Flashgot Cookie Issue ?

[robsee]

Hi,

I'm having a problem downloading from rapidshare. I have a premium account, and I'm logged in. I'm running on Windows (tested on Win 7 and Win 2k8) with Flashgot 1.2. I've run into the problem with multiple download managers (NetTransport being the latest, but also FDM.) I will select a group of files to download, choose Flashgot selection, and they will get added.) Some percentage of the files will usually end up as the 13.5 KB you need to login html file. If I repeat the action for those files, (select them as a group, and Flashgot selection again, they will successfully download.) The specific example tonight was I selected a group of 30 files, and only 12 of them ended up downloading successfully. I looked at the download log for NetTransport, and only the first 12 had the cookie parameter listed, the rest didn't. I've switched download managers a couple times to try and get around this problem, but it continues to happen for me, so I have to ask if the problem is actually to do with Flashgot, and not the download managers. All I see in the Flashgot log is the following:
Sorting again 30 links
Preprocessing done in ms98
Starting dispatch
Running C:\Users\xxxxxx\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxx.default\FlashGot.exe C:\Users\rob\AppData\Local\Temp\flashgot.xxxxxx.default\flashgot.fgt -- async
Dispatch done in ms105

Do you have any suggestions ?

Thanks,
-Rob

[Giorgio Maone]

Yes, have you got cookies disabled in Internet Explorer, or an old Rapidshare account which you used on IE but is expired?
Either way, try to clean and enable IE's cookies, because they're used as a temporary bridge for passing info to the download manager, which doesn't support Firefox's cookies.

[robsee]

Hi,

One of my test machines is brand new, and I have only ever used IE to go and download Firefox. Does that explain why the cookie would only get transferred for some of the group of files ?

Thanks,
-Rob

[Giorgio Maone]

One of my test machines is brand new, and I have only ever used IE to go and download Firefox. Does that explain why the cookie would only get transferred for some of the group of files ?

Quite the contrary, actually. A "virgin" IE should work just fine for this purpose.
I've used Orbit Downloader for ages with Rapidshare with no problem whatsoever. Could you try with it?

[robsee]

I've tried Orbit, and I know I didn't like it for one reason or another, but I think it worked OK. Do all of the Download managers on windows go through IE ? Do you have a list of which ones work directly ?

-Rob

[robsee]

Also to add to it, I've run into this problem downloading using a hotfile premium account as well... It works fine for some of the files in the group that I select, but not others. Is there any way to turn on more detailed logging in Flashgot ?

-Rob

[robsee]

So after some additional checking, I think I see what the problem is....
I went into the Temporary internet files directory to look at the cookies... It appears that they are set to expire an hour after the download is flashgotten. My current guess is that the download managers that I'm having problems with don't actually look at the cookies until they are ready to start the download. If the download is started more than an hour after the link is flashgotten, then it fails (13.5k file). Perhaps Orbit sucks the cookie in at the time the download is added, which is why it works.

Would a workaround be for me to login to these sites from IE directly ?

Thanks,
-Rob

[Giorgio Maone]

Please try to set the following about:config preferences:

• flashgot.dmsopts.Net_Transport.cookiePersistence = 24
• flashgot.dmsopts.Net_Transport_2.cookiePersistence = 24
• flashgot.dmsopts.Free_Download_Manager.cookiePersistence = 24

They should extend to 24 hours the cookie lifespan for those download managers.

[robsee]

You don't do anything to clean up previous cookies do you ? I added the config options, and added some files. The new cookies showed a 24 hour life time. I then added a second batch of files, and then the first set of cookies disappeared.

-Rob

[Giorgio Maone]

You don't do anything to clean up previous cookies do you ?

No I don't.
Have you got any antispyware software which may fiddle with your IE cookies?

[therube]

(While we're talking about cookies ... NirSoft

MozillaCookiesView: Cookies Manager For Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape Browsers

IECookiesView)

[robsee]

The only anti-virus/firewall software I have installed is comodo, which as far as I can tell, doesn't do anything with cookies. Things are still not working right, so it doesn't look like it is related to the cookie expire time. I just did some additional checking, and it looks like the files start failing when you add more than 50 to download. It seems that something somewhere has a limit of 50 cookies. No matter how many rapidshare files I add, there are only 50 rapidshare cookies in the Temp Internet Files directory.

[robsee]

And here is the answer:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941495

[runtime error]

I remember having a similar problem with FlashGot + FlashGet combo. I never investigated it because FlashGet was not my main downlad manager. I only tried FlashGet to see if its scheduler worked properly as opposed to Orbit scheduler's random behaviour. And this exact problem was why I disregarded FlashGet. But I can tell you I never had this problem with Orbit. Now, i don't know if you mean that it fails with a single 50+ links FlashGot Selection or several FlashGot Selections adding to 50+ links. In my experience, having a download list of several hundred links works as expected with Orbit. I can't swear that I had a 50+ link single FlashGot Selection but I'm pretty sure I did. But (a bit off topic), I would like to read Giorgio's opinion of cookie "aggregation" issue I had here.

Regards

[robsee]

This is a complete guess, but I believe that this works correctly in Orbit because Orbit sucks the cookie in when the file is added. It seems that many of the other download managers don't actually use the cookies until the download starts.