Large downloads slowing/stopping as they progress

[Jim web]

In article <554C2670.90809 at internode.on.net>, Nick Payne
<nick.payne at internode.on.net> wrote:
> 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.


FWIW I also was trying to get just the last part of the 'final evening'
programme of the snooker. Was using --start 02:00:00 to avoid having to
fetch a file for a program that was over 4 hours in total.

I got similar problems to the ones you report. The fetching would stall.

We'd also tried watching the programme using FireFox + Flash plugin. This
*also* failed to work correctly. Every few mins of replay it would abruptly
hop back to the start screen for the program and we had to start playing
again and shift to where it had stopped... only for it to happen again a
few mins later.

Made me suspect that either the program files, etc, were flawed in some
way, or perhaps the demand was high enough to disrupt access. That said my
attempts to fetch using get_iplayer were before 9am to dodge my
connection's 'cap'.

I also had a similar problem yesterday (again before 9am) when trying to
fetch the program on BBC4 about 'The man who discovered Egypt' (or some
similar title). However I tried again this morning and it worked fine this
time.

All of which also made me wonder if there is some other form of 'cap' in
the path that limits how much you can get during, say, a 24hr period.
However I have no real idea why the problems occurred.

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

Nor have I had problems with some of the few films that are available or
the 2 hour 'canal boat trip' .

Jim

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