Question

After my hosting provider upgraded server (Debian) and PHP (from 5.2.6 to 5.3.2) I am having problems with my file download script on our website. Files smaller then 100MB will download fine, but file larger then 100MB will download only as 156 Bytes file … Here is my download script:

class Download_Controller extends Website_Controller
{

    public function index()
    {
        if (isset($_GET['file'])) {
          $file     = $_GET['file'];
          $filORM   = ORM::factory('file')->where('filename', $file)->find();

          if ($filORM->loaded and $filORM->deleted=='N' and file_exists(APPPATH.'downloads/'.$file) ) {
            //we can serve file download
            $this->auto_render = false;

            $filORM->counter = $filORM->counter + 1;
            $filORM->save();

            $dl = ORM::factory('download');
            $dl->download_file_id = $filORM->id;
            $dl->created = time();
            $dl->country_id = $this->country->id;
            $dl->ip = $this->_getRealIpAddr();
            $dl->browser = Kohana::user_agent('browser');
            $dl->version = Kohana::user_agent('version');
            $dl->platform = Kohana::user_agent('platform');
            $dl->save();

            return download::force(APPPATH.'downloads/'.$file);
          }
          else {
            $this->download_error();
          }

        }
        else {
            //else here we load download center UI
            $this->section();
        }
    }   
}

I am using Kohana PHP framework. Version 2.3.x.

Answer 1

In the comments, you gave me example links, I tried one, and that 156-byte file I downloaded contained this:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 141637633 bytes) in /home/www-data/system/helpers/download.php on line 93

It’s quite clear – PHP ran out of memory. I presume while upgrading they also changed the memory_limit in php.ini. Short-term solution is to change it back to it’s original (higher) value.

For downloading large files, you should look into mod_xsendfile (also available for servers other than apache), that involves setting a special http header, and leaving the work to the webserver instead of php.