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Firefox thinks I don't have enough disk space, and cancels the download when it's almost finished.

  • 4 replies
  • 2 have this problem
  • 85 views
  • Last reply by Tuxedocat

Tuxedocat
Tuxedocat
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So recently, I was downloading a pretty huge file for a game (4.5 gigabytes), and it was nearly finished, when an error popped up, saying that there wasn't enough disk space for Firefox to download the file. At the time, I had just enough disk space to download the file (yes, I checked and made sure). The download became unresumable, and I was incredibly irked to find I had to download again, as my download speed is not very good at all. I put it in overnight and made a note of where it stopped, and in the morning, when I checked it, it stopped in the EXACT SAME place, which is at about 4.1/4.5 GBs. I've made a lot more room since then, and I'm downloading it for the third time now. If this happens again, how can I solve this? Thanks. Also, it's a .dat file. I have no idea if that has any bearing on what may cause this, but if anyone knows anything, please let me know.

So recently, I was downloading a pretty huge file for a game (4.5 gigabytes), and it was nearly finished, when an error popped up, saying that there wasn't enough disk space for Firefox to download the file. At the time, I had just enough disk space to download the file (yes, I checked and made sure). The download became unresumable, and I was incredibly irked to find I had to download again, as my download speed is not very good at all. I put it in overnight and made a note of where it stopped, and in the morning, when I checked it, it stopped in the EXACT SAME place, which is at about 4.1/4.5 GBs. I've made a lot more room since then, and I'm downloading it for the third time now. If this happens again, how can I solve this? Thanks. Also, it's a .dat file. I have no idea if that has any bearing on what may cause this, but if anyone knows anything, please let me know.

Chosen solution

hello, please make sure, that you're not saving the file on a volume formatted with a FAT32 file-system, since it cannot store files larger than 4 GBs...

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philipp
philipp
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Chosen Solution

hello, please make sure, that you're not saving the file on a volume formatted with a FAT32 file-system, since it cannot store files larger than 4 GBs...

Tuxedocat
Tuxedocat Question owner
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The file system is a FAT32 Bootcamp Partition, and what baffles me is that I've been able to download and store files that are over 4 GBs before. And while I'm at it, why is it that you say FAT32 file-systems can't store files over 4 GBs? I've never heard of that happening before. Many thanks.

philipp
philipp
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i don't understand the exact technical background but here are 2 sources that talk about this limitation: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc779002%28v=ws.10%29.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAT32#FAT32

Tuxedocat
Tuxedocat Question owner
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I'll look into converting my disk into NTFS, as it's a bootcamp disk, so I don't want to mess anything up. Thanks for letting me know about this limitation though. Now I know what's causing the problem. Once again, thanks :)