NZB Completion Checker

A fast, concurrent command-line utility to verify the availability of all articles in an NZB file on a Usenet server before you start downloading.

Why Use This?

Have you ever started downloading a large multi-gigabyte file from Usenet, only to discover hours later that it's missing too many articles to be repaired? This script solves that problem.

By performing a "pre-flight check," it quickly queries your provider for every article listed in the NZB file without downloading the full article bodies. This saves you significant time and bandwidth by letting you know upfront if a download is worth starting.

Features

• High Performance: Uses Python's asyncio to handle dozens or hundreds of concurrent connections, checking articles in parallel.
• Bandwidth Efficient: Utilizes the NNTP STAT command to check only for an article's existence, not its content, saving hundreds of kilobytes per check.
• Configurable: Easily set the number of concurrent connections to match your provider's limits.
• User-Friendly: A real-time progress bar shows the status, followed by a clear summary report of found, missing, and errored articles.
• Cross-Platform: Runs on any system with Python 3.

Prerequisites

• Python 3.8+
• pip and venv for managing dependencies. On Debian/Ubuntu, ensure you have python3-venv installed (sudo apt install python3.11-venv).

Installation

1. Clone the repository (or download the script):

   git clone https://your-repo-url/nzb-completion-checker.git
   cd nzb-completion-checker

2. Create and activate a virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate

   On Windows, use venv\Scripts\activate

3. Install the required packages: Create a file named requirements.txt with the following content:

   tqdm
   

   Then, run the installation command:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

Usage

The script is run from the command line with several optional arguments.

usage: nzb_checker.py [-h] -s SERVER [-p PORT] [-u USERNAME] [-pw PASSWORD]
                      [-c CONNECTIONS] [--no-ssl] [--show-missing]
                      nzb_file

A fast, concurrent Usenet NZB completion checker.

positional arguments:
  nzb_file              Path to the .nzb file to check.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -s SERVER, --server SERVER
                        Usenet server address (e.g., news.your-provider.com).
  -p PORT, --port PORT  Server port (default: 563 for SSL).
  -u USERNAME, --username USERNAME
                        Your Usenet username.
  -pw PASSWORD, --password PASSWORD
                        Your Usenet password.
  -c CONNECTIONS, --connections CONNECTIONS
                        Number of concurrent connections to use (default: 50).
  --no-ssl              Disable SSL for the connection (e.g., for port 119).
  --show-missing        Print the list of all missing article IDs at the end.