Forum Download issue

[musical74]

This happens in quite a few areas within the forum and I don't seem to have problems in other websites so I THINK this is a website-related problem...

When I go to click on a swf to download...more often than not, it kicks itself off early. It took 5 tries to get LoK version 2 to download properly - the first 4 tries it kicked itself off early. This has happened with other flash games here too...it always seems to kick itself off before it's done - sometimes well before it's really done. Example: the swf is 615 kb but when downloading it, it decides it is done at 144 kb. There's been a few others that I WANTED To play but because it always wants to finish before the game is loaded...I gave up.

Is this a website related prloblem? Is anyone else dealing with *why won't you load properly??* or is there some connectivity issue that is causing this?

Thanks in advance...I love the website, just which I could play some of the things offine...for whatever reason, it doesn't like me downloading from here.

[Renara]

I've never had it it happen here personally, but I've encountered the exact issue you're describing on plenty of other sites. What browser do you have, and is there anything unusual about your set-up, do you have a wireless network, that kind of thing?

[hididilly]

I've had it - it might be because simply your internet is "busy" (for example downloading other things, streaming videos, loading pages etc.) and it just goes "Fuck this." and drops the download. It's a bug that the browsers should try and rectify, but hey ho. It's not only on this site ether.

[musical74]

Let's see...I have Windows XP, with Internet Explorer 8. It may be a connectivity issue, as my ISP seems to have *hiccups* occasionally... I do feel better knowing that others have this problem, though. It may also have been a case of *I'm downloading important update so screw the swf*..but that seems unlikely, as I've had the same problem with it when it's just this webpage and nothing else, and nothing is loading in the backgroud...I know IE's not always the best browser, but FOR THE MOST PART it works fine... I don't have a wireless router. I suspect either it's a connectivity issue or a browser issue = although I HAVE been able to download things from here...it just takes a long time because of *oh great, it stopped early again* (you may get two responses, first time said *interal error*

[Renara]

Eck, whoever dreamed up "internal error" needs to be shot, if you had an exact time and date when it happened I can sometimes look up what the error was exactly (if it was the server) but normal websites running properly generate a ton of internal errors at the best of times, it means all sorts of things, heh.

I think one particular issue may be that the files are served via a script, rather than your browser connecting to the file directly. Unfortunately this means that most browsers won't resume a stalled download properly, so any minor connection issue could potentially halt it. I'll ask my host's support people anyway as they might have some better answers!

[musical74]

One thing I have noticed is that it ALWAYS will stop at a few points. 144 KB and 287 KB WILL result in a *I'm done downloading, never mind the actual item is 2.4 MB* It seems to do that at other times too, (647, 791)...given that it seems to happen at certain spots only makes me wonder if there's something wrong with the script, assuming it is a script issue.

May get this twice, dang internal error! (Happened at 3 pm PCT)

[Toulon]

Having had the same problem, I don't have much to add except that I have tried IE and Firefox (the standard right-click and Flashgot) and two different download managers (FDM and Jdownloader) and all have the same issue. When I tried with FDM, the window that comes up said "resume support:unknown" - this is usually a bad sign for someone stuck on dialup. And of course when the download broke/stopped it said in the log section "server does not support download resuming". Don't know if any of this will help but that's what I've tried.

[Toulon]

OK, here's some more info: this doesn't appear to be a browser problem because I directly input the URL for download into free download manager this time and still had the same trouble. Also, I set it to restart every time the download broke and let it try like 10x while I did something else, and every time it broke (at various points) before completion. I then looked at my options in FDM at turned on "detailed log" and got this:
12:39:31 AM 12/31/2010 Server doesn't support download resuming. Restart from the beginning
12:39:31 AM 12/31/2010 GET /forum/download/file.php?id=1470 HTTP/1.1
Referer: download/
Cookie: style_cookie=null
Host: legendofkrystal.com
12:39:33 AM 12/31/2010 HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 31 Dec 2010 06:39:28 GMT
Server: Apache
Pragma: public
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename*=UTF-8''1278658726.humbird0_mim_revised.swf
Content-Length: 1558470
Last-Modified: Wed, 01 Dec 2010 16:56:15 GMT
Keep-Alive: timeout=2, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: application/octet-stream


12:39:33 AM 12/31/2010 [Section 1] - Started
12:39:33 AM 12/31/2010 Server does not support download resuming. Don't stop this download; otherwise you'll have to start it from the beginning
12:39:33 AM 12/31/2010 [Section 1] - Downloading

.....I'm by no means an expert but "timeout=2" looks highly suspect. Anyway maybe this info will help.

[Renara]

It's the server doesn't support download resuming part that has me confused, as any HTTP based server has supported it for decades now. Basically an HTTP resource has a content-length, this isn't always known, but it's possible for a client to request a starting point, so if you've already got 4kb you can ask to start again from there and just download from 4kb onwards. So why that wouldn't be possible is beyond me, unless the phpBB scripts are specifically preventing it, though they shouldn't as none of the files themselves are dynamic.

Hmm, I'll continue looking into it; the timeout/keep-alive directives refer to the TCP connection between your computer and the server, basically it means that you won't exceed more than 100 connections, and if a connection is unresponsive for more than 2 seconds it should be closed and a new one created as required. So unfortunately it doesn't point to a problem as connection timeouts are more common than you sometimes think, but the way HTTP is designed they shouldn't actually prevent a download from finishing.

Hopefully someone at my host can lend a hand, I don't remember anyone having this trouble before we moved machines so it's possible the new machine is misconfigured somehow.

[malecamwhore]

I had the same problem yesterday, every time I tried to download the file it got a bit farther along, thats how I fixed it.

[GolanTrevize]

I always have the same problem