OpenDrive Knowledge Base/Community/Community Support Forum
Serious Bandwidth Issue (Affects Everyone)
Creighton Linza
asked this on December 19, 2011 10:04 pm
I just discovered a fairly major mistake on OpenDrive's part. A user's daily allotted bandwidth is NOT relative to the actual amount of data they transfer from their account. Instead, it's based soley on the size of the files in the account, and how many times they are requested for download.
By only REQUESTING the download from the server (not actually downloading anything) the size of the file is automatically deducted from the available daily bandwidth, regardless of if the file is fully or partially downloaded - or even downloaded at all.
To break it down even simpler, say you have a file that is 1GB in your account on the 25GB/day plan, and you share the file's public link with a single person. That person clicks the link 25 times, each time cancelling the download before it even begins. There goes your daily bandwidth without the file being transferred a single time.
So what's up OpenDrive?
Comments
Hi Creighton, we are aware of this issue and are working on it.
Currently, we do not always get information from browser, such as downloads that have been interupted, so we don't know, whether files have fully downloaded or not.
At this time every time a download starts, we decrease full file size from the bandwidth limit.
Rest assured though that we have this in our roadmap and we will let our users know when this has been resolved.
That sort of information isn't exactly anywhere in fine print. Bandwidth should be something that is exact, not assumed. It would have been helpful to know this before I signed up for your service.
How could you not know if a file has been fully downloaded or not? It's coming from your servers...so you should know who's connected, and how much data you've sent to them.
Well I have another question. OpenDrive also creates a streaming link (at least for video files) which allows the user to directly open the file in the browser/default media player instead of forcing a download. Given that videos can be stopped, paused, and started again, how does this affect bandwidth?
In other words, we now know that once the file is requested, the bandwidth is automatically deducted before any data is sent, but what if the user pauses the video for a minute or two, then unpauses? This would inherently create another request for the file from OpenDrive (if the media player does not continue the download of the stream in the background), so would this then deduct more of the available bandwidth from the account? If so, you could attribute streaming a video as a virus to the account, depleating resources.
This would also relate to the direct download link, where a user may pause the download - then resume it at a later time.
Bump. I know it's the holidays, but still...
Agreed. One of the biggest reasons I signed up for this service was because of the bandwidth availablity. I've adjusted my own files so this is no longer an issue for me personally (which it never was suppose to be anyway, with 25GB a day) - but regardless, this is still an unsolved issue as far as my secondary questions go, needing answers and worth looking into.
It could be easily tested, but why waste the time when the "support" team should be able to answer it.
Hi All,
We will try to add this function to our roadmap. Currently, we can only track when the files are downloaded -- it would take significantly more resources to be able to track partial downloads because we are moving off of using the SQL database to track downloads to using another options which monitors each piece of data sent from the server and would then have to connect it to each account.
However, if there is enough demand we would certainly make it a possibility. If you are experiencing extreme loss of bandwidth (from partial downloads) please contact support so we can resolve the issue for you.
TRY to add this function...???! Wow. You are saying you will only CONSIDER fixing this issue? I guess I'll be looking for an alternative to your service then. I'm only using the free account options, but I AM carrying the banner link, thus, advertising for your apparently questionable services. Anyone who is actually paying for BW that you don't bother to track with any kind of legitimacy is being flat-out ROBBED. You all need to reconsider the priority of this issue, because if more of your paying customers come to understand that you're essentially picking their pockets every time someone THINKS about DL'ing or streaming, you're going to be losing a crapload of business, I have absolutely no doubt.
Sanjata,
We will absolutely be looking to fix this issue. Just to clarify, we are looking at adding new features to better track bandwidth. As mentioned, it is difficult to track the exact amount that is downloaded without complex software -- but we're working on improvements.
If you are having any serious bandwidth issues, we'd be more than happy to take a look at your account and fix any issues or provide a solution reasonable for you.
Hi,
I am also thinking about this issue.
For example, say some one downloaded a file sized 100MB by a download manager/accelerator (IDM/FDM/DAP etc..). And the download manager split the file in to 8 parts (this is the way download manager works to achieve higher speeds) , then that download cost me 800MB in my bandwidth.
I've personally tested this.
just an idea : bandwidth counting methods are implemented in web hosting servers (cpanel) doing the job accurately.
https://www.bbb.org/consumer-complaints/file-a-complaint/get-started
Without bandwidth tracking, this is utterly useless for our business