.7z mod files invalid

[LordButtersI]

Some mods, particularly small ones, work just fine. However, more often, and almost universally with very large mods, NMM will fail to download a given file, getting a random percentage through it before giving up. When downloading manually, the file appears to download fine. However, NMM refuses to add it, saying the archive is invalid.

 

The most perplexing problem, however, is the fact that these files will not open even with 7-Zip. The problem is NOT with NMM, it is with the archives themselves. I can't understand how this might be. I'm on Windows 7 Ultimate using Aurora (firefox).

 

What's more, just now I attempted to download Moonpath to Elswyr, opening it with 7-Zip automatically, and this error message was my result:

 

Unexpected end of archive

[Rar] 
C:\Users\Horus\AppData\Local\Temp\moonpath_to_Elsweyr_93_BETA-9782-9-3.rar

 

What could be causing this? I'm completely stumped, if it weren't for this site's sheer popularity I would call it an error server-side.

 

Update: Google Chrome just produced an identical error, stopping long before the download was complete and throwing up the exact same error when I attempted to open the file. It's not the browser.

Edited September 30, 2012 by LordButtersI

[OakRain]

I think you need to clear the failed downloads from the archive that NMM creates at;

 

C:/Program Files/Games/Nexus Mod Manager/Skyrim/Mods (exact location will vary depending upon where Steam is installed.

 

When you open the Mods folder you should see everything that NMM has downloaded.Delete the file you are having issues with and try to download again.

 

I am no expert with this so I may be wrong.I have not had 7zip fail at opening anything so don't know what to suggest there.

[DrakeTheDragon]

Hmm, it isn't NMM, as it happens when downloading manually as well.

It isn't the .7z file type, as it happened with your RAR, too.

It isn't the Nexus sites or servers exclusively, as lately it also happened with MediaFire and... 4Shared, was it?

It isn't the browser either, as it happened with just about every browser I know by now.

I'm hesitant to say it's the way of connecting to the internet (bad connection, dial-up, etc.), as it's far too rarely happening with other sites or other people.

It is different from user to user, as I've read a lot of complaints by now, yet I myself never encountered any such issues with any servers in several months, nor could I ever replicate the issues with uploads of mine reported to me.

 

This is about the most mysterious issue I heard of so far, as we're slowly running out of possible causes already by now.

What makes a download abort but not tell so? Is there some weird browser plugin around I missed because I'm disallowed to update FF from v5 by work order? But it doesn't happen with the up-to-date version of FireFox from my Windows virtual machine either.

 

We can only hope the download process redesign currently in progress will fix it at least for the Nexus servers once it's completed. Though there'll still remain other websites affected as well then.

[acidzebra]

Sounds like in all cases the download was aborted/broken off (server-side) before it could complete. I had the same issue several times. NMM works fine for small mods in my experience, but will often time out on large ones. Browser downloads are more reliable in general, but sometimes a break in connectivity somewhere between you and the server, or a server overload issue, or really whatever can cause this. The most reliable solution is to clear your browser cache, wait a few hours, and try again.

 

Remember, it's the internet. There's your machine, there's the server, and there are a bunch of intermediary networks you have no clue about in between all tied together with BGP. While TCP is generally pretty good at recovering from short breaks, it may just time out at longer ones, leaving you with a corrupt archive. That other people can't reproduce the error is only natural, they may be in a different geographical area with a different ISP with different links leading back to the download server. Testing with different browsers (which by default happens in sequence, so after a download failed you grab a different browser and try again) may lead you down a red herring path, because if the download completes you may conclude it is the browser while in reality it was the path to the server being fixed up or the server load going down enough.

 

Anyway, my 2 cents: I've had this sometimes, clearing browser cache and trying again later has always sorted it.

Edited October 1, 2012 by acidzebra

[steve40]

The "Unexpected end of archive" error means that the download was incomplete and you were left with a broken file. It's usually the result of internet congestion or slow download speed. Redownload the file.

[NODIRASTA]

lol me too have this problem and i download mod maby 10 maby 20 times and it dont work