How do I keep MP3 ID3 tags on sold MP3s?

How come when ever a customer downloads an mp3 then plays it in itunes or media player it has lost all the data i saved with it (artist, album title etc)

Somehow this gets stripped away on download.

Any ideas?

Are they getting the file as a ZIP or as an MP3 ?

As mp3s, I tried it with zip files and the id3 tags are fine. Still I can`t understand why the tags are removed, Iv seen other zencart shops that sell mp3 so it must be possible.

What's the solution to this? i can't find any option to fix this.

Why is zen cart messing with the files anyway?

Zen Cart doesn't change the file in any way.

What is your setting for "Download by Redirect", and "Download by Streaming" when this happens?

If redirect is on, then it hands the file over to apache to serve it via a symlink from the pub folder.
If redirect is off and streaming is off, then it lets apache serve it directly from the download folder.
If redirect is off and streaming is on, then Zen Cart drops generic MIME data into headers to tell it to download the upcoming file, and then loads the file in 2K blocks and sends it in chunks to your browser.

There are no intentional code modifications by Zen Cart.
It's hard to tell what Apache might be doing on its own.

Re-direct was true, streaming is false. I turned re-direct off and the ID3v2 tags are back but not ID3v1.

i also noticed that the downloads usually get to 100% (99% in IE) according to the browser but don't actually complete, they just stop there and don't close the connection (The option to pause the download is still there in firefox for example). If you just leave it alone they usually complete but it takes several minutes, about 5-7. This problem is still there even with re-direct off.

The new problem i see with redirect off is that IE is trying to name them all 'index' when downloaded. This occurs if i click the download button or right-click and 'save target as'.

The download files are definitely different. the redirect download i just tested is 6020 bytes larger and all tags have been stripped, including an embedded jpg. the non-redirect file seems to be 5532 bytes larger.

i'll do some more testing...

EDIT: typo

Did you try with streaming on and redirect off?

Veazer:

The new problem i see with redirect off is that IE is trying to name them all 'index' when downloaded. This occurs if i click the download button or right-click and 'save target as'.If it's trying to name the file as "index" then either a timeout is occurring when the file contents are being sent, or the headers are not being recognized properly by your browser (specifically the header that indicates the filename of the file being sent).
If it's happening right away, then it's not a timeout, which would then suggest that your server's Apache configuration might have something awry. Perhaps check the MIME type settings in the server's master config?

Firstly, re-direct seems to be fully working now and not stripping anything anymore. I don’t know why it was previously and I’m a bit nervous about this inconsistent behaviour.

DrByte:

Did you try with streaming on and redirect off?

With streaming off, attempting to download a large file (100mb) eventually times out. With streaming enabled, it removes 2 downloads from the counter and I instantly get a page not found error.
Other than that, it seems to act the same as with streaming off.

DrByte:

If it's trying to name the file as "index" then either a timeout is occurring when the file contents are being sent, or the headers are not being recognized properly by your browser (specifically the header that indicates the filename of the file being sent).
If it's happening right away, then it's not a timeout, which would then suggest that your server's Apache configuration might have something awry. Perhaps check the MIME type settings in the server's master config?

It happens immediately, so i guess we can assume it's not a time out.

if it's a MIME issue in Apache, would it occur in both browsers and not just IE? I don't believe i have access to these settings on my server (i assume) - is there anything specfically i can ask the host to look for / change /etc.?

It looks like others have had this issue (thread 31752 & 50851), unfortunately there was no clear solution posted.

At this point I guess I’ll leave re-direct on unless this presents a problem. As always Dr. Byte you’re welcome to have admin access and poke around a bit, but I know you’re likely overwhelmed with other things.

Thanks for your support.

1. Have you tried clearing your IE cache? If your allowed cache space is already "used", IE sometimes plays tricks.

2. Which version of IE?

3. Is the page running in SSL mode when you're attempting to do the download?
   If yes, try disabling SSL (/includes/configure.php) temporarily and do another test.

4.a. Do you have GZip compression enabled in Admin->Configuration->GZip ? If yes, try turning it off.
4.b. Is GZip enabled automatically on your site by your server? You can check this here:
http://www.whatsmyip.org/mod_gzip_test/