Extremely slow uploads

But only PDF files

[MatthewHSE]

For the past few months, I've been having a terrible time uploading PDF files. All other file types appear to go okay, but those PDF's just slow to a crawl, then stall out completely.

I've tried different FTP clients.
I've tried different computers.
I've tried different destination servers.
I've tried different Internet connections.
I've tried different operating systems.
I've tried tweaking as many relevant settings as I can find.

Nothing has worked so far, and I'm out of ideas. What on earth could be going on with this?

Thanks in advance for any ideas,

Matthew

[Wlauzon]

Is it perhaps doing something silly, like doing a virus check on each file?

Though if you tried uploading to different sites, that makes no sense because that is pretty uncommon.

I just tried a timed upload of a large pdf file, and it took about the same amount of time as a similar sized graphics file, but only tried it on one site. I would suspect something odd about the pdf files themselves perhaps.

[edited by: Wlauzon at 4:37 am (utc) on Feb. 7, 2009]

[MatthewHSE]

AV software was one of my first ideas too - I totally uninstalled mine and still couldn't upload the files.

I don't understand how the files themselves could be the problem, but you're the second person to tell me that this evening! ;) So maybe I just need to try generating them with some different settings.

[kaled]

PDF files are typically much larger than html files (and therefore slower to upload). However, I'll assume that's not the issue.

I would try renaming the file to something like myfile.bin and then uploading it. You can rename it again after it's been uploaded.

If that doesn't fix it (and I'm guessing it won't) I would be inclined to think it's a modem problem or an ISP problem (choking on big files).

Have you tried uploading similar-sized files of other types (.jpg for example)?
Have you tried uploading files through the website control panel? (Never tried it myself but I think I've seen it as a feature).
Might you have been blacklisted by your ISP for file-sharing? (naughty son, daughter or employee)

Kaled.

[piatkow]

My first thought was simply throttling at some point in the process but you seem to have covered all the options?

Are these all PDFs created with the same instance of the same software? That seems to be about all there is left.

[MatthewHSE]

I would try renaming the file to something like myfile.bin and then uploading it. You can rename it again after it's been uploaded.

I hadn't thought of trying that, but unfortunately this didn't help either.

If that doesn't fix it (and I'm guessing it won't) I would be inclined to think it's a modem problem or an ISP problem (choking on big files).

I thought of that myself, but I can upload other large files just fine. It's only PDF's that are a problem.

Are these all PDFs created with the same instance of the same software? That seems to be about all there is left.

A lot of fingers are pointing at this very issue. I'll get some other large PDF files and see what happens with them. It seems strange that the files themselves could be the problem (I thought data was just data), but the options are narrowing rapidly.

I'll report back with results, although continued ideas are still welcome in the meantime! :)

[Wlauzon]

Hmm.. check to see if compression is on.

If a file will not compress much, then it will transfer slower than say a text file with lots of spaces etc.