task. It then started downloading
>> headers in the second group at the same time as the
>> first task was updating the first group's folder.
>> c) At the same time as this was all going on, Agent was
>> checking for updates, over an HTTP connection to
>> alerts.forteinc.com.
>>
>
>This is the behavior I was expecting as well.
>
>> 4. To help me better understand your post, can you tell me what you
>> are looking at which tells you that Agent is, ‘allowing more
>> than 1 newsgroup to "get new headers" at a time.’ In other
>> words, how is this being measured?
>
>Task Manager shows more than 1 "get new headers in ...." in active
>mode (not paused) and the state window is increasing on each. There
>are other tasks occurring at the same time, mostly updating the groups
>and the occasional body download but I am not concerned with them.
>
just to clarify this should be saying "retrieving up to ...." and not
"getting new headers in"... sorry.
I am looking at the header retrieval rather than the task count

>I will continue to monitor this. I have a few more adjustments I will
>be making to get it to what I had and want, so maybe It will solve
>itself somewhere down the line.
>I was mostly wanting to make sure I had not missed some setting (like
>the ini MaxBGThreads) that I could check for.

MaxBGThreads =3

>
>Thanks for your time and all the detailed help you offer to everyone.
>
>Me