Data Errors on big downloads

[Markd]

Hi iBurst

I'm constantly having issues in large downloads becoming corrupted. This has been happening for well over a year and manifests itself in many forms, including the below:

1) PS3 downloads complete, but are corrupted, and cannot be installed
2) Direct downloads from Microsoft for trial software (including Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 iso images) complete, but neither can install, because the data is corrupt
3) Downloading EVE Online has successfully completed (4.2GB!) but guess what, that data has become corrupt and cant be installed properly.

I'm attached to the Gardens (Cape Town) tower I believe. And I would like to know, dearly, why this happens!? Is it affected by weather? Is something wrong with the kit in the tower? Is it a general iBurst problem?

I can say that there is an element of "luck" involved. i.e. if i download the same PS3 game/demo 4 times, it will be corrupted on 3 of those occasions, and fine on 1. Obviously, the bigger the file, the more chance i seem to have of hitting this problem. And obviously, I do not have the patience for 4 or 5 goes at a 4.2gb download. Please can you investigate this and let me know what actions are to be taken?

And for the forum: Has anyone else experienced such problems with iBurst?

Cheers
M

[Markd]

and just to provide some additional context, EVE seems quite smart, in that the downloader realised there was a data problem, downloaded a repair tool, which looked at what was missing, and told me that out of 4.2GB of data downloaded, I was missing 286.2 megabytes. Basically 6.7% of the download...the other 93% was fine, but its still not good enough.

[ginggs]

And for the forum: Has anyone else experienced such problems with iBurst?

Once, see here, but the problem was someone at Sony thought distributing a single 1.8GB file over HTTP with no resume option was a great idea.

The downloader for DC Universe Online for the PS3 was much better, you could interrupt, suspend and resume the download as you liked and it would just keep going.

If you constantly have problems with downloads, maybe check out your local network first, is your router good, no wifi problems, etc.

I have a friend who also attaches to the Gardens Centre tower and downloads a lot without any problems, but he normally uses bittorrent or NNTP so maybe that's why.

[noswal]

do you download direct from one link to your browser or use a useful tool like free download manager which multi threads?

www.freedownloadmanager.org/
A download manager that supports resumable downloads and multiple simultaneous downloads. [Win32]

[Markd]

This is not so much an issue with files that cant resume an interupted download, but more an issue with a download getting corrupted. I did get hold of a download manager for my iso downloads from MS, and it made no difference to the end result: somewhere along the way, some data was missed, and when i tried to install my trial OS, it failed because it couldnt find the data, and was not intelligent enough to be able to repair itself (unlike the EVE download, which actually was intelligent enough to repair itself and impressed me hugely)

As a point of interest, when i use torrents, I have no problems at all. Via torrent I can download a 1-4gb file and have no issues at all (although I am mainly getting video, but still, no issues). I dont know why that is. I assume because it breaks it down into much smaller parts and confirms that you get each part (i.e. there is some kind of checking in place?) whereas from a website there is none. Any file over 700mb instills fear in me if i cant torrent it, because i feel there is at least a 50/50 chance that it will end up being corrupt.

[ginggs]

As a point of interest, when i use torrents, I have no problems at all. Via torrent I can download a 1-4gb file and have no issues at all (although I am mainly getting video, but still, no issues). I dont know why that is. I assume because it breaks it down into much smaller parts and confirms that you get each part (i.e. there is some kind of checking in place?) whereas from a website there is none. Any file over 700mb instills fear in me if i cant torrent it, because i feel there is at least a 50/50 chance that it will end up being corrupt.

With torrents, each piece transferred has a checksum. If the checksum doesn't match, it gets downloaded again.