Sound Effects Retail - Download Plugins

Question

Hi everyone,

I've set up my website via wordpress and am now having some issues trying to find a shop plugin that allows large file sizes to be downloaded. I've managed to surpass the wp upload limit via ftp and can successfully download the zip file via the same ftp with the file unzipping and working fine, pointing to wp and the plugin I am using. Generally the file downloads to the correct size and won't unzip stating corruption or will download to a smaller/greater file size, then state the same corruption (the download has been tried from multiple computers at multiple addresses).

The Zip file is 142.5 mb (25 sounds plus info files).

Plugins I've tried are:

Cart66 Lite
Easy Digital Downloads
Market Press Lite

Have you had any experience with similar issues? Have any plugins that you'd recommend? Or would an external store provider that I could connect to my store perhaps be better?

Any help is much appreciated, all I want to do is share these sounds after all the hard work!

Alan

Answer 1

FWIW I tried a few wp plugs for data delivery & the one I intended to use worked except every downlaod stopped at about 50MB!?! After hassling the developer and my host tech, it turned out to be a RAM problem on the server with how much RAM was available to php (which is what wp and plugs run on) - I didnt find a solution & moved ecomm & data delivery to EJunkie

Answer 2

Hi Alan,

Both Guido and Tim are right.

The problem is the default settings of your server. These default limits are placed on shared servers on lower hosting plans (i.e., like Hostgator's Hatchling plan). This is done so that the basic hosting plans don't steal performance from other accounts on the same server, etc.

These settings are stored in the "php.ini" file in your root directory. You'll have to modify it to accommodate larger timeouts as Guido describes. This is an easy five minute fix. It's just like editing a text file. I'd advise hiring a developer to do it if you're not familiar with making the changes, syntax, etc.

Another issue is that some hosts won't allow you to change this value unless you upgrade to the next plan. The reason is because it has potential to undermine performance for other customers on shared hosting plans.

If you don't want to mess with this you can go with a distribution service. They cost, though. The rate depends. eJunkie charges you a monthly rate depending on the amount of material they store for you, and the number of items. This is good if you are expecting a lot of sales.

If you're starting slow Payloadz is another option. It's a flat monthly rate, with a small fee for each transaction. I used Payloadz for years (not any longer) and it was seamless.

Best of luck,

Paul

Answer 3

Your problem is not easy to answer and maybe it belongs to a web-developer forum. I'd recommend you to find out by trial and error what the problems are: Try to make a hard-link to a testfile with the same size. Download it with firefox. If the download works, the problem is not on the hoster and it accutally should work. Try download by ftp, (try filezilla for this) this should work. Try download with the scripts. If it don't works, than the problem is on the scripts, not on the server. Most of the scripts you find for downloading are developt for easy stuff, like mp3 songs or pictures with some MB of data. If you want to provide bigger packs from several GBs, you cannot use the scripts anymore, because they get time-outs. This means, a script who provide a small file probably needs some seconds to run. If you provide 1GB, it will run some houres or a day. For security reasons, servers have a time-limit and stop scripts after 60s or whater it is set. This is very important, otherwise bad scripts can crash down a server with endless running scripts.

With php you can set max_execution_time('300'); to 300 seconds, http://www.php.net/manual/en/info.configuration.php#ini.max-execution-time but this is not the solution for large files. You have to give out large files by the apache-server with a hard link. If you want to hide the link, you need programming skills, a lot of nervs and time. Or you set up a password-protected area and provide links to users by hand and open the area for the single users on request.

Sorry for no 'easy'-answer,

Guido

Answer 4

Are you trying to sell the sounds or just give them away? If you're selling them, you might try a PayPal solution that redirects back to your download page once the user pays. If you're just having trouble downloading, you shouldn't need a plugin for this. Just find the path where the zip file is and post that link to download. As for corruption, are you certain the entire zip file is downloaded before you try to open it? It could be the download is getting hung up somewhere and you are trying to open it prematurely. It's also possible the entire library didn't get uploaded even though it appears to have been via ftp. You could be running into that upload limit. I'd try looking at the zip file in your ftp client and getting info on that first. Check what size it is after you upload it.