reliable file resumption (even without downloads.data file)
 

to be able to resume files which are partially downloaded would be great.

you can search and find exactly the right file by searching in the usual way, start downloading it again, but limewire does not recognise that there's a partially downloaded version of the file in your incomplete folder and starts again.

i have a lot of time's worth of partially downloaded files. to be able to resume them, rather than having to start again really would be good.

thank, hopefully :)

Hmm, I think that it's your donwloads.dat file that got corrupt, since my LW already does what you are suggesting: running a search will show results in different icons; an incomplete file (one that has already been partially dlded before) shows up as a torn sheet of blank paper. Downloading it again prompts LW to resume dlding from where it left off.

> I think that it's your donwloads.dat file that got corrupt

well, imagine the downloads.dat file no longer exists for one reason or another. say i was to email you (and also say we had the same os and version of lw) one of my partially downloaded files -- are you saying that you'd be able to resume the download process of that file, just from that file itself? -- no further information, such as the downloads.dat file.

it looks like the downloads.dat file, i guess, keeps a record of what part(s) of the file has been downloaded and what part(s) hasn't. the request i'm talking about is resuming without that downloads.dat file, becuase, yes that get corrupted for one reason or another -- that's what's happend to me several times. now i have an awful lot of time's worth of partially downloaded files, which at the moment are unresumable, so useless.

I see. So, in short, what you want to have is to be able to just put a partially dlded file in the incompletes folder; LW will recognise it, determine which parts need to be completed and dld those parts, right?
Hmm, that might be difficult to do (if at all possible). Unless I'm wrong, LW would need an "image" of the complete file in order to determine which parts of it are incomplete. It would have to search the entire net to find that image.
I don't know... Maybe sberlin will tell us if it's doable or not.

> you want to have is to be able to just put a partially dlded file in the incompletes folder; LW will recognise it determine which parts need to be completed and dld those parts, right?

i don't mind doing a bit of work to achieve resumption, so maybe not quite as automatic as you say, just so long as actual resumption was possible which it doesn't seem to be having no connected downloads.dat file.

finding out what has been downloaded already is completely evident from the partial file itself (and if it isn't, i'd say the design of lw's partially downloaded file format is flawed -- the format needs tweaking). and having found one or more copies of the file in question (which i can do myself, by typing in part of the file name) it's then obvious what is missing. foundfile - partialfile = neededparts

maybe it would need user intervention to a) find a copy to continue downloading, and b) to tell limewire that "this file on the net is the full version of this partially downloaded file on my drive" (to manually make the link to limewire between the two files)

if a and b were both required, fine. at least i'd be able to resume a whole load of partially downloaded files, because at the moment they're completely useless and represent a big waste of time.

it seems silly that loosing the obviously at the moment essential info in downloads.dat renders partially downloaded files unresumeable.


i mean what is actually contained in the downloads.dat file? how hard would it be to remake what's in, or at least the essential part of what's in that file from a partially downloaded file? i really don't see that as such a tall order, especially if you're the original developers who have a good understanding of the make up of that downloads.dat file. it really isn't a big deal imo.

Do you know any?

Both murasame & I have posted questions about a similar topic (it was my 1st): Library items in Red? & also Some downloads suddenly restart downloading from 0% I've found that you can resume incompletes if you're careful about the way you go about it (by initially searching for the sources.) In fact, even better is not to resume them but search for the sources & reselect to dwnld. If it's not the correct one (starting from the % of dwnld it should be) then I delete it from the dwnld window & select another from the search results.

I've had many multiples of 'one' selected dwnld file sitting in my Incomplete's folder. So once one has completed I'm left with these other partially dwnlded ones.

Well, we're not the original devs (sberlin -and others here of course- is though. That's why I mentioned him previously) and I don't know squat when it comes to programing. However, I know for sure that some things that may seem easy and pretty straight-forward are actually really tough to make/do, so doing that may not be as simple as that.

> I've found that you can resume incompletes if you're careful about the way you go about it (by initially searching for the sources.) In fact, even better is not to resume them but search for the sources & reselect to dwnld. If it's not the correct one (starting from the % of dwnld it should be) then I delete it from the dwnld window & select another from the search results.

yes i have also figured that's the most likely way of succeeding. i've just been trying that for the last several hours on multiple files -- i've not been able to resume a single one. they've all started off from the start again.

> However, I know for sure that some things that may seem easy and pretty straight-forward are actually really tough to make/do, so doing that may not be as simple as that.

having written limewire (therefore having that level of proframming skills) making reliable resumption without the downloads.dat file would not be a major hurdle.

as far as i can make out lw downloads sequentially from start to finish. in which case it really wouldn't be hard. the pick up point is simply from where it's got to. all that remains is reliably linking the file on the user's hd to the found file which really wouldn't be hard. in fact you could leave that to the user -- a simple open dialogue box to allow the user to do it manually if automatically doing it proves tricky, which i don't think it would. even if it doesn't dl sequentially, in a more random block kind of way, it really wouldn't be that hard i don't think.

any way thanks for responses. i've had enough of lw.

You've had enough of LW? Just for that? Boy...

Anyway, in that sense, BitTorrent prevails in that it's swarming system will fill out the blanks of any file.
LW uses a different swarming system from what I've been told.
Also, BitTorrent doesn't use any log file that will tell it what parts are missing: it just checks out how much of the file has been dlded whenever you open a new .torrent file (and that's why you can resume any file that you want -and even correct erroneous bytes- as long as you find the .torrent file and enough peers). Maybe tht's the way to go.

Finally, I read that LW beta supports .torrents (and so will 4.2). Maybe something like that will be incorporated there.

The current betas do not support torrents and nor will LimeWire 4.2. A future version, perhaps.

@sberlin: Maybe you could have a look at the system Phex uses ( http://phex.kouk.de ), as it doesn't download sequentially anymore, but uses Segment preferencing, so that the rarest parts of a file are being downloaded first.

Also it saves unconnected segments as seperate files and only joins connected ones. But I don't know, if it stores additional Information in those unconnected Segments.

> You've had enough of LW? Just for that?

just for that?! on a regular (not every day -- but it happens every now and then) basis all of my partially downloaded files are rendered unresumable. -- that is a perfectly good reason to have had enough of lw.


i've had another go at this, as i'm loathed to loose all that dl time, and this is the closest i've got to dl resumption:

a partially downloaded 8mb file is in my incompletes folder. it's no longer in my downloads window in lw. i search for it in lw the usual way. i find it. i double click on it to reintroduce it to the downlaods list. i check the inclompletes folder -- a second/new Øk file has not been created in there (that's a good thing). lw starts to download the reintroduced file, but according to the percentage bar, from 0%. i check back in the inclompletes folder -- the 8mb file has now's date and time, so the 8mb partial file is being written to. but, even after some time, the file size does not move on from 8mb. in lw's download list the file still says 0% although presumably would if left go to 1%.. etc.

so it appears that lw is downloading partially downloaded files from the start again, over what it's already got with the same data again.

the partially downloaded files in question, the problematic ones, are the result of, obviously downloading in lw, but also then from when lw crashes (which it does easily and often), often, but not always, initially caused by me being disconnected from the internet (which is a regular thing -- i'm on a dial up isp which terminates connection automatically after 2hours). usually on disconnection lw either doesn't crash and nothing bad happens, or crashes, but still nothing bad happens. but every now and then the downloads.dat + the downloads.bak file have been wiped (are back to 4k in size -- empty basically). at this point all my partially downloaded files have been rendered useless.

so the saving of the downloads.dat file, and also its backup mechanism in the downloads.bak file is flawed. it really should not be hard to reliably not loose the entire contents of the downloads.dat file even on a crash at any point in time (sure, maybe loose the most recent additions but not the whole thing ) -- that comes down to bad programming.

i would be quite happy if there was some way to resume those files. at the moment they amount to a *lot* of wasted downloading time, which for me is a pretty limited thing.

I hope your dwnld.dat file is not corrupting on a regualr basis!?? If so there's something definitely wrong. What OS version & Java version are you using? Very wise to keep up with the most update Java version for LW use (LW is written in Java & requires java for general functioning.) Java is not foolproof & still has some small probs. But these are being worked on which is why newer versions of java should be better.

Also keep your comp well maintained; ie: periodically run your disk & file utilities to make sure your HDD, files & directories are in a healthy state. Also to check there's no compatibility probs b/w any apps!

Yeah, I think it's weird too: I've never had trouble restarting files... except when I was still using 3.8.x that is...

> I hope your dwnld.dat file is not corrupting on a regualr basis!??

yes, didn't i make that clear? that's what's happening. regular with reasonably large gaps between occurances. every 6 weeks maybe (and i don't use lw *that* much -- maybe on average 2 hours a day) but it's so disastrous when it happens.

> If so there's something definitely wrong.

yes. that's what i'm saying.

> What OS version & Java version are you using?

osx 10.2.6. java 1.3.1

> Also keep your comp well maintained; ie: periodically run your disk & file utilities to make sure your HDD, files & directories are in a healthy state

this has happend on two seperate machines, one with a recent complete reinstall of system software and very little other software other than lw installed extra to the os.

please don't ignore this part which is when the problem occurs:

lw crashes (which it does easily and often), often, but not always, initially caused by me being disconnected from the internet (which is a regular thing -- i'm on a dial up isp which terminates connection automatically after 2hours).

that might explain why it doesn't happen to you for example?

it seems to be when i'm disconnected is the dangerous time as it throws lw into a bit of trouble sometimes. as i said it crashes often.