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UNiTE, Remote CLI, eXtract Wizard

#3766 Inconsistent download failures with RC 4.08

Posted in ‘UNiTE and Remote CLI’
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Environment Information

PHP version
n/a
Tool
UNiTE
Tool version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Sunday, 08 May 2011 18:50 CDT

Mobilepro
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I searched the forum before posting? Yes
Have I read the Troubleshooting Wizard before posting? Yes
Have I read the documentation before posting? Yes
Joomla! version: 1.5.23
PHP version: 5.2.15
MySQL version: 5.0.92
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Remote Control 4.08
O/S: Vista Home Premium SP2 32bit
RAM: 3GB
CPU: AMD 64 X2 2Ghz

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach the Remote Control and Akeeba Backup log files if you are reporting an Akeeba Remote Control issue, otherwise we can not help you

The Remote API log has no entries for the incomplete downloads

Description of my issue:

First let me say thanks for all your efforts in making a great product.

I've been trying out RC 4.08 and have been getting inconsistent results with downloads. While the backup process works great, many of the downloads fail especially with larger files (4 out of 5 with a 300MB site file). There is no error ( just hangs) and trying to cancel the download doesn't work - I have to close and relaunch the app.

Let me know if there is anything I can try to get this working.

Thanks again.




nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
This is a known limitation which has to do with your server and its capability to process large files. Most shared servers have issues trying to download files over 100Mb through Joomla!. Unfortunately, the only way to reliably download files from those servers is to manually use FTP in binary transfer mode :(

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Mobilepro
If it's helpful, these sites are on a Apache VPS and not on a shared hosting/server environment. Also before trying 4.08 I was backing up with Arc 2.5.0.36 and had no problem backing up and downloading the same large site files.
I was just hoping I could get 4.08 to work with it's nice interface and improved performance.





nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
The older version was using FTP to download the files. The new version is using HTTP, having PHP to "channel" the file to the remote client. This is not always very reliable. It's as reliable as the "Download" button in the back-end is.

I am seriously considering of removing the download feature from remote control as it causes a lot of issues, especially some very bad memory leaks since Titanium won't free the object it's using to download the files.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Mobilepro
Nicholas -

Anyone who's had to deal with backups and restores knows what a "PITA" it can be. What you've created with Akeeba Backup is clearly the best backup solution for Joomla on the market. It can't get any easier and the time savings using arc in doing multi-site backups is huge. I know there are a LOT of people out there who would agree with me but don't post as often as they should to show their appreciation for your efforts.

I realize that your time and resources are limited with the number of extensions you're dealing with but I hope (make that beg) you do not abandon the download piece or at the very least keep the older FTP version in place which works just fine.

I've just purchased the Pro version and if it helps I'll start a campaign to get more donations ;)

Thanks for your time and efforts.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Here's the deal. The old version was using XML-RPC which is not only a dead standard, but support for it has been dropped from Joomla! 1.6. FTP downloads were a far cry from being called "reliable", thanks to the infinite number of bugs in the Indy library we were using. On top of that, it wasn't cross-platform.

The first problem is that I'd need to switch from XML-RPC to JSON API. That's not easy at all. It requires rewriting half of the application logic, which needs a hell of a lot of time to do.

Then, the whole thing would have to be ported from Delphi 2006 to Lazarus in order to make it cross platform, so that people can use it. This requires completely rewriting the interface and the other half of the application logic, which means basically spending a few months redoing everything from scratch.

Then, we have the downloads issue. Indy is not really cross platform. The only cross platform library is cURL. However, you need a different binary library for each platform you compile against. Which can conflict with the system's installed version. That would not only require spending several weeks coding it, but would create an infinite number of support requests.

Based on the above, I'd have to waste several months of my time in order to create an application that would be partially stable, generate a lot of support requests and no added value for you guys. That would also set back the other extensions I manage, which would create even more support requests and the whole thing goes from bad to worse to downright crap.

So, no, maintaining the old version is not an option and keeping the FTP download is not an option as Titanium simply doesn't support that kind of feature.

If I find a way to call a third party binary (e.g. wget or curl) through Titanium, I might do that instead. The only drawback would be that you'd have no real progress indication (just an approximation) and most likely no way to cancel the backup. If I find a way to do that that's cool, otherwise I will simply drop the download feature.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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