# Randomly stopping large file downloads?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/randomly-stopping-large-file-downloads/207174>\
**Category:** NGINX\
**Created:** [May 19, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/randomly-stopping-large-file-downloads/207174 "2011-05-19T22:34:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dubstep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@dubstep](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/dubstep)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 10:34pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/randomly-stopping-large-file-downloads/207174/1 "2011-05-19T22:34:51Z")

</div>

Hi,  
1.) What would cause nginx to randomly stop serving large file  
downloads? When I try to download a 800MB file it stops serving the file  
after between 10 and 30 MB. I’ve had to revert to lighttpd because of  
this.

I checked the usual things: There wasn’t anything in the error log, the  
system had plenty of memory (several hundred MB free) and the worker  
processes were all still there after the download dies. It doesn’t  
matter what browser I use.

Any idea what would cause this?

2.) BTW there’s a bug in the [forum.nginx.org](http://forum.nginx.org) forum where when you first  
get an account it prepopulates the login form with your email address  
rather than your user name. If you try to log in like that it won’t let  
you in. You have to clear out what it prepopulated and enter your  
username. This is confusing.

Posted at Nginx Forum:

> **[Randomly stopping large file downloads?](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,199359,199359#msg-199359)**
>
> Hi, 1.) What would cause nginx to randomly stop serving large file downloads? When I try to download a 800MB file it stops serving the file after between 10 and 30 MB. I've had to revert to lighttpd because of this. I checked the usual things: There...

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nickn)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/randomly-stopping-large-file-downloads/207174/2 "2011-05-19T23:01:27Z")

</div>

On 5/19/11 4:34 PM, nickn wrote:

> Any idea what would cause this?
> 
> 2.) BTW there’s a bug in the [forum.nginx.org](http://forum.nginx.org) forum where when you first  
> get an account it prepopulates the login form with your email address  
> rather than your user name. If you try to log in like that it won’t let  
> you in. You have to clear out what it prepopulated and enter your  
> username. This is confusing.

First, this is an issue with how your browser is “pre-populating” that  
field, not the forum software. See attached for what I see when I  
attempt to log in. This behavior is consistent in Firefox, Chrome, and  
Safari.

Second, a “Username” is a user name and an email is an email. You should  
be able to distinguish between the two. Again, please see the attached  
login form. This hardly seems “confusing” to me. Again please see the  
attached.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nickn)\
**Post date:** [May 19, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/randomly-stopping-large-file-downloads/207174/3 "2011-05-19T23:29:52Z")

</div>

An ideas why nginx would be cutting the downloads short?

Posted at Nginx Forum:

> **[Re: Randomly stopping large file downloads?](https://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,199359,199377#msg-199377)**
>
> Hi, 1.) What would cause nginx to randomly stop serving large file downloads? When I try to download a 800MB file it stops serving the file after between 10 and 30 MB. I've had to revert to lighttpd because of this. I checked the usual things: There...

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nickn)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 12:21pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/randomly-stopping-large-file-downloads/207174/4 "2011-05-20T12:21:35Z")

</div>

Hello!

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 04:34:34PM -0400, nickn wrote:

> Hi,  
> 1.) What would cause nginx to randomly stop serving large file  
> downloads? When I try to download a 800MB file it stops serving the file  
> after between 10 and 30 MB. I’ve had to revert to lighttpd because of  
> this.

Are you serving file as static one with nginx, or proxy\_pass to  
some backend server? In later case most likely reason is out of  
space (or no access to) in proxy\_temp\_path.

> I checked the usual things: There wasn’t anything in the error log, the  
> system had plenty of memory (several hundred MB free) and the worker  
> processes were all still there after the download dies. It doesn’t  
> matter what browser I use.
> 
> Any idea what would cause this?

Please make sure you have error\_log properly configured and you  
are looking at right one. Most simple aproach is to configure one  
at global level and remove others if any (i.e. at http, server,  
etc. levels), e.g.

error\_log /path/to/error.log info;

Note that setting logging level to ‘info’ may be important in some  
cases (e.g. if nginx thinks client timed out or so on).

If the above wouldn’t be enough to solve you problem, please  
follow generic instructions as outlined at  
[GitHub - nginxinc/nginx-wiki: ARCHIVED -- Source for the now archived NGINX Wiki section of https://www.nginx.com · GitHub](http://wiki.nginx.org/Debugging), i.e. please provide

1. nginx -V output
2. full nginx config
3. debug log

Maxim D.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nickn)\
**Post date:** [May 21, 2011, 10:51am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/randomly-stopping-large-file-downloads/207174/5 "2011-05-21T10:51:45Z")

</div>

Hello!

On Fri, May 20, 2011 at 03:43:53PM -0400, nickn wrote:

> Here’s the info below, any ideas what it could be?  
> Timeout to tune is send\_timeout, not keepalive one. Anyway,  
> please provide debug log and tcpdump of the connection in  
> question.

[…]

> root@217948:/var/log/nginx# nginx -V  
> nginx version: nginx/0.7.65

Note that 0.7.65 is rather old. You may want to upgrade to 1.0.2.

[…]

> ```
> sendfile on;
> 
> ```

When using sendfile with big files it’s good idea to use something  
like

```
  sendfile_max_chunk 1m;

```

as well.

[…]

> ```
> include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
> include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;
> 
> ```

If there are any files here except the one you already showed -  
you may want to show them as well (or at least parts which may  
affect server{} in question).

Maxim D.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/n/ed8c4c/32.png) [@nickn](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/nickn)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2011, 9:44pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/randomly-stopping-large-file-downloads/207174/6 "2011-05-20T21:44:39Z")

</div>

Hi Maxim, thanks for your help.  
I’m not using a proxy, it’s just a straight connection to nginx.

I ran it again with error log on info and found that it thinks the  
client is timing out, although watching firefox it seemed to be  
downloading ok the entire time and I wasn’t having connectivity issues  
on other sites.

I tried keepalive\_timeout 65; rather than 5 but had the same problem.

Here’s the info below, any ideas what it could be?

* * *

/var/log/nginx# tail cosmic-access.log  
76.250.143.130 - - [20/May/2011:19:32:50 +0000] “GET /bigfile.sql.gz  
HTTP/1.1” 200 114499284 “-” “Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1;  
en-US; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110420 Firefox/3.6.17”

/var/log/nginx# tail cosmic-error.log  
2011/05/20 19:32:50 [info] 12222#0: \*10 client timed out (110:  
Connection timed out) while sending response to client, client:  
76.250.143.130, server: [cosmicchannelings.com](http://cosmicchannelings.com), request: “GET  
/bigfile.sql.gz HTTP/1.1”, host: “cosmicchannelings.com:81”

root@217948:/var/log/nginx# nginx -V  
nginx version: nginx/0.7.65  
TLS SNI support enabled  
configure arguments: --conf-path=/etc/nginx/nginx.conf  
–error-log-path=/var/log/nginx/error.log --pid-path=/var/run/nginx.pid  
–lock-path=/var/lock/nginx.lock  
–http-log-path=/var/log/nginx/access.log  
–http-client-body-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/body  
–http-proxy-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/proxy  
–http-fastcgi-temp-path=/var/lib/nginx/fastcgi --with-debug  
–with-http\_stub\_status\_module --with-http\_flv\_module  
–with-http\_ssl\_module --with-http\_dav\_module  
–with-http\_gzip\_static\_module --with-http\_realip\_module --with-mail  
–with-mail\_ssl\_module --with-ipv6  
–add-module=/build/buildd/nginx-0.7.65/modules/nginx-upstream-fair

* * *

## /etc/nginx/nginx.conf:

user www-data;  
#worker\_processes 1;  
worker\_processes 2;

pid /var/run/nginx.pid;

events {  
worker\_connections 1024;  
# multi\_accept on;  
}

http {  
include /etc/nginx/mime.types;

```
error_log /var/log/nginx/error.log info;
access_log /var/log/nginx/access.log;

sendfile on;
#tcp_nopush on;

#keepalive_timeout 0;
#keepalive_timeout 65;
keepalive_timeout 5;
tcp_nodelay on;

```

# gzip on;

# gzip\_disable “MSIE [1-6].(?!.\*SV1)”;

```
include /etc/nginx/conf.d/*.conf;
include /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/*;

```

}

# mail {

# # See sample authentication script at:

# # [GitHub - nginxinc/nginx-wiki: ARCHIVED -- Source for the now archived NGINX Wiki section of https://www.nginx.com · GitHub](http://wiki.nginx.org/NginxImapAuthenticateWithApachePhpScript)

# 

# # auth\_http localhost/auth.php;

# # pop3\_capabilities “TOP” “USER”;

# # imap\_capabilities “IMAP4rev1” “UIDPLUS”;

# 

# server {

# listen localhost:110;

# protocol pop3;

# proxy on;

# }

# 

# server {

# listen localhost:143;

# protocol imap;

# proxy on;

# }

# }

* * *

## /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/sites-enabled/cosmic:

# You may add here your

# server {

# …

# }

# statements for each of your virtual hosts

server {  
listen 81;  
server\_name [cosmicchannelings.com](http://cosmicchannelings.com) [www.cosmicchannelings.com](http://www.cosmicchannelings.com);

# access\_log /var/log/apache2/cosmic-access.log;

# error\_log /var/log/apache2/cosmic-error.log;

access\_log /var/log/nginx/cosmic-access.log;  
error\_log /var/log/nginx/cosmic-error.log info;

root /var/www/cosmic;  
index index.php index.html index.htm;

```
    # wordpress url writing
    error_page 404 /blog/index.php;

```

if ($http\_user\_agent ~ “magpie-crawler” ) { return 403; }

```
    # prevents nginx from returning 404s all the time along with

```

good content  
try\_files $uri $uri/ /blog/index.php;

```
    # also works, may be slower?
    # if (!-e $request_filename) {
    # rewrite ^/blog/(.+)$ /blog/index.php?q=$1 last;
    # }

```

# cave yahoo group

# “^/i/([a-z0-9\_-]+)/([a-z0-9\_-]+)/([a-z0-9\_-]+)?$” =\>

“/cave/link.php?m=$1&g=$2&s=$3”,  
rewrite ^/i/([a-z0-9\_-]+)/([a-z0-9\_-]+)/([a-z0-9\_-]+)?$  
/cave/link.php?m=$1&g=$2&s=$3 permanent;

# convert old blog url format to new. old had post id, new only has

slug

# “^(/blog/[a-z0-9\_-]+)/[0-9]+$” =\> “$1”,

rewrite ^(/blog/[a-z0-9\_-]+)/[0-9]+$ $1 permanent;

# fix broken link errors. /blog/k\_karma\_29/family.html =\>

/blog/k\_family

# “^/blog/k\_[a-z0-9\_-]+/([a-z0-9\_-]+).html+$” =\> “/blog/k\_$1”,

rewrite ^/blog/k\_[a-z0-9\_-]+/([a-z0-9\_-]+).html+$ /blog/k\_$1  
permanent;

# /blog/tag/new-world-order/topic.html

# “^/blog/tag/[a-z0-9\_-]+/([a-z0-9\_-]+).html+$” =\> “/blog/k\_$1”,

rewrite ^/blog/tag/[a-z0-9\_-]+/([a-z0-9\_-]+).html+$ /blog/k\_$1  
permanent;

# redirect old archive html pages to blog pages

# “^/archive/topic/([a-z0-9\_-]+).html+$” =\> “/blog/k\_$1”,

rewrite ^/archive/topic/([a-z0-9\_-]+).html+$ /blog/k\_$1 permanent;

# fix bug where topic lines in keyword pages got linked as

> **[Cosmic Channelings -](https://cosmicchannelings.com)**

# “^/blog/([a-z0-9\_-]+).html+$” =\> “/blog/k\_$1”

rewrite ^/blog/([a-z0-9\_-]+).html+$ /blog/k\_$1 permanent;

# redirect server error pages to the static page /50x.html

# 

#error\_page 500 502 503 504 /50x.html;  
#location = /50x.html {

# root /var/www/nginx-default;

#}

# proxy the PHP scripts to Apache listening on 127.0.0.1:80

# 

#location ~ .php$ {  
#proxy\_pass[http://127.0.0.1](http://127.0.0.1);  
#}

# pass the PHP scripts to FastCGI server listening on 127.0.0.1:9000

# 

```
location ~ .php$ {
    fastcgi_split_path_info ^(.+\.php)(.*)$;
    fastcgi_pass backend;
    fastcgi_index index.php;
    #fastcgi_param SCRIPT_FILENAME

```

/var/www/cosmic$fastcgi\_script\_name;  
fastcgi\_param SCRIPT\_FILENAME  
$document\_root$fastcgi\_script\_name;

```
    include fastcgi_params;
    fastcgi_param QUERY_STRING $query_string;
    fastcgi_param REQUEST_METHOD $request_method;
    fastcgi_param CONTENT_TYPE $content_type;
    fastcgi_param CONTENT_LENGTH $content_length;
    fastcgi_intercept_errors on;
    fastcgi_ignore_client_abort off;
    fastcgi_connect_timeout 60;
    fastcgi_send_timeout 180;
    fastcgi_read_timeout 180;

    #fastcgi_buffer_size 128k;
    #fastcgi_buffers 4 256k;

```

# from [http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?3,70566](http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?3,70566)

fastcgi\_buffers 256 16k;  
fastcgi\_buffer\_size 32k;

```
    fastcgi_busy_buffers_size 256k;
    fastcgi_temp_file_write_size 256k;
}

```

# deny access to .htaccess files, if Apache’s document root

# concurs with nginx’s one

# 

location ~ /.ht {  
deny all;  
}  
}

upstream backend {  
server 127.0.0.1:9000;  
}

Posted at Nginx Forum:  
[http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,199359,199603#msg-199603](http://forum.nginx.org/read.php?2,199359,199603#msg-199603)