Redirect vs Streaming

[kirkhayes]

So I have a 74 mb zip file and 555 mb zip file both set to download by redirect, but I have many, many customers complaining and requiring multiple downloads.

Would it be better if I changed it to download by streaming? Are there any 3rd part solutions that make downloading large files easier for customers? How do the big corporations provide large files for download succesfully.

Thanks,

Kirk

[DrByte]

What version of Zen Cart?
How long has the site been active?
What version of PHP?
What version of Apache?
Who is your hosting company?
What is your URL?
Are the downloads breaking around the same time as another customer comes along to download a product? Or does it also break even on very-slow-traffic times?
What addons have you installed on your site?
What customizations have you made vs the original functionality of the code?


For very large files, you might run into a problem with PHP max-execution time if you go with streaming. But you'd never run into an out-of-memory problem. However, with streaming off (and redirect on or off) your downloads are subject to memory capability on your server, specifically in Apache. Unfortunately, it's up to your hosting company how Apache gets configured.

[kirkhayes]

What version of Zen Cart?
1.3.8a
How long has the site been active?
Since November 1st
What version of PHP?
5.2.6 (Zend: 2.2.0)
What version of Apache?
2.2.10
Who is your hosting company?
hostgator
What is your URL?
brmcdigitaldownloads.com
Are the downloads breaking around the same time as another
customer comes along to download a product?
I do not know how to monitor that
Or does it also break even on very-slow-traffic times?
I don't know how to monitor that
What addons have you installed on your site?
None
What customizations have you made vs the original functionality of the code?
None

I did read another post that suggested changing the pub directory from 755 to 777...we'll see if that helps. I made this change as of Nov 5th. I also increased the download retry's to 5 and 5 days instead of 2 and 2 days. I also increased the max_execution time_for_admin_processes.

I have 2 zencart stores created on the above website. We have had over 500 downloads from each store. I have had customers from both stores complaining about the following things:

1. I can't find the link to download from
2. My download isn't working
3. I can not open the zip file after downloading

I am only using the paypal payment module and I set it up with the defaults. I noticed that the orders are either pending or processing, but never become Delivered or Update. I am not sure if that is correct or not, but it may have something to do with #1 above.

The other major change I did (Effective Nov 5th) was I moved my account from a hostgator shared account to a hostgator shared account with unlimited bandwidth. The details are on the hostgator website under the shared accounts. I signed up for the 12.95 business plan, since it seemed to have the most bells and whistles for cpu processes, disk space, bandwidth, etc...

We'll see if it lowers the frequency of issues.

[Website Rob]

First and for the record, there is no such thing as 'unlimited' anything when it comes to services provided on or through a Hosting Server.


Having said that, have you asked your Hoster about this problem? If you consider that each Hoster puts limits on Server resources used by Hosting Clients it would not be a hard stretch to realize, if you have 50 people downloading a 555 MB file it is going to cause problems for others on the same Server. Perhaps you are hitting a restriction setup by Hostgator.

Also, big Companies have Dedicated Servers setup to their own specs and do not run into the problems such as you've described.

[DrByte]

I have had customers from both stores complaining about the following things:

1. I can't find the link to download from
...

I am only using the paypal payment module and I set it up with the defaults. I noticed that the orders are either pending or processing, but never become Delivered or Update. I am not sure if that is correct or not, but it may have something to do with #1 above.

a) Order-status settings typically to not change on their own. If you want to upgrade from Processing to Delivered, that's something you'll have to do manually from the order page itself.
"Update" is a special status that simply resets the download counts for all downloads on a given order (as opposed to resetting each one manually). Again, you must manually change the status to "Upgrade" if you choose to change it.

b) "Processing" normally means that money has been collected for the order, and thus the warehouse can process its fulfillment. In the case of downloads, the downloads are enabled when this status is active. Payment modules normally set orders to "Processing" when funds are received (you can set the status for each module).

c) Orders in "Pending" status are not able to be downloaded. Thus, if the order was never paid-for, or notification was never received from PayPal, the downloads will never show.

d) You can adjust which order-status values allow downloads, in Admin->Configuration->Attribute Settings. IT IS BEST NOT TO CHANGE THESE unless you know why you're changing them.


From my recollection, all of this is documented in the E-Start Your Store With Zen Cart book -- see the link at the top of this page and on the Zen Cart home page.

[DrByte]

2. My download isn't working
3. I can not open the zip file after downloading

If they send you back the file they downloaded, what condition is it in?
Is the beginning of the file filled with HTML codes?
Does the file match byte-for-byte what they should have received?
If the file's incomplete, does it at least match correctly from the beginning to the end of what they *did* get?
You may need a binary-file-compare tool to answer these important questions.