Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2018 June 14

= June 14 =

Firefox downloads failed
When the source is too slow downloading a file like a big mp3, Firefox gives up and says "failed". I've looked everywhere on the net for a solution. None found. Can anyone help? Many thanks. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:25, 14 June 2018 (UTC)


 * 1) Try another browser.
 * 2) Someone in some other part of the world who for some reason is able to download that file could send it to you through a cloud based file transfer service such as WeTransfer. (Other ideas here but they all require the use of some other human somewhere).


 * Basemetal 00:11, 15 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Basemetal, thank you. :) This is for podcasts, etc. I thought there might be something in the about:config, but I guess not. Cheers. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:29, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't know. Maybe there is. I don't use Firefox regularly so I wouldn't know. There's no reason to give up just yet. I suppose you've already searched through Mozilla Support. You can try asking your question at their Community Support pages. In any case trying first some other browser to see if they have the same problem can't hurt, can it? If that fixes your problem it will be much faster then trying to find a fix for Firefox. Basemetal  23:37, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * If you can cope with commandline, wget can retrieve with a large number of retries, and restarting from the point of failure. It can work on very low bandwidth, and has extreme patience. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:22, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi Graeme! Ohhh, that looks complicated. Without a front end, I'd be lost. Odd that about:config doesn't have a setting that determines how long it tries before giving up. Oh well. You know, maybe another browser like Basemetal suggests. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:35, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Many thanks to you both. You two are aces in my book (not sure people still say that). Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:34, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Once you have installed wget for your operating system, you can open the command box, put in  which tells it to retry up to 300 times, and -c will keep on adding to what is there. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:45, 15 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm going to try it,Graeme. Think lucky thoughts for me. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 00:12, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * I've just downloaded and installed wget on a Windows 7 system. Not that complicated to use. Gotta start it from the DOS-like shell they call "Command Prompt" which is a bit of a pain. But it worked. If you encounter problems just come back and ask for help. Good luck. Basemetal  01:41, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
 * For downloading podcasts, just schedule it to another time when the hosting servers are not that occupied. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 06:48, 21 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks Hans. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:35, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Hi Graeme and Basemetal. It sort of works. It runs, and connects and tries hard. Then it says this:

20180621-Thu1700.mp3: Permission denied

Cannot write to '20180621-Thu1700.mp3' (Bad file descriptor).

I think it might be trying to save the mp3 in C:, and Windows 10 doesn't like things being saved there. Can I change the destination drive? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:35, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Aha! It's downloading.

I figured out how to add "-O H:/file.mp3" to the end of the line.

Of course this means, without fear of exaggeration, that I am the smartest computer person in the history of the universe.

I'll let you know if it doesn't land. Many thanks again!!! Double yay!! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:47, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing: Can it do a bunch of downloads at the same time? If I make a batch file, will it do one, then the other, etc? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:48, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Chenge the destination drive with "cd H:\". You can do a batch file, or if you change directory to where you want the files to end up, you can give it a list of urls instead of one url. You can also open up several command boxes and do a separate wget command in each box simultaneously.  However if your internet connection is slow, this will just degrade it more. wget can also download all the files listed in a website, but that is more complicated (use -r). Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:42, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
 * Just to add one thing (though fortunately you didn't seem to have that problem in your case): when I tried wget I had problems with the security certificate or authentication or something of the website I was downloading my file from. But there's an option to ignore that and tell wget to download the file anyway. All the options available with wget (there's lots more) will be displayed if you type "wget /?" or "wget --h". In any case Graeme is a lot more knowledgeable and he'll be able to help on his talk page if this goes to archive before all your problems are resolved  Basemetal  11:01, 22 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Hi Graeme Bartlett and Basemetal. Thank you! Actually, while running five batches at the same time, and saving the files to a second hard disc, the main disk with C: died. Nothing to do with wget, I'm sure. It had cause the big blue screen before and was on its last legs anyhow. So, I'm just putting in a new disc and will give it all a go again in a few days.


 * Oh, and I would like to say that my old XP C: could be copied to a new disc via Norton Ghost, while this Win10 requires a whole new installation of Windows and all the programs. A step backward if you ask me. XP was 5 min. Windows 10 is 5 hours. Boo to Windows 10! :( Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:14, 22 June 2018 (UTC)