Forums Bug Reports 4GB+ File Bug!

i tried transferring a 11.7gb .mkv file (720p x264 video), it shows as 4gb in dcc window, once you download 4gb of it it will say its 8gb, then 12gb etc. i tried resuming it and it downloaded upto 99% then showed as 5gb ish, then kept on downloading and the file on the hdd was increasing, kept doing this for ages, then it stopped itself from downloading.

im using vista64 ultimate btw and mirc 6.21.

Hi, i dont think its a bug, i think its a feature, why else
would anybody normal want to recieve or send a 4 gigabyte file,
thats what Flashdrives and DVD's were designed for.


ShadowDemon

It's likely that mIRC just uses a 32-bit integer internally to keep track of file sizes which would explain the 4GB limit. Whether that'll be fixed in the future only Khaled can say. I'd presume it will be but then again DCC was never designed to transfer large files so maybe it won't to discourage people from misusing it in that way. Who knows...

If you intend on sending large files (greater than a few MB) I'd recommend setting up an FTP server or using BitTorrent instead. The DCC protocol has design flaws (ie. redundant ACKs) that make it very unsuitable for anything more than sending the odd small file over IRC.

well said starbucks

well yeah, i know all that, but its still a bug, thats why im reporting it:).

As mentioned, it's most likely due to the 32-bit nature of mIRC. As such, it's a limitation of the software and not a bug. Once mIRC is 64-bit, you shouldn't see that problem. Anyhow, I've seen that 4GB limit on other things as well. I bet if you Google that 4GB limit, you'll find other places that have the same issue.

hopefully there will be a 64bit version of mirc, but i doubt it, mirc has been around for many years, it would take a long time to create a 64bit version.

It is indeed caused by the 32bit integer used to store the filesize. This has been a noted issue for a very long time and no fix or workaround has been implemented yet, so im guessing that its unlikely to be done any time soon.

To OP, if for some reason you need to transfer such a large file this way, try splitting it up into smaller parts with a zip utility (winrar and winace for example, not sure if winzip supports split archives as its been many years since i have used that). There are of corse other pro's to doing such a thing, like built in file integrity checks, and being able to replace just one of the smaller files if one of them becomes corrupt during transfer, as apposed to having to retransfer the entire file.

Of corse for such a large file i would highly recommend an alternative method, as mentioned, regardless.

yeah, i know you can split it into rars or even split the .mkv file into multiple mkv files without re-encoding, just thought i'd let the programmers know of the bug, hopefully a native 64bit version may come out especially as vista64 is out now.

programmer*