Many corrupt download files: Somebody please prove me wrong!

GetReal

masterblaster That's strange maybe it's only downloading the trailer for some reason. Make sure you are logged in through the download managers browser.

You shouldn't need to right click in the ADM you would just tap the download link from within it's browser tab and it will automatically go into the que tab and begin downloading. (At least that's how it works on my phone may differ some for different phones.)

I'm not sure exactly for FDM but it might not need to be right clicked on download links maybe just try a normal left click on the download links instead.

masterblaster

GetReal I'm afraid that I don't know what you mean by logging in through the download manager's browser. I don't use a separate browser when using FDM. I just right-click (instead of left-click as I normally would) on the SLR webpage's download button link and a separate pop-up is shown enabling me to use FDM. If I choose FDM, then another pop-up is displayed enabling me to choose whether to Download all Images or Download Video. After I choose Download Video, another popup appears with the mp4 listed and a button to confirm that is what I want to download. The problem is that only a preview MP4 is shown as if I was an anonymous, unsubscribed user. No way that I can see to integrate the security credentials of the authenticated webpage with FDM. The setup screens don't seem to have that option.

So, I am stuck. Just for kicks, I downloaded the full, original (not SLR modified) 47.95 Hazel Moore GFE:HazelTreat file without using FDM and it came downloaded just fine with no corruption. The fact that I can download a multitude of games on my system reassures me that my download capabilities are really just fine. I challenge anyone to download the files I suggested by actually playing them right to the end -- assuming they have one of the supported VR goggles listed for Valve Index. I am pretty confident that the video will stop at a point that is well before the point it would end if watching the video by streaming instead.

So I stand with my original statement: Many files on the SLR downloads pages are corrupted. I wish I that I could at least reduce the SLR original file size with Avidemux, but that doesn't seem to be a capability of that software. But I don't really understand the technology it deals with anyway so I'm not sure. The problem is that storing the original files can be about 10 times the size of the SLR-modified ones and it isn't practical to store those monster files.

So unless someone from SLR can fix this, we are a rather screwed with many of these SLR-modified files (as shown in the Valve Index section). Fortunately most are OK, but a lot of them got corrupted when SLR converted them to the smaller length formats. I am a bit nervous about coming to this conclusion since I am fairly new to this site and am amazed that others who have used SLR for years haven't noticed how many are messed up. Surely, I must be wrong... and yet repeated trials of downloading the same files show exactly the same corruption in the files.

Please, somebody, prove me wrong!

GetReal

masterblaster You could try ~~JDownloader2 or~~ Internet Download Manager I know a few of the other PC users here use those download managers.

By the way I seem to recall before I started using a download manager 9/10 of the files I downloaded were broken/missing parts. And never experienced any issues with any other sites. But I'm still very happy with SLR now that I have figured out how to use a download manager.

masterblaster

GetReal YOU SOLVED IT!
JDownloader2 required additional junk software I didn't want, so I downloaded Internet Download Manager. And it worked! I tried it on two files that I were coming in as corrupted before and they came in complete with no corruption.

Now I am left wondering why the downloads without IDM were corrupted in the same way no matter how many times I downloaded them. In other words, they would stop at the same position. Evidently there was some frame in the stream that the Windows default downloader just couldn't handle.

So, GetReal, you have restored my faith in SLR and I guess I won't end my subscription after all! 😃

Rakly3

masterblaster Now I am left wondering why the downloads without IDM were corrupted in the same

It has to do with multi-stream downloads and caching. Cause could be a lot of things. Sometimes changing the multistream settings in the browser (developer) settings can fix it, sometimes it requires a new router. Really hard to say without hands on troubleshooting.

JDownloader isn't compatible with SLR.

[deleted]

@Rakly3 This remains a pretty big problem. The same thing happened to me with FDM, and the browser option didn't work. Internet Download Manager is shareware and requires a separate payment after 30 days.

One trick that appears to work requires FDM and Jdownloader. It's possible to capture the link that SLR sends to FDM through the browser add-on and then insert the link into JDownloader, which can check file integrity on the fly.

This is a very very big problem that you guys will want to look into. The Original files download without corruption, so there must be some issue with the conversion and how it's done, or how the converted files are handled differently from the Original ones.

doublevr

[deleted] just do one download at a time

Rakly3

[deleted] First time i hear about IDM not being free, is this recent?
FDM is still free I know, I use it every day.

Don't download more than one file from SLR at a time. You can queue them up though. You already are making multiple connections while downloading one video file. The files are encoded and offered for streaming. Which means every chunk is sort of it's own file that your PC has to assemble back into one big file. This works best with a download manager as these write the 'chunks' directly as storage to your drive instead of cache.

Maybe you ever noticed after a 'normal' download with browser finishes, your PC starts a coping task? Though today you usually don't see it happen any more as a separate task, but is part of the download sequence. Like when a file 'hangs' a couple seconds at 99% before completing. That's often the copy process from cache to storage. - With these parallel downloading files, your PC also has to reassemble the file in the right order as it didn't receive the data sequentially, you maybe noticed here your CPU spiking in usage too. - My old intel 6500 4-core would even be bogged down at 100% usage while downloading from SLR.

There really isn't much we can change about this as the files are supposed to be offered this way, as streaming content. - The size here when downloading can cause issues in several areas. It is hard to predict as it differs from person to person. It can be at the router, the network device, Windows management, Browser management, drive fragmentation, etc ... and the combination of them all.

Using drives with large cache also helps. But those are more expensive of course. (Like NAS and Enterprise drives)

Another thing that greatly influences overal performance, but hardly any one is aware of, are shingled drives. (SMR) These drives add extra load to your system as oposed to CMR drives.
https://www.howtogeek.com/803276/cmr-vs.-smr-hard-drives-whats-the-difference/

Caching on a shingled drive is terrible, so don't do it 😉
Also, if you have drives you exclusively use for large video files, format them with large cluster sizes, 64kb. This will improve performance. Do not use large cluster sizes for drives that need a lot of random read & writes. IE your C: drive.

[deleted]

FDM does not work with SLR-converted files. As @masterblaster explains,, the files appear to have downloaded but are actually missing large chunks. (In my case I was seeing the beginning and end look fine but much that was missing in the middle.)

I was downloading one file at a time. But I'm guessing that wouldn't be a problem if I tried it with the Original fille types because of the different way those files are being treated by the server.

My computer is moderately fast (an i7 but from a few years back, multi-core, with a video card and non SSD-HD). I don't know about the cluster size.

I'm not disappointed, don't get me wrong. You guys are great and I love your service! However, I know quite a bit about computers and I caught on to the problem quickly enough. Additionally I don't mind streaming because my headset isn't that great. It's a shame that many folks might not have the time to recognize the problem or voice concern about it. And it concerns most of all those excellently-made SLR Originals, since those are the ones in immaculate quality that would be hardest to download in the Original studio file.

Internet Download Manager, the recommended client, is no longer free. It now has a 30-day trial, https://www.internetdownloadmanager.com/ . I moved from a browser (downloaded the files once, problems with freezing), to FDM (problems with corruption, downloaded again), to a combination of browser, FDM, and JDownloader (no problems so far, downloaded a third time). I'm just thinking that this might be a priority for addressing server-load, if that's a concern.

It would be really useful, since SLR doesn't have a built-in download manager, to add a tutorial and to investigate why the studio files work perfectly and the others don't.

FDM is free. Have you tried using it with the SLR-converted Index/Valve files. Unless this is tied to hardware, and my computer isn't as 'ghetto' as my VR headset, you will experience the same problem outlined by the OP. Chunks of video will be missing from what you've downloaded. Everything will look right at the beginning and end, the file will load and have a thumbnail, but at points in the video there will be no video data (a frame repeat lasting for anywhere from seconds to minutes).

Rakly3

[deleted] you need to install the FDM browser plugin. It will redirect the SLR download requests to the app. A link to it is in it's settings menu. Also make sure 'intercept downloads from browser' is enabled in the app settings.

Chunks of video will be missing from what you've downloaded. Everything will look right at the beginning and end, the file will load and have a thumbnail, but at points in the video there will be no video data (a frame repeat lasting for anywhere from seconds to minutes).

Yes I know the phenomenon. This is possible because of the files being encoded for streaming. You don't need the whole file to play it. - The issue we are trying to solve here is avoid losing those chucks (or have the system 'hanging' due to something having it's cache clogged, which also can happen).

You mentioned something about timed downloads, do you mean you set them to download at a certain time of day? Because this can produce this issue, yes. The moment you request a download with browser and/or FDM, this gets requested from the server and the server will load (cache) the video. For many different reasons these timed downloads will almost with 100% certainty fail or be incomplete.
-This is different from setting a timed download for a deeplink that works whenever.

JDownloader works differently and can intercept the request that's being sent, instead of intercepting the response from the server, which is how FDM works. It's a bit more complicated to set this up and not supposed to done on SLR. (You're not going to get into problems, don't worry.) - Download links on SLR are not permanent and differ from account to account. - This is why Jdownloader needs to be set up with access to your login. - We do not recommend doing this! Actually we recommend strongly NOT to do this for security of your account!

So the difference with Jdownnloader is that, it will send the request to the server at your set time. So it will only THEN be fetched by the server. FDM on the other hand, doesn't send a request, but queues the response it get's from the server. Here the server has the file already loaded. Due to the nature of how streaming works, files are not cached forever by the server.

[deleted]

Rakly3 I installed the plug-in (which I called an 'add-on') and I intercept the URL and feed it to JDownloader to solve the problem. But there must be an easier way to address this issue. Just restrict FDM to download one file at a time and give it several links. You'll find that it downloads the several files separately but each is corrupted.

What you write above expertly identifies the cause of the problem. Now it's just a matter of finding a download manager that fixes it ... One that is free and multi-platform and relatively easy to use.

Rakly3

[deleted] I personally don't have any issues with FDM. But I can't tell you why it's not working for you. It can even be the way your ISP handles things. Or it can be something stupid like a setting in Windows or other installed app, like teracopy. (I don't have issues with teracopy, it's just the first thing popping in my head that could potentially interfere.). - - I can only identify this by doing tests locally. I also can't 'simply' tell you how to do the tests, as you have to monitor the behavior of things and compare it to the behavior of how the system normally, or should normally work.

doublevr

Solution - one download at a time.

Thread closed. Support team - please use the solution above in any such case.