[Tfug] HTTP file size limitation

[Bexley Hall]

Hi,

Perhaps over-tired and this might make more sense to me
after some Zzzz's...

I was trying to pull down a 4.4G file on an XP box via
Firefox, today.  Transfer went well for the first 435MB,
then, suddenly, stopped.

Hmmm...

Since I've been tinkering with cables, I figured I might 
have nudged something at the wrong time.  So, tried
again.

Same result.

WTF?

Tried a third time and noticed firefox still thought there was
more file remaining... just nothing coming down the pipe!

OK, maybe a problem with Firefox.  Tried an (older!) version
of IE.  *It* decided the file was only ~434MB long and
downloaded exactly that much, "successfully".

Fine, MS can't handle long files.  4.4GB - 434MB = ~4G.
MS probably forced the file size into an unint32, etc.

But, Firefox saw the big file... it just didn't get the
last 4G of it (though it waited for it!).

Upgraded Firefox, just to be sure.

Same result.

Screw these damn MS machines... used one of the NetBSD hosts
to pull the file down.  Ah, yes... size that wget(1) claims
is 4,750,912,458 bytes (I'll assume that's 4.4G in MS-terms).

But, *it* hangs at 455,945,162 bytes transferred!  Wanna bet
that's 434MB??

And, the sharp tacks in the class will note the difference
between these two figures is *exactly* (i.e. plus or minus 0!)
4G!

So, what's going on??

(sigh)  I'll look at it again in the morning.  My body can't
handle these 40 hour days, anymore.  :<

--don


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