Okay so, I've never posted on the forums before, but here it goes..

I've been using ShareCG sparsely off and on for the past three years or so and for that entire time I've experienced a ridiculous amount of difficulty in obtaining downloads from the ShareCG servers. I do have a dialup internet connection because I live in the mountains where broadband is not easily accessible to people, however, 3D rendering is a favorite hobby of mine and I usually get by just fine with download managers for larger files on other sites.

 Yet, ShareCG seems to block download managers from accessing download links outright. (I use FDM (Free Download Manager) which forces me to attempt downloading the file the old fashioned way through my browser (Firefox) this would be okay for the smaller files, I should be able to get files around 19/20 MB or more with stability using no download manager whatsoever but on ShareCG even a small 2mb download behaves erratically for me with random disconnections that corrupt the download, leaving it incomplete and causing me to just keep trying to download it over and over until my luck changes.

A year or so ago I did some researching on why ShareCG doesn't work with download managers and why the downloads themselves end up inevitably cutting off incomplete, and I read somewhere that there is a time limit imposed, where even if you have a stable connection to the server with no random disconnects, you only have around 45 minutes or so to obtain any one file.

This is obviously a decision made in bias toward the vast majority of users with modern internet connections, leaving those like me who still must rely on Dialup out in the cold. To me, this is simply unacceptable. There ARE still people who use dialup in 2014 and they should still be considered valid members of the community, so why can't the site be reconfigured or updated to be friendly to narrowband users as well? At the very least, we should be able to use our download managers to obtain any file by being able to resume a download at our convenience and eventually have a complete, finished file.

ShareCG is one of the biggest 3D resource communities available, and it has countless fabulous free offerings from great artists, so it really is a slap in the face to some that we can't obtain any of these resources simply because we don't have broadband connections.

Regards, Ultraborg

Yep! I use Internet Download Manager from Tonec because it has a nice clean interface and works with all the browsers and tells you whether or not a site supports resume which, OFCOURSE, Sharecg DOES NOT! I guess it is the same mentality as timing you out - I get cut at 30 minutes! Makes no sense to screw people over and limit their time to get a file when you can have them get it the first time and have it done and over with it instead of having them try over and over and over again to get the same dam file!  Why bother going out of your way to have people find you site only to piss them off!  I will end up getting my sh1t from other sites and avoid ShareCQ as best I can!

It doesn't seem as if anybody from ShareCG has even looked at this thread, so I'd suggest that you use the 'Contact Us' link (near the bottom right of every page) - that way you know somebody at ShareCG will see it. (Yes, I agree that somebody at ShareCG should also be monitoring this forum, but if they're not then what else can you do!   ;o)

Don't forget to include a link back to this thread.

I've found that polite persistence often works...

Cheers, and good luck!

Pete

Yes, please support resumed downloads. In South Africa we have nominal broadband, but it isn't worthy of the name. I really struggle with downloading from ShareCG because the downloads are often broken. I also use Free Download Manager, but have to bypass the resume feature to download from ShareCG.

Yes, it is a real shame that download resume is not supported.  This is 2015 (going on 2016) and download resume has been around for well over a decade (maybe two decades). Most sites that host files to download are smart enough to have download resume.

This feature is not purely for user convenience. It's a no-brainer for most sites because it saves them money.  They have to pay for bandwidth. And how much bandwidth gets wasted when users repeatedly try to re-download the same large files over and over again until it finally succeeds?

BTW: This issue does not just concern dial-up users. This is a big problem for anyone with a slow connection, including low-end DSL / broadband (like I'm stuck with).

We understand the needs of our members and we are aware of this request from the few customers that have dail-up or very slow connection. Th "dail-up" comunity is relative small, and we are working on other part of the app that will benefit all of our members.

Nitai Fraenkel

ShareCG Team

Its not only dial up members that are affected, I have broadband and have a 80% fail rate downloading from here

Our cable broadband provider shuffles routing --My UK 'location' keeps changing !!-- perhaps to deter 'private' users running servers, BitTorrent etc. If I'm down-loading a big Poser file when this happens, the down-load fails.

Okay, I've only lost a few minutes, but I still remember my dial-up days, setting my alarm for ~0430 when the wwweb was quiet. And, yes, having an hour-long down-load crash at ~92% with the baud-rate dropping to a trickle as the wwweb awoke....

IIRC, one solution could be to allocate some server resource, perhaps a speed-restricted 'buffer' with a longer time-out, to serve designated dial-up users. Could you set up a poll to determine how many people need this facility ?