2.04 GB of Downloads: Another call for selective downloads please
Comments
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Thanks Bob,
As the one that started this thread, thankyou for taking the time again to reply.
- Jim
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Bob Pritchett said:
There's also the question of the best use of our coding resources
Well I certainly have my opinions but they're just not happening - lectionaries, early translations such as the Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Armenian, notes linked to multiple passages ... [:D]Seriously, while I've had to wait for some of the things that matter most to me, I think Logos has generally done a good job of prioritizing features. One of the things that continues to surprise me on the forums is the degree to which users fail to understand that in order for them to get their No. 1 priority, someone else's No. 1 priority is delayed. We can't all get it now ... although at least I am perfectly capable of wanting it all now. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Ken Hicks said:
I simply mean to state that Adobe would never have had the gall to sell a BETA version BECAUSE they would face the justified wrath of their own user base. When I upgraded to Logos 4 I thought I was buying a mature program... not a beta. But without a "print" function (that even the free E-Sword has), and several other incomplete or promised but missing features, Logos 4 is anything but ready for prime time.
As a 20+ year user of Adobe products, I'd be happy to put our performance at our size up against their performance when our size. Today, however, they're over $3.5 billion in annual revenue, so while I'm flattered to be the "mature program" league, I don't think we're really in the same league.
(And it seems I'm patching/upgrading Acrobat every other time I run it.... more often than Logos 4...)
I am not trying to make excuses. Just explanations. (Excuses with a nicer label!) I think we've been very up front about exactly what was and wasn't in the program -- we mentioned the lack of printing, for example, right at the start. We've also been clear that the system likes an Internet connection, stores data in the cloud, and is going to having a specific list of features added. (Which we've been delivering, along with other "top requested" features we hadn't even planned on.)
I am also sympathetic to the limited/capped bandwidth countries. I confess I didn't know about the issues in Australia, for example, when we designed Logos 4.
With that said... everything involves trade offs, and to survive Logos has to make choices. I know when our choice isn't the one you would have made, it feels like we're ignoring you. But...um...well, okay; we are ignoring you. But we have to ignore somebody all the time, to pay attention to the other somebodies with other concerns.
We are presently "ignoring" Linux users, Windows 98 users (they still exist!), etc. Because if we tried to make Windows 98 users happy, we'd be sacrificing a lot of potential functionality and usefulness for Windows 7 users. (And to make Linux users happy, we'd have to.... [joke left unfinished to avoid angry mobs])
All that to set up the bandwidth problem: it's a very small number of users who live in areas with bandwidth caps. I don't mean to trivialize the importance of it to those users (and we are already designing smarter, friendlier solutions), but those users are a very small part of our market. If "push came to shove", it's probably cheaper to simply cut whole countries out of our marketing plan than it is to implement the solutions they would ideally want.
(Important note: I appreciate all our users, and am not trying to threaten anybody. I love you all! :-) I'm just pointing out that our priorities do -- must -- reflect the bigger groups of users first. Going with the masses isn't my political philosophy, or a good way to run a church, but it's a pretty safe way to run a business.)
Now you may think I'm making the wrong call. And maybe I am -- I can't read every user's mind. (That's why I do spend so much time reading the forums.) But I've also got access to data users don't: sales figures, product returns as percentage of sales, call volume, emails from people who don't use the forums, etc. And I can tell you that those internal metrics are telling us that Logos 4 is making "more users more happy" than anything we've ever done before.
I'm not saying this to show-off my superior dataset, or to say you're wrong; you're right for your experience, and it's legitimate, and we are listening. But I want to point out that overall we aren't flying blind, and ultimately this "follow the majority" strategy helps us serve you better, too: we're adding programmers and staff as fast as we can, and will have more people to address your concerns and build cool features and even address "minority market" concerns, too. (I like to point out that it's our strong English-language product sales that give us the huge base and resources required to build cool tools for tiny-market scholarly concerns. You could insist that we focus only on scholarly tools and resources, to the exclusion of the "majority" of English-language Bible students, but we'd have a lot fewer resources to put on the problem.)
And of course, a final reminder that you can simply turn "Automatically download updates" off, and wait months between DVD updates. This will get you exactly the same behavior as if we immediately ceased pushing 2 gb downloads on users.
Sorry for the length and rambling!
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Bob Pritchett said:
All that to set up the bandwidth problem: it's a very small number of users who live in areas with bandwidth caps. I don't mean to trivialize the importance of it to those users (and we are already designing smarter, friendlier solutions) ...
Thankyou!
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Could users at least get a notice of how large the download will be at the time of notification? While I don't yet have a bandwidth cap, there are times when I need my bandwidth for something else at the moment and don't want to download 1GB. But I know it's a 40 MB update, I've could update immediately. The current workflow of start the download, wait for the popup of "Logos is downloading XXX MB(GB) of updates," then canceling the download because it's too large is a pain.
IMO, a better solution that seems like could be implemented relatively easily would be to have the Updates Available popup redesigned to something like:
Title: Updates Available
Text: Click to download available updates of 2.2GB (re-indexing will be required)
This would alert me to leave the laptop on and set Logos to update overnight.
Just an idea. I realize that lots of "easily implemented" ideas aren't that easy, and you have to make decisions about when to do them, but it would help me to know how big the download is before I start it, regardless of how frequent the updates might be.
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Timothy D. Lee said:
Could users at least get a notice of how large the download will be at the time of notification?
Did you mean the notification of a download when Automatically Download Updates = NO? I agree that including the size with that Notification would be valuable.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Timothy D. Lee said:
Could users at least get a notice of how large the download will be at the time of notification?
Dave Hooton said:Did you mean the notification of a download when Automatically Download Updates = NO? I agree that including the size with that Notification would be valuable.
Thank you for the clarification. Yes, that's exactly what I mean. I had forgotten that Automatically Download Updates was an option, since I turned it off very shortly after installing v4.
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Bob Pritchett said:
(And it seems I'm patching/upgrading Acrobat every other time I run it.... more often than Logos 4...)
And patching/bloating the Reader was one reason I uninstalled that product and went elsewhere!
Bob Pritchett said:And of course, a final reminder that you can simply turn "Automatically download updates" off, and wait months between DVD updates. This will get you exactly the same behavior as if we immediately ceased pushing 2 gb downloads on users.
I think that allowing the download to be split into multiple chunks/packages (minimum 512 MB) would alleviate most concerns whilst maintaining the policy of not picking and choosing resources, because I doubt that you seriously want users to be up to date on software but out of date on resources for "months"!
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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I am one of the users that have to pay for my internet per MB. Downloading more than 2Gb of data will cost me about $60 (not including my normal monthly fees) just for updating. This is not a small issue for some of us. Furthermore, our internet connections are not always very reliable or fast.
Perhaps if Logos would bring out Media-only DVD's more often. Paying $4 for a DVD with the updated resources is way better. Although the postage and wait times for international users would of course be a bummer.
Just my 2cents
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Ok, So I know this isn't the topic of THIS thread, but holy smokes Bob, you just dropped a happy pill in my hand with that one!Bob Pritchett said:I imagine that soon after the next major release (which should have almost all the "missing features" of Logos 3)
Thank you for stating this clearly. As you know I'm not always happy with every choice made at Logos HQ either (*cough*<i>handouts</i>*cough*) But I am trying to understand the bigger picture. To know that you're working to design something that will help those with Data caps is encouraging. The lack of any time frame mention indicates that it won't be soon (am I reading that right?).Bob Pritchett said:I'm not saying this to show-off my superior dataset, or to say you're wrong; you're right for your experience, and it's legitimate, and we are listening. But I want to point out that overall we aren't flying blind, and ultimately this "follow the majority" strategy helps us serve you better, too
Wait... did I miss something? Is there a regular DVD update program in place yet? We had read earlier at some point ... or... perhaps only suggested that there be a quarterly subscription of DVD updates made available especially for low bandwidth or bandwidth capped areas. Is there a regular DVD update plan now? Or is this, as I figure it must be, a reference that a new "media only/update" DVD is made after every gold release? Either way, having a public declaration that there is a new media/gold DVD available when it happens would be a good move.Bob Pritchett said:And of course, a final reminder that you can simply turn "Automatically download updates" off, and wait months between DVD updates.
Sarcasm is my love language. Obviously I love you. 0 -
Thomas Black said:
Wait... did I miss something? Is there a regular DVD update program in place yet?Bob Pritchett said:And of course, a final reminder that you can simply turn "Automatically download updates" off, and wait months between DVD updates.
I thought that was a throw-away line to quell the argument on selective downloads viz. "a final reminder ...". The "and wait months" came across as stating the current situation!
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Thank you so very much, Bob, for responding. (I notice that you have 500 posts at present; and that's amazingly wonderful! You really ARE in touch with us, the Logos Community - and listening.) You are appreciated, also. I could have stayed with Logos 3 (which is pretty great), but I wanted to be part of this tremendous adventure! And that's what it is.Bob Pritchett said:........ I love you all! :-) I'm just pointing out that our priorities do -- must -- reflect the bigger groups of users first. Going with the masses isn't my political philosophy, or a good way to run a church, but it's a pretty safe way to run a business.)
Now you may think I'm making the wrong call. And maybe I am -- I can't read every user's mind. (That's why I do spend so much time reading the forums.) But I've also got access to data users don't: sales figures, product returns as percentage of sales, call volume, emails from people who don't use the forums, etc. And I can tell you that those internal metrics are telling us that Logos 4 is making "more users more happy" than anything we've ever done before.
I'm not saying this to show-off my superior dataset, or to say you're wrong; you're right for your experience, and it's legitimate, and we are listening. But I want to point out that overall we aren't flying blind, and ultimately this "follow the majority" strategy helps us serve you better, too: we're adding programmers and staff as fast as we can, and will have more people to address your concerns and build cool features and even address "minority market" concerns, too. (I like to point out that it's our strong English-language product sales that give us the huge base and resources required to build cool tools for tiny-market scholarly concerns. You could insist that we focus only on scholarly tools and resources, to the exclusion of the "majority" of English-language Bible students, but we'd have a lot fewer resources to put on the problem.)
And of course, a final reminder that you can simply turn "Automatically download updates" off, and wait months between DVD updates. This will get you exactly the same behavior as if we immediately ceased pushing 2 gb downloads on users.
Sorry for the length and rambling!
Even without the few more items missing from L3 (which I hardly even open anymore), Logos 4 - with all its new features and powers - truly has revolutionised my Bible Study and given me opportunity beyond my imagination. I just about have a whole seminary library available to me! *smile* Peace and Joy in the Lord!
Yours in Christ,
..... Mel
Philippians 4: 4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand..........
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Bob Pritchett said:
And of course, a final reminder that you can simply turn "Automatically download updates" off, and wait months between DVD updates. This will get you exactly the same behavior as if we immediately ceased pushing 2 gb downloads on users.
Agreed... and for the most part I'm not that fussed to run the latest version of the software. HOWEVER, if I want and need to buy a new resource for my ministry or studies which is only 5 to 7 MB (instead of these many GBs of updates), I cannot do so now because this potential purchase is mixed in with all these hundreds of megabytes of updates. Additionally, the DVD option no longer exists with L4 as it is "download only", so I can't just make a minor addition to my library by a disk in the post. AND to finish the matter off, the files may very well not be in the 'media only' disk that you can buy. (currently at 4.0c)
Let's all cut to the chase... all this added together essentially means to really use L4 in its fullest, you need a high speed internet connection. Without such, all you are pretty much confined to do is buy the media disks ever six or so months when they come out and update the program and included base resources (which I assume are essentially the Platinum collection). Anything outside of this, you are stuck and outside the market that Logos is now targeting. This is fine and we just need to say this now up front so everyone knows where they stand. Practically, this means Bible translators, missionaries, humanitarian aid workers, pastors in majority world nations, etc. probably need to be looking at another Bible software programme which still has traditional DVD media options for adding resources and updates. I might add that people in rural US locations or even in some broadband enabled countries which pay silly money for GB of data may practically be in this same category.
OK, I love Logos Software and have invested a truck load of money into it so I'm not saying this with any malice. These really are the facts though. I hope this is explained clearly to new customers that are considering buying the product.
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I started downloading Tuesday night. Now, Saturday morning, I still have about 700MB to go after continuous downloading (rate varies from about 40 - 200 kbps, mostly around 40. The problem is not the time the downloading takes, but the fact that when the server speed is low I can't get other downloads, e.g. email, internet etc.
Could Logos arrange for downloads not to be such download hogs, but to allow other downloads precedence?
I realise we are a minority, but the problem is a big one for us. At least I can use up to 3 GB a month.
Also, can the download be paused when you click "cancel"? I read that it could, but once when I did that I lost what I had already downloaded. The prospect of losing a gig or so, e.g. 4 days worth, has left me choosing to continue to be unable to send email.....
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Donovan R. Palmer said:
HOWEVER, if I want and need to buy a new resource for my ministry or studies which is only 5 to 7 MB (instead of these many GBs of updates), I cannot do so now because this potential purchase is mixed in with all these hundreds of megabytes of updates.
I agree this is a limitation and concern with the current design and company position:
A US$9.95 book of 3 MB can be sitting in the queue behind 100's of MB, or maybe 2 GB of data, and hours-to-days away!
So, if you are not up to date, no point buying new resources?
Selective downloading would solve this. It seems I'm just wrong wanting this. Oh well ...
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nicky crane said:
Could Logos arrange for downloads not to be such download hogs, but to allow other downloads precedence?
Logos4 uses BITS (Background Intelligent Transfer Service)
Wikipedia said:BITS uses idle bandwidth to transfer data. Normally,
BITS transfers data in the background, i.e., BITS will only transfer
data whenever there is bandwidth which is not being used by other
applications, for example, when applications use 80% of the available
bandwidth, BITS will use only the remaining 20%. BITS constantly
monitors network traffic for any increase or decrease in network traffic
and throttles its own transfers to ensure
that other foreground applications (such as a web
browser) get the bandwidth they need.So BITS does not dominate available bandwidth and actively seeks to allow other downloads to proceed. 40 kbps does not provide much bandwidth to play around with!
nicky crane said:Also, can the download be paused when you click "cancel"? I read that it could, but once when I did that I lost what I had already downloaded.
I'm pretty sure that indexing will start if you Cancel a download. But I would recommend setting Automatically Download Updates = NO to be sure the next download only starts when you are ready.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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nicky crane said:
Also, can the download be paused when you click "cancel"? I read that it could, but once when I did that I lost what I had already downloaded. The prospect of losing a gig or so, e.g. 4 days worth, has left me choosing to continue to be unable to send email.....
Every time I've clicked cancel Logos has wanted to restart so it could index what had downloaded. The next time I let it download the total information coming down was less, indicating that I hadn't lost data. I used cancel a number of times when updating my desktop to 4.0d; I did this to make certain it wasn't hogging bandwidth for the other computer on my home network. It worked fine and I haven't noticed any problems.
Prov. 15:23
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JimT said:Donovan R. Palmer said:
HOWEVER, if I want and need to buy a new resource for my ministry or studies which is only 5 to 7 MB (instead of these many GBs of updates), I cannot do so now because this potential purchase is mixed in with all these hundreds of megabytes of updates.
I agree this is a limitation and concern with the current design and company position:
A US$9.95 book of 3 MB can be sitting in the queue behind 100's of MB, or maybe 2 GB of data, and hours-to-days away!
So, if you are not up to date, no point buying new resources?
Selective downloading would solve this. It seems I'm just wrong wanting this. Oh well ...
Am I mistaken, or can't you just go directly to the product description page and click Download Book Files to get the book you just purchased and bypass any huge downloads that are queued up from Logos? Have to admit I haven't ever tried this when there's a big download waiting which I have deferred downloading for now (with "Automatically Download Updates" = NO). But it seems as though it ought to work.
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Rosie Perera said:
Am I mistaken, or can't you just go directly to the product description page and click Download Book Files to get the book you just purchased and bypass any huge downloads that are queued up from Logos?
My understanding is that these are links to the old L3 format files. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Also, we used to be able to download any L3 file off of Logos ftp server, but as far as I know, this facility for L4 does not exist. Again, corrections would be appreciated if I am confused!
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Rosie Perera said:
Am I mistaken, or can't you just go directly to the product description page and click Download Book Files to get the book you just purchased and bypass any huge downloads that are queued up from Logos?
That would be dreaming[:D] Expect it to be added to (or already included in) the list of downloads available for L4
L3 will allow discrete downloads of your choice but no selection is allowed with L4 except when an expected purchase does not download, when you can "stimulate" it to happen using a few commands.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Donovan R. Palmer said:Rosie Perera said:
Am I mistaken, or can't you just go directly to the product description page and click Download Book Files to get the book you just purchased and bypass any huge downloads that are queued up from Logos?
My understanding is that these are links to the old L3 format files. Please correct me if I am mistaken.
Yes, but L4 still understands lbxlls (Libronix / L3) format files. In fact there are plenty of lbxlls files in my Logos 4 resources folder.
Donovan R. Palmer said:Also, we used to be able to download any L3 file off of Logos ftp server, but as far as I know, this facility for L4 does not exist. Again, corrections would be appreciated if I am confused!
The ftp server still exists and we can download these files directly using any browser that has ftp functionality built in (which they all do nowadays). Just go to ftp.logos.com in your browser and poke around. Find a file you want to download, click on it.
Dave Hooton said:Rosie Perera said:Am I mistaken, or can't you just go directly to the product description page and click Download Book Files to get the book you just purchased and bypass any huge downloads that are queued up from Logos?
That would be dreaming
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." [:)]
Dave Hooton said:L3 will allow discrete downloads of your choice but no selection is allowed with L4 except when an expected purchase does not download, when you can "stimulate" it to happen using a few commands.
Once you've made the purchase, though, isn't it unlocked on the Logos server side? Then we can pretend it didn't download properly and "stimulate" it using L3 (which we might still have on our machine) to sync licenses. Then in L4 we can run scan to find the lbxlls file in the L3 resource folder and bring it over to the L4 folder. It would be quite a kludge, and maybe it won't work after all.
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Rosie Perera said:
Yes, but L4 still understands lbxlls (Libronix / L3) format files. In fact there are plenty of lbxlls files in my Logos 4 resources folder.
What is the trade off of using L3 format files? Older tagging schemes? Not as up to date resources? If there is no functional difference between L3 and L4 files, then this is a good solution. However, if there is, then this is like buying a 2010 Aston Martin and putting an engine from 2001 in it. It doesn't make sense.
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Rosie Perera said:
"You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one."
You might have added that:-
"I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one"[:)]Rosie Perera said:Once you've made the purchase, though, isn't it unlocked on the Logos server side? Then we can pretend it didn't download properly and "stimulate" it using L3 (which we might still have on our machine) to sync licenses. Then in L4 we can run scan to find the lbxlls file in the L3 resource folder and bring it over to the L4 folder.
I had "scan" in mind as long as there was an lbxlls file.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Dave, BITS does not seem to limit itself to unused bandwidth on my ISP!
I awoke this morning to find the download had finished!!!!!! 6 days and 6 nights - is this a record? The indexing etc completed within minutes.
The thing that I found difficult was virtually not being able to use the web or send emails for 6 days (a couple of times we went over the 100kbps mark and then I could use other applications). I'd sooner the download took a few days longer but didn't block email and web. I tried to speed up the process by taking my computer to church, where they have faster internet - only that was counterproductive as the internet there happened top be down.
Re waiting to start the download till I'm ready, I'm NEVER ready to be unable to send emails for days on end!
I would appreciate:
1: downloads divided into 500 MB (MAX!) sections, and
2. Opportunity to get major downloads on DVD.
I DID appreciate being able to continue using L4 during the 6 day download period. I have L3 on my mini laptop that I take when travelling, but L4 has spoiled me, so L3 is definitely second choice.
I recognise that we in other countries are a tiny minority, but I hope the helpful people at Logos, and privileged Logos users in the countries with easier and better internet access, will try to make it easier for us missionaries, who so desperately need to understand our Bibles better. I'm also aware that my internet access is infinitely better than that available to other missionaries. [;)]
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nicky crane said:
Dave, BITS does not seem to limit itself to unused bandwidth on my ISP!
Don't shoot the messenger! It is supposed to be Background Intelligent but limited bandwidth + ISP may not provide enough scope.
nicky crane said:I awoke this morning to find the download had finished!!!!!! 6 days and 6 nights - is this a record?
Not one I hope to attain - any more than playing a tennis match that lasts over 11 hours! But have you tried the download a little, Cancel, Index, & resume download, method?
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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I'm not shooting the messenger, at least not you. I am saying the description of BITS does not fit my experience!
When I tried cancelling a download, it appeared to do exactly that. It restarted with the original amount of data, so I seemed to have lost what I had already downloaded. What I have done successfully is to restart the computer. It then comes up as downloading a smaller amount of data, with about 30% of that already downloaded and the rest still to go. As I mentioned, it indexes very quickly. I'm relieved to have the download done. I shall now need to do an up to date backup, as I don't want to have to download that lot again - nor would my ISP let me this month!
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nicky crane said:
What I have done successfully is to restart the computer.
You did not cancel the download, just restart the computer?
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Although I don't have caps, I live on the end of a fairly slow connection. When Logos starts downloading it basically ties up all my bandwidth. I have to start up the app at night to let it update in order not to interfere with the use of my connection. It would be very nice if there was some way to throttle and/or schedule the band width usage. Because I have both a Mac and PC it literally took me a span of a couple of days to download the full 2Gb of updates without killing the utility of my connection.
I can understand the support nightmares of an incomplete update but we should have some control as to when and how fast the update occurs.
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BITS doesn't solve the problem if your internet router(called an Internet Gateway Device in the paper) is not configured correctly. The following all need to occur:
1) The device supports counters.(list of devices that support counters?)
2) UPnP is enabled. (often disabled for security reasons but usually on by default)
3) Server outside the subnet (if you are on the same subnet you work for Logos and you probably don't have update issues)
4) The gateway device returns counter data in less than 200 ticks (I think that means time, not the parasite. Not sure where to get this information--assume routers are fast enough).Otherwise, it uses percentages of your local LAN card. Since my home network is mostly 100MB and UPnP is disabled, I would guess that 10% of my bandwidth would be about 10Mb. My outside connection is only 1Mb or less so BITS does not really do any throttling. Having to reconfigure my network so that Logos can be a good boy, seems a bit extreme. Also, there is no mention if there is any throttling available on the Mac since BITS is a Microsoft feature.
There is a workaround: Note that the referenced paper has a way to force BITS to use less bandwidth regardless of how it measures your network by setting the MaxInternetBandwidth policy. (see paper for how to do this).
Referenced paper:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa363133(v=VS.85).aspx
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rpe@evross.com said:
Having to reconfigure my network so that Logos can be a good boy, seems a bit extreme.
Having to configure your hardware so it does what your software wants it to, is the way computers work. In this case Logos 4 is all set up to play nicely, the problem is your hardware configuration.
Win 7 x64 | Core i7 3770K | 32GB RAM | GTX 750 Ti 2GB | Crucial m4 256GB SSD (system) | Crucial m4 256GB SSD (Logos) | WD Black 1.5 TB (storage) | WD Red 3 TB x 3 (storage) | HP w2408h 24" | First F301GD Live 30"
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rpe@evross.com said:
There is a workaround: Note that the referenced paper has a way to force BITS to use less bandwidth
Very interesting link. If you can find Group Policy (my XP's Help and Support told me it was gpedit.msc) then it is possible to configure BITS bandwidth use:-
eg. have a speed of 200 Kbps between certain (night) hours otherwise limit to 30 Kbps OR 30Kbps during the day and 200 Kbps at other times.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Bob. I just want to thank you for writing a detailed, sensible response. It makes perfect sense to me and I appreciate finally getting such a good answer!
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Dave Hooton said:nicky crane said:
What I have done successfully is to restart the computer.
You did not cancel the download, just restart the computer?
Correct. I did not cancel the download, just restarted the computer.
Incidentally I realise I exaggerated, claiming to be downloading 6 days and 6 nights - it was only 5 days and 5 nights! The stress of the download time disoriented my basic mathematical capability!
And MAny thanks for helpful demonstration of how I might configure BITS. That would really solve my problem. Then the download can take 2 weeks if it wants and the stress goes out of it! Will try it. I have Vista.
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nicky crane said:
And MAny thanks for helpful demonstration of how I might configure BITS. That would really solve my problem. Then the download can take 2 weeks if it wants and the stress goes out of it! Will try it. I have Vista.
It may not be possible on all versions of Windows. I have XP Pro but couldn't configure Group Policy on Win 7 Home, despite what Help and Support stated! It should be possible on Business/Pro versions.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Dave Hooton said:
It may not be possible on all versions of Windows. I have XP Pro but couldn't configure Group Policy on Win 7 Home
For the moment, I don't remember the details, but the HOME version(s) of Vista exclude many of the higher-end Enterprise bits of plumbing. I.E. The stuff that expects to work with servers, Domain Controller, and all that kind of thing. Its partly to make it cheaper/smaller/faster, and to maybe ensure you buy the more expensive licensed products for at work. I expect the Home version(s) of Windows 7 does the same general idea. Part of what is excluded is the Group Policy editor tools and some of those kinds of thing.
I forget how, but I think its still possible to introduce the BITS Group Policy settings with maybe a file or tool of some kind. I used to mess with some of these kinds of things for work, but have not touched Group Policy for a year or two now.
If there is the need/interest me or someone that knows/remembers, can explore this in more detail.
It may be possible to provide some simple tool that allows this aspect of control over BITS for the issue reported in this thread. Ideally, a simple and safe way to control BITS at will, so it can be set to a high portion of the actual bandwidth, rather than the 10 or 100 mbits/sc of the LAN port of the PC in question.
It makes me wonder if this same "fix" might allow me to address my own issues with sometimes getting download speeds of 5 or 10 KB from Logos. It can take me hours at times. The last 2 GB took 8-12 hours - I forget now, but it was all day. I could have got a 2 GB *.ISO from Microsoft.com in an hour or two, at something close to 4 mbits/sec broadband at that time the 2 GB was downloading from Logos. Maybe its a BITS issue for me too?
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OK, I just opened the Group Policy Editor on my copy of Windows Vista Pro.
Using the graphic from above to find the right entry (thanks), the help message for the setting is most interesting.
Many users of Logos Bible Software may well be connected back to their network hub, WiFi Node, or Broadband Router at speeds of 10 or 100 MBits/sec for wired, and something like 11 or 56 or whatever for WiFi etc. In general, your actually speed off the Internet will be much slower. In my case, my raw clocked internet data rate is 4 mbits, but the laptop thinks its talking much faster to my router.
I'll write more here in due course if I have something to add. Others with good answers should of course please speak up.
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nicky crane said:
And MAny thanks for helpful demonstration of how I might configure BITS. That would really solve my problem. Then the download can take 2 weeks if it wants and the stress goes out of it! Will try it. I have Vista.
Nicky,
It seems BITS attempts to work out how fast your network can go, and then limit how much it uses. All very nice, but as others have written above, it depends on a number of things being set up "just so", otherwise it uses best effort. Clearly, for your setup, its getting it wrong and not at all working well.
The Group Policy talk above, is the "official" way to manage all kinds of things for a computer setup. Often, it turns out to just be a number of settings in the Windows Registry. In the case of BITS, this is the case, so its possible to skip all the Group Policy stuff, and use a simple registry update file.
Note all the normal warnings about messing with registry entries apply. If you don't want to touch such things, stay away, or get additional help or advice first.
I have attached a registry settings file below, that contains the key aspects for controlling the max rates for BITS. The file is a txt file, so its safe to download, look at, print or edit as you like. If someone wants to use it (apply the settings in it), it would first need to be renamed to something.reg and then clicked to make it run.
Another warning: Normally downloading any kind of registry stuff from the internet, and running it, should be done with extreme caution, or not at all. The same applies here. However, this information is provided in the event that someone wants to explore this for their own use.
The file as supplied, is set for VERY SMALL limits, using my Group Policy editor as shown below. A new 1 or 2 MB book will still download sometime soon, but a large Logos update would take forever with those settings.
Note also, the values in the *.reg file are in hexidecimal, not decimal. The Windows Calculator allows these conversions. Start by making sure you can see how the attached file matches the graphic that created it.
My suggestion, if someone wants to continue with using this is:
- Be sure you are happy with the general idea here, otherwise walk away now, and leave this all alone
- Download the text file here and save it somewhere so you can read it and edit it as required. Make sure you are happy it only contains entries about BITS, and is not something nasty!
- Make a few copies of it, with names that suit: Examples bits_40kb.txt, bits_100kb.txt, bits_250kb.txt and so on according to your needs and network.
- Edit the values within the files to suit the values you want. Maybe one for slow_bits, and another for fast_bits is all you need.
- Once edited, rename or copy from name.txt to name.reg, and then run (double-click) to apply those settings
I have no idea, but its possible the new values only take effect after a reboot. If so, for those that know how and want, I expect restarting the BITS Service would have the same effect.
NOTE: Do not stop or restart the BITS Service if the Logos4 Indexer is running, otherwise it will crash with a COM error, and will abort any current downloads and any indexing running. The results will be unpredictible, so I suggest don't do it.
Anway, if someone knows they have an effective broadband speed of, for example, 256kbits/sec, you might want to make a bits.reg file for some 25% or 50% or whatever of that.
Anyone reading this, and has no real idea what I'm saying here, please just walk away and don't try this. I've provided this in good faith for those that need or want to understand and try this.
If unsure, but you still want something like above, wait until a few others that undersand these points have given their feedback too. They might say leave it all alone, or they might say it sounds fine. Wait and see first is best maybe, if you are unsure.
Sorry this is so long, but messing with some of the deep stuff inside Windows can lead to pain if it all goes wrong.
My key refs for this article include: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa362844.aspx
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Rats!!!
The file should look like below. You will need to edit the line breaks if you want to try this. I already attempted to upload it again, but it still came out looking wrong.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\BITS]
"EnableBITSMaxBandwidth"=dword:00000001
"MaxTransferRateOnSchedule"=dword:00000014
"MaxBandwidthValidFrom"=dword:00000008
"MaxBandwidthValidTo"=dword:00000011
"MaxTransferRateOffSchedule"=dword:000000280 -
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Thank you, Jim. In fact I dare not play about with my registry! I'll see if I can get to BITS configuration as administrator, but doubt it as I have only Vista Home.
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nicky crane said:
Thank you, Jim. In fact I dare not play about with my registry!
Nicky,
Maybe I over-stated all the cautions I gave. [:(]
I think, with Vista Home, you wont have the Group Policy Editor tool, so can't so it the graphic way that Dave wrote earlier, and that I posted too.
Let us know what practical levels you think your network runs at, and what portion you are happy for BITS to use when there are downloads to process, and Dave or myself with make you the settings file with those values.
The limits will be of no effect for day-to-day usage, but will kick in next time there are bigger Logos downloads that need to run for hours or days.
I think what I documented above will permit the limits you need with Vista Home.
Lets see what Dave thinks, but please, let us know what your network speeds tend to be, and what portion you want set in the file(s).
- Jim
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JimT said:
let us know what your network speeds tend to be, and what portion you want set in the file(s).
The risk with a .reg file is low - very similar to setting up Diagnostic Logging!
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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Thank you, Jim and Dave. I'll try to work out what I want and take up your kind offer. I do appreciate it.
If I did run into problems changing my registry, could I solve them with a system restore to before the changes?
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Nicki, you can backup your registry before making any registry edits. It's very simple, and you can restore the registry painlessly. It's actually very difficult to do anything drastic to the registry unless you have no backups and you really try to run rampant.
Win 7 x64 | Core i7 3770K | 32GB RAM | GTX 750 Ti 2GB | Crucial m4 256GB SSD (system) | Crucial m4 256GB SSD (Logos) | WD Black 1.5 TB (storage) | WD Red 3 TB x 3 (storage) | HP w2408h 24" | First F301GD Live 30"
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nicky crane said:
If I did run into problems changing my registry, could I solve them with a system restore to before the changes?
You can create a restore point beforehand and we can also provide a file to Undo the change.
Dave
===Windows 11 & Android 13
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