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View Full Version : Support for FTP should be improved. Seriously.



Mushroom
07-20-2011, 05:50 AM
Hello,

today I needed to download a file over 3 GB in size from a customer's FTP server. I used DownloadStudio to perform this download task, and I found out that this product has serious problems.


The customer's FTP is on a slow link, and I started the download using four splits. Three timed out, and they DownloadStudio did not attempt to reconnect them, ever. There was still a fourth active connection, so the transfer should have been resumed.
After over six hours of transfer, when I finally had 97% downloaded, we had a power outage.
129
Well, no problem, I thought - I used DownloadStudio, so I can resume the transfer and just finish quickly, reight? Wrong! Apparently you did not plan for or test with files larger than 2GB, as the attempt to resume is resulting in a negative offset, as can be seen in the FTP log:


< 19/07/2011 17:17:47 230 Logged on
> 19/07/2011 17:17:47 TYPE I
< 19/07/2011 17:17:55 200 Type set to I
> 19/07/2011 17:17:55 PASV
< 19/07/2011 17:17:55 227 Entering Passive Mode (67,138,1,58,28,3)
i 19/07/2011 17:17:55 Connecting (active)...
> 19/07/2011 17:17:55 REST -819360268
< 19/07/2011 17:17:55 501 Bad parameter. Numeric value required
> 19/07/2011 17:17:55 SYST
< 19/07/2011 17:17:56 215 UNIX emulated by FileZilla

Six hours lost. No way to resume the download. Marvelous.
What is worse, there was not a single attempt to resume all four connections. It appears that DownloadStudio would continue to use a single transfer, after the power came back. Again, why?


I don't believe that I need to tell you how disappointed I am right now. This sucks so badly that I am ready to uninstall this product.

Ulrich

Peter
07-20-2011, 11:45 AM
We have tested with a 4GB file and reproduced the issue you have reported, the issue is now fixed and the correct file offset is requested. During testing we identified another issue that we are working to fix now, hopefully we should have a patch for you soon.

Peter
07-21-2011, 04:15 PM
We have built a new DownloadStudio that is able to download ftp files up to 4GB (we have not tested larger sizes yet, but it should be able to download larger files). You can download the updated files from http://www.conceiva.com/Temp/DownloadStudio/DSFTPFix.zip. You will need to extract the contents of the zip file to the location where you installed DownloadStudio, there are two new files DownloadStudio.exe and wwwftp.dll.

Mushroom
07-22-2011, 10:01 AM
Hello Peter,

thank you for the reply and the new version. It is definitely better. However, there are still issues.


The download resumed, which is good.
The percentage of completion fell from 97% back to 60%. Hum...
Only one of the four transfers resumed. Why isn't DownloadStudio resuming the transfers, when clearly the PC is connected to the internet? Not good at all.
The indications about average speed, remaining time are missing. This is probably because the Time elapsed/Left info in the Job Details pane is nonsense: 596523:14:08.
After my experience with DS, I downloaded the huge file using a different tool. None of the four connections timed out, not even once, during the six-hour transfer, which leaves me suspicious that there might be another problem here.


Ulrich

Peter
07-22-2011, 10:40 AM
Hi,
The download that you resumed, is that the original download that failed due to the power outage? If so, then this would be the reason for the values being incorrect, DownloadStudio saved the information from the original download in the database and is using those values to resume the download. If you start a new download then the correct file offsets will be saved and downloads should resume at the correct positions, the other splits will also resume at the correct positions.

Mushroom
07-22-2011, 10:49 AM
Thanks Peter, yes - that was the incomplete download which I left on my PC.