Large downloads slowing/stopping as they progress

[Nick Payne]

I've been downloading parts of the World Snooker Championship coverage. 
Some of the files are quite large - four hours long and over 4Gb if 
downloaded as HD. I've noticed (this happens with 2.92 on both Linux and 
Windows) that as the downloads progress they get slower and slower, and 
quite a number of the downloads of 120 minutes or more eventually come 
to a complete halt, without any error message being displayed. If I stop 
the download at that point and start it again it won't resume 
successfully (loops continually with the message "Command exit code 1 
(raw code = 256)" and I have to start it again from the beginning.

I've found the best way to download these large files is to run the 
downloads in a Linux VM and periodically reboot the VM when the download 
slows but while it is still progressing. When the VM has finished 
rebooting I restart the download and it successfully resumes at normal 
speed from the point at which it was when the VM was rebooted.

I don't experience these problems with the usual 30min / 1hr programs 
that I download.

Nick