785578 - download hangs due to bad internet connection, firefox does not allow 'resume'

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Toolkit :: Downloads API, defect)

Description

[t8av]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; rv:14.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/14.0.1
Build ID: 20120713134347

Steps to reproduce:

I was downloading a file. Due to bad internet connection the download stopped, but when the connection was on again, the download did not continue by itself, so I tried to 'Resume' by pressing "pause' and then pressing 'continue' icons in the download manager.


Actual results:

Firefox disabled the option to resume the specific download. 'Resume' is possible by pressing "pause' and then pressing 'continue', but in this case the 'pause' option appeared in a faint white color. The only way I could download was using 'cancel' and 'restart'.




Expected results:

Firefox should offer an east way to 'resume download' that always works.

Comment 1

[Matthias Versen [:Matti]]

Not all servers support byte range requests. The behavior that you have reported could be norma.

Comment 2

[t8av]

Matt,

I guess you are right (like always), but why doesn't Firefox show any status to the end user? I noted the following issues:

1. If the download stopped and CAN be resumed, Firefox should suggest to resume, or even initiate an automatic resume.

2. If the download stopped and cannot be resumed:

  2A. If download restart is possible, then Firefox should suggest it, or even automatically restart the download (start from beginning).
  2B. If download restart is not possible, then Firefox should assert a suitable message.

3. If the download stopped, the download byte-rate that is shown by Firefox should be zero. Currently Firefox shows an incorrect number in that case, which is probably the last byte-rate before download stops.

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

DL manager and networking have changed quite ab bit in 1.5yr

Do you still see the problem? If so, please provide URL to example servers

Comment 4

[t8av]

I see it all the time :-(

How can I provide a testcase? This behavior is random, and also depends on the quality of ones internet connection, as well as some server side and client side parameters.

Comment 5

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Thanks for asking. Random is not the same as having no information. For the "random" failures cite 2-3 different server URLs from dl manager history

Comment 6

[t8av]

I did not write any record of my failed downloads but I remember one example:
When I downloaded files from https://www.wetransfer.com , I could not 'resume' when download stopped.

I can't promise that you will get the same behavior, but you can try.

Comment 7

[t8av]

Also, please note that I wrote many related remarks to this bug in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=237623

Comment 8

[t8av]

Maybe I am 50% wrong. I just had this case:

I was downloading a file from http://depositfiles.com

After a while, I started watching a video in the browser using Divx Web Player.

As a result, the browser hang for about a second. The window of the download manager came to the front (active window) and the download stopped. I could not even click "pause" or "resume".

I wrote 50% wrong because this download manager's failure could be as a result of both bad internet connection and a short hang in the browser. Do you think I should open a separate bug for the case that I mentioned?

Please don't suggest that the bug is in the DIVX plug and not in the download manager. I think the download manager should be independent and work well regardless events that happen in the main browser window. 

I think I will start using Google Chrome whenever I am downloading. I am tried of broken downloads.

Comment 9

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Closing this as incomplete due to inactivity and lack of a reproducible testcase. Feel free to reopen the bug if this still happens, preferably with good steps to reproduce.