"ZIP" file download fails

Question

A recording studio shared a folder with me in their Dropbox account, and I am trying to download it to my hard drive because my free Dropbox account does not have enough space for it. The first issue is that the Chrome progress box shows it downloading completely, but then posts "Failed - Network error" and wipes the download file. The second issue - related, I assume - is that no one has zipped the folder or anything in it, yet Chrome shows that it is downloading a zip file.

Tried this on a Windows 10 laptop and Windows 7 desktop, same result. Both have plenty of space for the 8GB folder. I also tried downloading a subfolder that was 360MB with the same result. There is nothing in Chrome's Download settings that allows you to change anything except the location.

Jay · Answer

Hi @tonyalt, the Dropbox site would zip the files into one file to allow for the download afterwards. There is an upper limit on what the zip feature can handle, which is why my colleague asked how many files there were.

tonyalt · Answer

I think we're going to have to chalk this up to mischief by the Hanukkah goblins, because it suddenly started working. I spoke to the owner of the Dropbox account, he didn't change anything. I didn't change anything. My Internet connection hasn't changed. I didn't reboot. It failed about five times in a row, for the entire set and for individual folders, then I tried one more time and downloaded a folder. After that I downloaded 13 more folders without an issue. I don't know... weird.

To answer your question, there are not a lot of files in the folders, but some of them are wav files, which can be large (300MB+), and others are ProTools files (output of music editing software). Other than that, nothing unusual about it. I still don't get the zip thing. Is Chrome zipping the files in transit and then unzipping them locally? How?

Megan · Answer

Hi @tonyalt, I'd be happy to help!

Do you have a rough idea, as to how many files are in this folder? If I were you, I'd also try to download the folder, using a different browser, so we can rule that one out.

As for the content downloading as a zip folder, that makes sense, depending on the size of the folder, and content too.

Keep me posted on the results!