Author Topic: can't download last 1% of video files (Read 1059 times)

glantern · « **on:** May 27, 2007, 06:46:32 am »

Hi,

Just recenlty i've been unable to download the last 1% of avi files. for example, i download a TV show at rates of up to 50 kbps for the first 99% of the file, and then the bit rate drops to zero and getting the last 1% of the file is impossible. This happens with every large avi file I try to download. Of course the avi does not run without the crucial trailer info at the end of the file. This never used to be a problem.
Antivirus scans on the PC turn up nothing. Reinstalling winmx did not help. Running peer guardiian doesn't make a difference.
I'm using winmix 3.54 beta4 on an XP PC. The top bar indicates 'patch operational'
I sincerely doubt my isp is responsible. I'm thinking maybe some hostile primaries out there???
Has anyone seen this problem? Is there a way to fix it?

nylly444 · « **Reply #1 on:** May 27, 2007, 07:23:29 am »

That sounds to me as if these files are either corrupted or fakes.

I'd suggest getting a little program called "AviPreview" (google for it) that can play unfinished avi files.
That way you can check them out once you've got a part of it and make sure they are what the title says.

With the patch from winmxgroup you shouldn't get any fakes and even if one slipped through definitely not several of them.

Oh, and if I remember correctly there's a tool out there somewhere that's called "divfix" or something which can repair damaged avi files, i.e. it can generate a new index for you so you might be able to play the files you got 99% of after all.
Maybe you're lucky and they just got damaged in some way and you can at least watch them...

Good luck and please let us know if you think they're actually fakes, i.e. files that deliberately fail to download, cause that failing on the last % sounds like behaviour we know from faked songs.

SamSeeSam · « **Reply #2 on:** May 27, 2007, 07:28:29 am »

Use the trim option and delete about 30-40k(rightclick the file and ... ) of the file and see if that helps.

Cheers

glantern · « **Reply #3 on:** May 29, 2007, 06:37:46 am »

I ran avipreview on the files in question and none of them could be previewed.
I deleted the lasts 25% of one of the files and still could not preview it.
So it looks like they are fakes.

I can't help thinking that there is a little more to it though. The reason is the following.
This is the second time this problem has happened. The first time was about 2 months ago but the behaviour was slightly different.
I had been downloading several video files and returned to find them stuck at 99%. One of them was from a user
that has been totally reliable in the past and always has a fast link to my PC. There were open queues available from him and other users supplying the files so I queued up
and each time saw a small amount of data (usually about 50k) downloaded before the rate dropped to 0 and the connnection timed out. I therefore kept retrying and always obtained a bit more. After about a half hour of constantly retrying the download completed and the video played just fine. I repeated this strategy with the other files and eventually got them all. If the files were fake would it still be possible to complete the downloads?

When the problem happened this second time, there was no way to complete the downloads. Retrying did not result in any additional bytes downloaded.

If any of this can be explained I'm all ears.
Maybe the files were all fakes but that would mean either my once reliable user has turned to the dark side or maybe the user I thought I was downloading from was really a different user (perhaps a name different by one letter or a number? But iit still doesn't explain how I was able to complete the downloads 2 months ago.