File size capped

[Lordslamma]

A buddy of mine was downloading a file from me and the download kept stopping at around 380 megs (I can't remember the exact number but it was around there). The file was actually a DVD iso file around 1 gig. When he tried using Download Accelerator, it also capped the file. I couldn't find any settings that would fix this and couldn't find anything in the FAQs.

Any help would be appreciated.

[NetworkActiv]

Hello,

Just earlier today I witnessed a file of about 450 MB in size tranfer from NetworkActiv Web Server 4.0 Pre-Alpha-3 and there were no problems at all with this file's transference. Additionally, I have no reason to believe that version 4.0 can transfer larger files than the older versions.

The theoretical limit in file size that this server can handle is at least 2 GB. I recall testing an older version, probably 2.0, 3.0, or 3.5 in transfering a file of about 600 MB, and I recall not a problem of it.

Perhaps you can try turning the transfer method around and uploading the file to the destination? (via the built-in upload support)

I now have a large set of files getting into a tar ball, let me see if I have any problems transfering the resulting file... (since I'm nearly 400 MB in virtual memory, this could take a while)

Okay... I just made a file that is 2.13 GB (it IS larger than 2 GB). The server was not able to transfer the file at all (not a byte). This was actually expected. After, however, modifying the source code a bit, I was able to get the transfer to function with Mozilla Firefox as the browser over a wireless network connection. I'm guessing that perhaps Internet Explorer either could not allocate a large enough temp file in a temp folder (as IE always does), or simply can not handle files this large (I don't know).

The download took about a half hour and I afterwards performed checksums on both ends to check for consistency.... I carefully compared the MD5, SHA1, RIPEMD160, and CRC32 checksums to make sure that there was no corruption. They checked out to be perfect.

I will now attempt a medium-large sized file, 1.10 GB in size, with version 3.5.16...

The transfer ended up taking about 12 minutes, and once again the checksums all matched each other. This time the browser used was Internet Explorer.

Now, I have just finished uploading that same 1.10 GB file back to the server computer (via the built-in upload support, using version 3.5.16), which took over 13 minutes. I once again compared all 4 hash values and there was no difference. The "client" used in this test was Mozilla Firefox.

Note: With the first test, the server side was a Windows 2000 computer with a 733Mhz P3 CPU on 10/100 ethernet and the client side was a Windows XP computer with a 1.3Ghz Athlon on a wireless NIC. The second time around (with the smaller file), the tasks were switched; the client became the server and the server became the client.

My point here was to prove that at least in some situations, NAWS version 3.5.16 can certainly transfer files larger than 380 MB.

Conclusion:
From this data, it seems unlikely that the problem is with the server not being able to continue past the point of 380 MB. There are other possibilities to the problem, such as the client (browser) trying to allocate temp file space in some folder (which Internet Explorer does) and the drive not having sufficient free space for this. I have also seen a case in which the server could only serve so much becaues there was a packet capturing program running on the same machine that would run out of RAM due to the collected traffic from the large transfer. There is also a possibility of one or more of the routers between the transfer not being able to maintain the heavy load for so long without dropping packets and/or causing other problems. Depending on how slow the download might be going, it could even be your Internet IP address changing before the transfer completes, due to a possible ISP imposed DHCP renewel interval.

One possible solution: (if reasonable, and at your own risk) Try having your and/or their firewall disabled for the duration of the transfer.

Another possible solution: Try uploading the file instead of downloading it.

Best regards,

- Mike J. Kowalski
NetworkActiv Software

[Frozen]

Hi Lordslamma,


Just wanted to chime in on this....



I just finished transferring a 491 MB file using NAWS 3.5.16 a little while ago without any problems.



Good luck with your problem.



Best regards,


Joe