Srb2 downloading Problem

Ok so I've been having problems downloading wads in srb2. At times, srb2's downloader freezes at a random point while downloading. Like I tried to download a bid map pack that was about 3000k that has NOT been uploaded in any site. It literally took me like 60 attempts to download that. Are ya familiar with this prob? Cuz I'm really getting pissed that I have to go through all this.

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Yeah, i had the exact same problem several times, It might even attempt to download srb2.srb sometimes .

SRB2's ingame server download has always been shitty; it freezes 9/10th of the time as it struggles to download 300KB at 3KB/S while it lies saying you're doing some 50KB/s, not mentionning you can sometimes go beyond the file you're downloading's size which still won't count as a success.

RomioTheBadass said:

Yeah, i had the exact same problem several times, It might even attempt to download srb2.srb sometimes .

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This too. No idea why this happens, but I don't recall this happening in 2.0, nor the "recieved file not requested" crash error.

Also, isn't 3MB considered as too big to be downloaded...?

"Lat'" said:

I don't recall this happening in 2.0, nor the "recieved file not requested" crash error.

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Actually, I remember that the 2.0 download was even worse. But maybe that was a problem with my shitty internet connection back then.

There's a pretty big flaw in the download implementation. It's existed ever since the feature was first implemented, $DEITY knows how long ago:

The server chops the WAD up into discrete packets of the same or similar size in a linear fashion. It sends how many packets are to be expected to the client, which prepares itself to recieve n packets. The server sends n packets, but corruption or a bad internet connection leaves m packets mangled. The client now has n-m packets, and is waiting for m more packets. But the server isn't going to send any more, because it never finds out that there's a problem with the download. The poor client is effectively left hanging (both metaphorically and literally) until the connection attempt is aborted.

So that's why WAD downloading is crap. It definitely needs a reimplementation, but as always we're a hobbyist project with limited resources and anyone who both cares to reimplement netgame code and has the skill and patience to do so would have more pressing issues on their plate first.