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Basic question, how do I resume interrupted / failed downloads in Firefox?

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3 Answers 3

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I learned how to do it in this tutorial.

When you download a file using Firefox, it creates two files: one is named as the downloaded file and remains empty until the download finishes; the other is a .part file, which receives the downloaded content.

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So, let's say your internet connection failed and the download was interrupted.

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If you look in the folder though, the .part file is still there.

EDIT: Don't attempt a retry unless you are sure the server supports it, otherwise it might restart your download from the beginning, losing all the progress.

To resume, do the following: call the same download again, but in another folder, say a subfolder called "resume". Firefox will generate a new .part file automatically, which will start empty just like before. Pause this download and move your previous .part into the new folder and overwrite the existing one. Then resume the download.

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    Are there that many servers nowadays that do not support resume?
    – YetAnotherRandomUser
    Commented Sep 15, 2016 at 13:08
  • @allanonmage Don't know. The server I was downloading from at the time (data for research) required a login on another domain. Everytime the connection was restarted (happens every once in a while in University) I had to do the steps I described in the answer. Now it doesn't seem to happen anymore, restarting works fine.
    – Firebug
    Commented Sep 15, 2016 at 13:27
  • Still valid for firefox on android 6. having trouble using VPN, this helped
    – tomasb
    Commented Jul 1, 2018 at 15:56
  • what if i just cut paste the two files to another folder, look again for the same download, pause and move back overwrite the files and then resume?
    – Yannis Dran
    Commented Oct 10, 2018 at 10:00
  • still valid on Firefox ESR 60
    – dns
    Commented Apr 4, 2019 at 20:25
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Resuming HTTP downloads depends on the capability of the server. If the server supports partial requests, it will advertise this with a response header called "Accept-Ranges", which indicates the client can ask it for a part of a file by adding a request header called "Range". This is what is needed in order to resume downloads, otherwise the client can only start again.

So, in short it depends on the server whether you can resume or not. Most modern servers support it, but some cases it's difficult, e.g. for script-generated content.

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As long as the file is still in your download history, recent versions of Firefox have a "Retry" button nxt to the file in the download manager.

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    That might might restart the download though, instead of resuming it, depending on the server's configuration.
    – Firebug
    Commented Jul 20, 2016 at 12:45

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