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iTunes Downloading Issue

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derekcbart

derekcbart

Skilled Investigator
Hi there.

I subscribe to The Paracast using iTunes. For the past 4-5 episodes iTunes has only downloaded partial episodes. I have had to go to the podcast directory and manually download each new episode. I subscribe to over 20 podcasts of varying lengths and the only one that is having partial downloads is The Paracast.

Is anyone else having this problem?
 
Yeah, I had the same problem. I only got the first hour last night (when the latest show came out) but today the whole thing was available. But this is the first time it's ever happened.
 
Brian Now said:
Yeah, I had the same problem. I only got the first hour last night (when the latest show came out) but today the whole thing was available. But this is the first time it's ever happened.
Click to expand...

Well, once the show is uploaded, it's the full episode. Unless you attempted to download the episode prematurely, I can't see where you'd get only part of it -- unless the connection was interrupted, of course. I would tell you that right after the show is available, the servers are slammed with lots of traffic, but even then the worst that should happen is that the file takes longer to retrieve.

The best I can tell you is that if you don't get the full file, try again. If the problem is widespread, we'd look into it; we do test a download each time a new show goes up, however.
 
Eh . . . iTunes. It's 'Apple' software, you know how it goes. You gotta cut the underdog some slack. They'll get their stuff working one of these days.

:p:D:p

-DBTrek
 
DBTrek said:
Eh . . . iTunes. It's 'Apple' software, you know how it goes. You gotta cut the underdog some slack. They'll get their stuff working one of these days.

:p:D:p

-DBTrek
Click to expand...

Funny, but all iTunes does is link back to our original files ::)
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Funny, but all iTunes does is link back to our original files ::)
Click to expand...

Ah . . . must be a problem with the system that created those original files then. What are you using these days . . . Vista? No . . . that's not it . . .

I've had problems with iTunes as well . . . namely trying to organize the playlist on the iPod, having iTunes wipe out my music library during an update, and iTunes forcing me to download almost the entire program over again during updates. Oh . .. and trying to list all the duplicate files so I can wipe out the ones that can't be 'found' after I change which directory my music is in. I don't even want to start on that rant.

But . . . I still use it. It's an awesome podcast aggregator/player, and they have streaming radio stations too. I just wish they'd make the thing a little more user friendly.

-DBTrek
 
DBTrek said:
Gene Steinberg said:
Funny, but all iTunes does is link back to our original files ::)
Click to expand...

Ah . . . must be a problem with the system that created those original files then. What are you using these days . . . Vista? No . . . that's not it . . .

I've had problems with iTunes as well . . . namely trying to organize the playlist on the iPod, having iTunes wipe out my music library during an update, and iTunes forcing me to download almost the entire program over again during updates. Oh . .. and trying to list all the duplicate files so I can wipe out the ones that can't be 'found' after I change which directory my music is in. I don't even want to start on that rant.

But . . . I still use it. It's an awesome podcast aggregator/player, and they have streaming radio stations too. I just wish they'd make the thing a little more user friendly.

-DBTrek
Click to expand...

Actually the files are usually created and/or translated to MP3 format by Peak Pro, a professional-grade audio editing application that's also used to master CDs.

I don't want to get into a computing platform war here. We have another forum for that purpose. :)

In any case, I did a retest and downloaded 3 recent files via iTunes and they all were retrieved in perfect order. But nothing about the online world is perfect, and things just happen.
 
pixelsmith said:
operator error comes to mind...
Click to expand...

That sounds a little extreme to me. I'm more inclined to think of it as an ISP-related issue. But until I can test and confirm what's going on, that's the best I can suggest right now.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
That sounds a little extreme to me.
Click to expand...
not to me. peecee people usually make problems for themselves. then they blame the problems on the "underdog" in order to justify their lame platform of choice. i see it all the time.

my best friend is like that. he gets a virus and says "dont even tell me macs dont get viruses cuz macs suck and they are only good for graphics and they are going out of business and they only have one button mice and..."
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Well, once the show is uploaded, it's the full episode. Unless you attempted to download the episode prematurely, I can't see where you'd get only part of it -- unless the connection was interrupted, of course. I would tell you that right after the show is available, the servers are slammed with lots of traffic, but even then the worst that should happen is that the file takes longer to retrieve.
Click to expand...

I think it was between 11pm-12am CST Sunday night that I started downloading it. And it was slow, slow slow. I figured it was all the other people downloading too. The strange thing is that Itunes never lets me play a partial file of any other podcast it seems. But this episode stopped at exactly the 1 hour mark, but was still playable.
 
Brian Now said:
Gene Steinberg said:
Well, once the show is uploaded, it's the full episode. Unless you attempted to download the episode prematurely, I can't see where you'd get only part of it -- unless the connection was interrupted, of course. I would tell you that right after the show is available, the servers are slammed with lots of traffic, but even then the worst that should happen is that the file takes longer to retrieve.
Click to expand...

I think it was between 11pm-12am CST Sunday night that I started downloading it. And it was slow, slow slow. I figured it was all the other people downloading too. The strange thing is that Itunes never lets me play a partial file of any other podcast it seems. But this episode stopped at exactly the 1 hour mark, but was still playable.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is awfully weird. But, as I said, the best thing to do is just download again when that happens.
 
I've had iTunes/iPod issues with other songs/podcasts where the entire track will not play through entirely but the total time indicated in the time bar is accurate. Usually reconverting or re-ripping the file solves this.

-todd.
 
tommyball said:
I've had iTunes/iPod issues with other songs/podcasts where the entire track will not play through entirely but the total time indicated in the time bar is accurate. Usually reconverting or re-ripping the file solves this.

-todd.
Click to expand...

Well, in this case, we know the file is good.
 
Hi there.

I have iTunes set to check for new episodes of podcasts every hour. The issue that I have been having with The Paracast episodes is only through the subscription download. The first time it happened the length of the show was 1 hour 45 minutes, so I thought that the commercials must have been edited out. That was not the case the file just stopped. When doing a manual download through the iTunes store it downloads the complete file, but downloading through automatic subscription downloads seems to be the problem.

-Derek
 
derekcbart said:
Hi there.

I have iTunes set to check for new episodes of podcasts every hour. The issue that I have been having with The Paracast episodes is only through the subscription download. The first time it happened the length of the show was 1 hour 45 minutes, so I thought that the commercials must have been edited out. That was not the case the file just stopped. When doing a manual download through the iTunes store it downloads the complete file, but downloading through automatic subscription downloads seems to be the problem.

-Derek
Click to expand...

It's possible the software is attempting to retrieve the file before it's fully uploaded, which isn't a good thing. I'd recommend you change your settings to reduce the frequency with which it checks for new episodes. After all, most shows tend to be either daily or weekly. ::)
 
Folks, I just wanted to add that I talked to Denis Motova, my good buddy and our friendly, neighborhood Web hosting guy at HostICan, and he said that one of the main problems is that we are simply becoming increasingly popular, and there are larger demands on our server. At the same time, he has increased what are known as "concurrent connections" to boost our capacity somewhat.

We may also upgrade our services next month if we continue to get more and more listeners. It's a good thing, of course, but server slowdowns are part of the growth process too.
 
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