OK, here’s the weirdness…a guy has a website on which he has audio clips of historic news events (radio bulletins, etc.). They are all in mp3 format and are hosted on two different servers.
When I try to download and save these clips, no matter the size of the file, the download cuts off prematurely at around 245-250kb. Happens in both IE and in Mozilla. I have tried clearing the cache and the problem still exists. The clips play fine up to the point they are cut off, which is a little weird as I thought if a download was cut short, the clip would not play (end of file markers and stuff like that there).
The guy says he has never heard of anyone having this problem with his site. I suggested that perhaps his web hosts had a 250kb download limit for some reason, or perhaps limited downloads when bandwisth usage was high. He claims that this is not the case. He says he tried some of the clips and they downloaded fine, and he also had colleagues try them and they worked well for them also.
I do not encounter this problem anywhere else on the Net – I routinely download files much larger than 250kb and never have a problem.
So, the questions are:
What would cause this to happen?
Why would it happen only on one website?
Is this guy on the level or lying through his teeth?
I can’t specifically answer your question, becaquse it makes no sense to me that you’d have problems with large downloads only on this one site (unless the webmaster IS full of shit, but that’s another matter entirely). All I can suggest is trying a download manager, like GetRight, which allows you to resume a disconnected download from the point it was cut off if the server on which the file is hosted supports RESUME. Most do, in my experience.
All I can suggest is trying a download manager, like GetRight, which allows you to resume a disconnected download from the point it was cut off if the server on which the file is hosted supports RESUME. Most do, in my experience.
Actually, my experience with IE is that if a download is cut off, it generally WILL resume from that point on the next try. But these clips act like they are complete – I get a “download complete” message, they play fine up to the truncation, etc.
(unless the webmaster IS full of shit, but that’s another matter entirely).
I’m beginning to think that’s a good bet…
You on dialup? A lot of servers (Yahoo, ahem) time out after X minutes of D/L reguardless of connections.
I am on Earthlink dial-up, but they have never timed out on a download, and if they did why only on this one site?
I downloaded a couple dozen, a few of which were over 1MB, with no problems.
The server may be configured to time out connections after X amount of time, which could be a problem if you’re on dialup. Perhaps someone else on dialup can test this (I have cable access).