Re: LYNX-DEV unworkable ftp URLs

[Mark Mentovai]

On Sun, 25 Jan 1998 address@hidden wrote:

> I have had no success downloading certain files with the extention .mp3,
> which files are referenced by URLs similar in form to the following:
> ftp://mp3:address@hidden/humorous/(unknown_-12_pains_of_christmas.mp3
> 
> The result of an attempt is normally that Lynx will give the "making FTP
> request" message and wait for a very long time before giving the "unable
> to access document" message.  This inability effects both the UNIX
> version and the DOS version, which I have configured to use a proxy and
> which proxy times out with a "network socket" error.  I cannot reach these
> URLS using NCFTP either.  Neither Lynx nor Ncftp indicates the URL or file
> cannot be found.  Does anyone have any ideas as to whether the URLs, as
> they arrear on the status line, are accurate or should be edited in some
> way to get te other side to start sending?

Bill-

You are trying to download MPEG audio files - a medium for encoding music
with high quality in little space.  Because of this technical advancement,
these files became "ideal" for distributing "pirated" music.  (Don't
worry, I won't yell at you.)  That, in turn, has lead to an increased
demand among certain groups for these files (because they contain music,
and they're free.)  And that has led to a problem: it's often hard to get
such files even if you know of their location because they are usually
supported on servers running out of dorm rooms with limited bandwidth or
on people's PCs where they need to have at least SOME processor time for
themselves.  And, if you see where I'm going with this, that has led to
problems for people that want to get these kinds of files off of these
servers.

So, in short, it's not a bug, it's just a necessary consequence of this
type of media.

Lynx, a web browser, wasn't intended for trying to get files that are
located on FTP servers that constantly reject connections.  FTP clients,
on the other hand, have some nifty features which can let you try and
"break in" to FTP servers by redialing really quickly.  For this, I
reccommend ncftp (on Unix) - you can get the source to the latest version 
at ftp.ncftp.com.  Use ncftp's host-bookmarking features to set the
username and password, and then do something like 'open -r -d 5 host' -
that will wait five seconds between each retry and it won't give up until
it gets in.

By the way, the artist for the file in question is the Bob Rivers Comedy
Group.

-Mox

--
Mark Mentovai
address@hidden
http://www.moxienet.com/