INTERACT FORUM
More => Old Versions => Media Center 12 (Development Ended) => Topic started by: newsposter on January 22, 2007, 12:46:20 pm
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Could an (accurate) md5 hash be given for each download in the announcement posting as well as on the main download pages?
thanks!
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I'd like this as well.
I actually generate my own, so I can verify the download when I re-distribute it to my other couple of machines (I often download the file from my own private FTP server to my machine at work rather than redownload it from JRiver).
Of course, generating my own doesn't help if the original download was corrupted. This doesn't happen often, but it can...
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That happened to me several times today with both MSIE and Firefox.
I managed to get a good download of .151 with Opera 9.1 though.
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I'd look into what's causing that. My guesses are: firewall, anti-virus, spyware (or anti-spyware), and hardware issues, in roughly that order. Network issues can be terrible to diagnose. You should NOT be getting corrupt TCP transfers though with anything even remotely approaching regularity (there's a checksum and guaranteed delivery for those packet types).
One way I've used in the past to find a problem on my network is to build a few large sets of files with known MD5 hashes (some big files, some medium, and then a bunch of really tiny ones). Then, transfer these files all at once from one computer on your local network to another (starting multiple copy operations across the network -- not just one big one -- to really stress the hardware). Of course, this requires that you have access to two machines. If you don't, then it'll be more difficult to test, but you could try downloading files from FTP sites where they do provide MD5 hashes (linux distros are good for that).
Either way, once you can recreate the issue with regularity, then start one by one eliminating possible culprits. EG: Test. Check for corruption. If found, uninstall anti-virus. Test. Check for corruption. If still found, reinstall Anti-Virus and try the next suspicious culprit. So on and so forth. With a little luck, you'll eventually find something that can reliably stop the corruption (make sure to test again a few times for good measure even when you think you found it).
On my own personal systems, I have found bad network cards (and they were high-quality Intel branded add on cards) causing the issue. I've also had MANY issues with systems with nForce motherboards and the nVidia Firewall installed (that TCP offloading "feature" they had in nForce 3-4 has known issues). I've never seen an Anti-Virus or software firewall app (other than nVidia's thing) do it myself, but I've heard about it happening enough to know it can be real.
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::shrug:: After four attempts with MSIE and Firefox I got a good download in a single attempt with Opera. Opera is generally ack'd to have the most reliable http/ftp download engines on the 'net though.
Still need those MD5 hashes though.
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I know some sites have a hash avail, but really I never seen a need for them.
If i am not mistaken the download exicuted by the bowser makes sure it gets a packet if it does not that information is sent again. also does not the packet have a checksum and if it is bad the data is sent again.
Is this not true?
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I know some sites have a hash avail, but really I never seen a need for them.
If i am not mistaken the download exicuted by the bowser makes sure it gets a packet if it does not that information is sent again. also does not the packet have a checksum and if it is bad the data is sent again.
Is this not true?
It's a function of the TCP protocol, not the browser, but yes, this is true. "Downloads" which use UDP instead (such as streaming media) do not checksum and don't have guaranteed delivery, but TCP downloads (which includes basically all web traffic) does.
That's why I said... Something is wrong with his system. You should not get corrupted downloads via HTTP or FTP other than in very rare circumstances. Older versions of IE were somewhat prone to truncating downloads (not finishing the download but acting as though it was done and giving you access to the incomplete file), but these issues should be resolved with fully up-to-date versions of IE.
If it's happening 5 times in a row, something is very wrong.
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Still need those MD5 hashes though.
Not going to happen. Sorry.