I just tried Free Download Manager (FDM), again, having the Firefox addon Flashgot use it. The download gets passed to FDM, and fails, giving the error message "access denied, invalid username or password." No password was required. The site I'm trying to get the file from is turbobit.net, which limits downloads speeds to 100kb/sec, and has a 59 second countdown before you get the link. I guess it's transparently using a password on their end. If I just download normally (save to disk) the download starts fine, but it fails after 30 minutes to 1 hour (always different), and my Wi-fi connection will stop briefly – and I have to start all over. So I will never be able to download a large file. I also tried DTA instead of FMD with Flashgot, and I get an "access denied" message in DTA. Again, I reloaded – waited the 59 seconds, and download w/Firefox, and the download starts fine. The failure message in the Firefox Downloads window is "source file at http… could not be read."
Any help would be greatly appreciated. When is Firefox going to finally add the ability to resume downloads????? Is there some other software I haven't found using Google that will work?
This page says: "This error can occur if the connection to the server was interrupted during the download. Make sure you are connected to the internet, then try the download again." – regarding the error message "… the source file could not be read." http://kb.mozillazine.org/Source_file_could_not_be_read
BTW – I have watched this closely, and the download quits when the wi-fi connection fails for a moment. The download fails after a different time period each time I try it, and after a different number of MB's have transferred – so it's unrelated to the server at turbobit.net.
Best Answer
That's not correct. If a server doesn't support resume then download managers cannot resume downloads.
Firefox does resume downloads. The problem is that many servers refuse to resume downloads even if there's a break in connection - the time period differs from server to server. ( TED's servers immediately comes to my mind, if there's break in connection for about 5 seconds, the download is ruined and I have to restart the download from start.)
Few servers inspect the HTTP headers for the referrers, and block if the referrer is not a browser. I guess while transferring the download, the header gets mangled and the referrer becomes the download manager, instead of the browser.
That's become the download links are autogenerated, are valid particular combination of parameters ( perhaps some session id ? I'm not sure), and are not persistent. Once the control of the download has been handed over to the browser, the links expire, and hence you get the error message. My suggestion: Try IDM. It's one of the better download managers that I've used. If the problem still persists, my suggestion is to use an alternative link to download, or maybe switch to a wired connection while downloading.