Page 1 of 1

Downloading zip files

PostPosted: Mon Jun 29, 2009 8:43 am
by sporky
I am running 3.7 of subsonic but I have had the same issue with 3.6.

When I download an single mp3, I get the final size of the download and estimated time to complete, but when I download whole albums (ie zip files) I just get what has been downloaded so far so I have no idea when the download will finish.

At first this might just seem like an aesthetic issue, but when downloading using a download manager. I am unable to pause and then resume downloads. This means that if the download fails half way through then I can't resume the download. This means that sometimes when the network/internet is busy I'm unable to download an album as I'm can't maintain the download for the required 30 mins plus. Is this correctable?

I know most people will think "that guy just needs a better internet connection", but my server has been relocated while building work is carried out so I'm suck with this connection for the foreseeable future.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 5:09 am
by sindre_mehus
Setting the content size when downloading zip files is not possible, since the size isn't known in advance. The zipping happens on-the-fly.

However, pausing/resuming downloads should still work (at least it works in Opera).

For the technically minded, this is implemented using ETag, Range and Accept-Ranges HTTP headers.

To see if the client sends a range request (thus doing a resume), look for this in the log:

Code: Select all
[6/30/09 7:05:23 AM CEST]   INFO   DownloadController   Got range: Range[1278083,9223372036854775807]

PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 3:57 pm
by sporky
Thanks for the info, I didn't realise that zipping was done on the fly. One thing I left out of my original post is that subsonic is behind a proxy server in my setup so it could be that as the proxy server doesn't receive the file size and then doesn't support the resume between the proxy server and the browser.

I'll look in to it over the weekend.

PostPosted: Tue Jun 30, 2009 4:17 pm
by sindre_mehus
Yes, it could very well be the proxy. Let us know what you find out.

PostPosted: Thu Oct 29, 2009 9:06 am
by sporky
Sorry for the long delay before replying. I've check the download without the proxy server in the way and I'm still unable to to pause/resume downloads. I'm currently using Firefox with the DownThemAll Plugin.

Looks like my download manager doesn support resuming when the file size is unknown. Thanks for you help.

PS. Is there anyway to hold the start of the download until it's zipped before starting the download or would this cause the download to timeout before starting?