I can no longer download attachments from the threads (posts). To be more precise: they download but they are corrupt e.g. WinZip informs me that the downloaded archives are corrupt and cannot be opened.
Now the STRANGE part (there is ALWAYS one is there not): I have NO problem downloading attachments from ‘that other forex site’ (FF)!!!
So what’s changed on MY side:
I recently performed a ‘clean’ Windows XP installation on the workstation in question and have downloaded and installed every update and patch from Microsoft ‘known to man’. In other words: this is a ‘clean’ and totally ‘up to date’ installation.
What’s more: I have two other workstations and I don’t have this problem on them. The difference between them and my main workstation (the one in question)? NOTHING other than Internet Explorer 8. That’s it. The other two are also kept ‘Microsoft udated’ every week EXCEPT for Internet Explorer i.e. the other two workstation still have Internet Explorer 6 installed on them (with Internet Explorer 6 updates).
It’s not ‘the end of the world’ i.e. they’re all networked so I can download Babypips attachments on the other two workstations BUT I’d like to know the CAUSE of the problem (I have that kind of mind of course)!!! LOL!!!
I’d not want to do that though. Although I SUSPECT IE8 (or any of it’s MANY updates and patches): it does not account for the fact that I have no problem downloading attachments from FF. Go figure.
Hey Dale, I recently started having a problem with downloading zip filles on here, with internet explorer. but I tried it with google’s Chrome and they download fine. I don’t like Chrome, it’s a memory hog, and no matter how many reinstalls of firefox I do, it still is buggy. So I use IE normally, but will use chrome just to download zips which isn’t very often.
Thanks to dpaterso for pointing this out, and also thanks to the others for feedback. I’ve forwarded this problem to our tech folks. Once we get it figured out, I’ll post back here. Thanks again!
Could you provide an example zip file you were having problems with. The tech team did a quick test and weren’t able to reproduce the problem. They are running Windows 7, not Windows XP, with IE 8. That would help immensely.
It does not matter which .zip file I download I get the error. Here is a link to a .zip file that I myself posted some time back (a chart of the S&P 500 about a third of the way down the page):
I created the .zip file and then uploaded it. I can open the original on my workstation no problem but I cannot download the file that I’ve just uploaded (well I guess I should say that I CAN download it but when trying to openg it WinZip informs me that it’s not a valid archive file). Very odd (and when I was in the IT Business it’s the kind of problem that I would probably have ‘sat with’ for DAYS on end JUST to find out WHAT the problem is)!!! LOL!!!
It’s not too serious (well not to me anyway) i.e. I have other workstations that I can use to download .zip attachments (they work fine). As I say: the only difference between my ‘main’ workstation and the others is that this is a new ‘clean’ installation of Windows XP with IE8 installed (the others are also ‘clean’ installations of Windows XP at this time but NO IE8 installed only IE6 installed with all the Microsoft updates installed). It’s just one of those ‘interesting’ IT problems is all. The MAIN and probably ONLY reason that I resort to using WinZip when uploading attachments is because sometimes my charts are quite large and if I don’t put them in an archive then they get resized by the forum software and in most cases they then become unreadable (you cannot see any ‘fine’ detail).
Ok, well, ‘there’s your problem’ (ever watch Mythbusters)??? LOL!!!
At least: I THINK this is the problem (and if not it’s probably a good place to start).
I spent a bit of time on this issue this morning and it turns out that this is not a new issue at all i.e. I’ve now seen reports detailing this very issue dated as early as 2007 when the issue first became apparent with IE7. It would appear that it has something to do with PHP, a thing called ‘zlib compression’, and IE download requests.
From what I gather: the default zlib compression ON THE SITE can cause a WinZip file to get compressed TWICE using the zlib compression.
Here is an exact quote that I found:
Turning off the default php zlib compression for IE browser download requests (and letting header content-length default to chunks) fixes the corrupted zip problem.
Alternatively: use Google and search for some key phrases from the above quote and you’ll find many references to this issue.
What I DO NOT understand is that it appears to affect various different combinations of IE7/IE8/XP/XP Home/Vista etc. It does not seem to affect ALL users ALL of the time.
From what I gather it’s a ‘server side’ fix.
Just trying to help is all (and thinking that maybe I should go back into IT) LOL!!!
Regards,
Dale.
Edit:
Just for interest sake I tried the other ‘fix’ detailed in one of the links above i.e. disabling HTTP 1.1. That solves the problem with the downloading of .zip files but with HTTP 1.1 disabled I’m then being notified by IE8 that there are ‘Errors on the page’.
Great work on the behind-the-scenes research, Dale! You’re hired! Honorary Internet Explorer 8 Systems Engineer Extraordinaire. That’s HIEESEE for short. Ha! I’ll pass this along to the support folks with a smile! Thanks! Let’s see what they can do with it.
The tech team has still not been able to recreate the issue on Windows 7 IE8 machines, using WinRAR and 7zip as compression tools. As the tech team looks at the server side of things, I wonder what affect, if any, another compression utility would have for you. That could be something to try in the mean time.
I’ve now created and tried to upload both a WinRAR archive file (.RAR) as well as a 7-Zip file (.7z) but it would appear that neither of these file types are accepted by the site for upload so I cannot assist further (unless you add these file types to the list of accepted files for upload).
I’m SURE I don’t have to mention this (but just in case): the IT guys obviously have additional security rights and privileges to the site than we as users do (otherwise they’d also not be able to upload .7z files surely)? Just make sure that they’re not logging in as some type of administrative user as this could very well be the reason that THEY are not able to replicate the issue (not ‘poking my nose in’ just ‘been around the IT block for many years’ and IT guys LIKE TRADERS, go figure, hate to be given advice)!!! LOL!!!
Also: it’s not so much ME that you have to worry about as I said i.e. I can work around the issue if needs be BUT there are MANY users on this site and they may very WELL have this issue and they may NOT be able to work around the issue. In addition and as I noted previously: there is no issue with ‘that other forex site’ so it’s ‘something’ over here and of course to make matters worse it certainly does appear that this is not going affect every single user or combinations of operating systems and browsers (I’m just interested in the solution for interest sake I guess).
The IMMEDIATE ‘fix’ as noted previously is to disable HTTP 1.1 in IE8 but, as I said, this then generates page errors.
Great point on the non-administrator account. FYI, we make sure administrator and non-administrator accounts are used when testing. We may have made some progress on this issue. My tech buddies located an Apache server configuration issue. Dale, would you, or anyone else for that matter, try the attachment download again? They’ve successfully downloaded an attachment on their end.
Problem solved!!! Thank you and well done. I was able to download the test .zip file posted on this thread as well as some (much) older .zip files that I posted a good while back.
