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Resume download when URL is not consistent

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  • 1 has this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by FredMcD

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Hi everyone, Trying to download a large file from an unstable connection, most chances that the connection will break at some point. I know that Firefox is capable of resuming a failed download if you click the retry button but here's the catch - Apparently the download button on the said website generates some sort of token that goes into the URL (e.g. hxxp://site.example/file.dat?token=somethingrandom). The token is valid only for a single request and attempting to click the retry button just returns an error message. The server does send "content-length" and is likely to support resume but the new token must be supplied by re-clicking the original download link, in which case Firefox will not resume but just prompt me whether to overwrite the file. Anyone has some way of resuming a download in this case?

Hi everyone, Trying to download a large file from an unstable connection, most chances that the connection will break at some point. I know that Firefox is capable of resuming a failed download if you click the retry button but here's the catch - Apparently the download button on the said website generates some sort of token that goes into the URL (e.g. hxxp://site.example/file.dat?token=somethingrandom). The token is valid only for a single request and attempting to click the retry button just returns an error message. The server does send "content-length" and is likely to support resume but the new token must be supplied by re-clicking the original download link, in which case Firefox will not resume but just prompt me whether to overwrite the file. Anyone has some way of resuming a download in this case?

All Replies (5)

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Being that this seems to be a website issue . . . .

This download manager works separately from the browser. The browser tells it what to download, and off it goes.

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org It is a powerful modern download accelerator and organizer for Windows and Mac.

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Try these steps to resume an unfinished download when you still have the .part file.

  1. Move the old .part partial download and the final file without the .part that has size 0 to another location.
  2. Start a new download and pause it, don't close Firefox.
  3. Copy the two files (.part and 0 byte final) that you moved above back to the download location to replace the new files that were created.
  4. Resume the download in Firefox.
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I know about the .part file, unfortunately it doesn't work. Once you click pause you can't resume without regenerating a new token.

@FredMcD I can't see how a standalone DM can help here.

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I think that what you need to do is to start a new download with a new token and then pause that new download. While the download is paused you can replace the newly created .part file with the file(s) you previously saved to another location like I wrote above. If the file name got changed as well then you would have to correct that as well. Once the old files are in place then you can resume the download in Firefox and check if that works and if gives you the correct file.

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NiQ1 said

@FredMcD I can't see how a standalone DM can help here.

It can't hurt to try it out.