Ruby on Rails' send_file takes forever for download dialog box to display

Question

So I have a ~40MB .wav file that users are downloading with the click of a button. The markup looks like this:

            <div class="row">
                <div class="col-md-6">
                    <%= link_to "Download Single", download_song_path, class: "btn btn-default btn-custom" %>
                </div>
                <div class="col-md-6">
                    <%= link_to "Download Artwork", download_artwork_path, class: "btn btn-default btn-custom" %>
                </div>
            </div>

And the controller is this:

class WelcomeController < ApplicationController
    def index
    end

  def download_song
    send_file "#{Rails.root}/public/white-flame.wav", :x_sendfile => true, :type=>"audio/wav", :filename => "white-flame.wav"
  end

  def download_artwork
    send_file "#{Rails.root}/public/white-flame-artwork.jpg", :x_sendfile => true, :type=>"image/jpg", :filename => "white-flame.jpg"
  end
end

The artwork download works fine, it's only a ~2MB file, but the .wav file literally takes 20 seconds or so just for the download dialog to display. What's the issue? I just want the user to be able to click "Download" and it download.

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 15 '13 at 04:08

0

The files are public, and there is no obvious logic in the controller which requires its use... Why not link directly to the file, so the webserver can handle it, instead of taking a round trip through rails, like so?

        <div class="row">
            <div class="col-md-6">
                <%= link_to "Download Single", 'white-flame.wav', class: "btn btn-default btn-custom" %>
            </div>
            <div class="col-md-6">
                <%= link_to "Download Artwork", 'white-flame-artwork.jpg', class: "btn btn-default btn-custom" %>
            </div>
        </div>

answered Nov 15 '13 at 04:08

Brad Werth

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This just starts playing the track or shows the image, it doesn't prompt for download. – trevorhinesley Nov 15 '13 at 04:12
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3977159/set-content-disposition-header-to-attachment-only-on-files-in-a-certain-director – Brad Werth Nov 15 '13 at 04:59
How do I set this on heroku then? – trevorhinesley Nov 15 '13 at 14:01
I haven't personally used a custom htaccess file with Heroku, but it does seem to be supported... – Brad Werth Nov 15 '13 at 14:53

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 15 '13 at 04:24

0

You have to configure your server to set their type as application/octet-stream or the browser will try to handle it.

I'm not sure about your x_sendfile code, so you should try it without that first.

Have you checked your application logs? log/development.log contains useful information.

Also try using redirect_to the resource instead.

answered Nov 15 '13 at 04:24

tadman

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This is hosted on Heroku, is there a way to set that up on there? – trevorhinesley Nov 15 '13 at 04:27
Try doing this: `send_file("...", type: 'application/octet-stream')` – tadman Nov 15 '13 at 04:32
:( Nope same issue, takes forever for download box to open (like 30 seconds to a minute) – trevorhinesley Nov 15 '13 at 04:41

Ruby on Rails' send_file takes forever for download dialog box to display

2 Answers2