wget not downloading ExcelViewer.exe

[penalvch]

Binary package hint: wget

WORKAROUND: Drop the hyperlink into Firefox.

1) lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu natty (development branch)
Release: 11.04

2) apt-cache policy wget
wget:
  Installed: 1.12-2.1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1.12-2.1ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 1.12-2.1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

apt-cache policy firefox
firefox:
  Installed: 4.0~b10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu2
  Candidate: 4.0~b10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu2
  Version table:
 *** 4.0~b10+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

3) What is expected to happen is when tries to download the following at the Terminal:

wget http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2fa%2f9%2fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2fExcelViewer.exe

it downloads ExcelViewer.exe successfully.

4) What happens instead is a file named info.aspx?na=41 is downloaded. One may drop the above hyperlink into Firefox and ExcelViewer.exe downloads successfully.

wget http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2fa%2f9%2fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2fExcelViewer.exe
[1] 11872
[2] 11873
[3] 11874
penalvch@penalvchvm:~/Desktop$ --2011-02-07 00:52:26-- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41
Resolving www.microsoft.com... 65.55.12.249
Connecting to www.microsoft.com|65.55.12.249|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: /downloads/Search.aspx?displaylang= [following]
--2011-02-07 00:52:26-- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Search.aspx?displaylang=
Reusing existing connection to www.microsoft.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 302 Found
Location: /downloads/Search.aspx?displaylang=en [following]
--2011-02-07 00:52:26-- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Search.aspx?displaylang=en
Reusing existing connection to www.microsoft.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 301 Moved Permanently
Location: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx [following]
--2011-02-07 00:52:26-- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/default.aspx
Reusing existing connection to www.microsoft.com:80.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 46643 (46K) [text/html]
Saving to: `info.aspx?na=41'

100%[======================================>] 46,643 96.4K/s in 0.5s

2011-02-07 00:52:27 (96.4 KB/s) - `info.aspx?na=41' saved [46643/46643]

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: wget 1.12-2.1ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-1.28-generic 2.6.38-rc2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-1-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Feb 7 00:40:19 2011
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha i386 (20110202)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 LC_MESSAGES=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: wget

[Micah Gersten (micahg)]

Thank you for reporting this to Ubuntu. This is by design. Please see http://www.ubuntu.com/usn/usn-982-1 for more information. Please report any other issues you may find.

[penalvch (penalvch)]

wget --trust-server-names http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2fa%2f9%2fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2fExcelViewer.exe
[1] 11894
[2] 11895
[3] 11896
penalvch@penalvchvm:~/Desktop$ --2011-02-07 01:20:22-- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41
Resolving www.microsoft.com... 207.46.131.43
Connecting to www.microsoft.com|207.46.131.43|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Saving to: `info.aspx?na=41.1'

    [ <=> ] 415 --.-K/s in 0s

2011-02-07 01:20:22 (1.60 MB/s) - `info.aspx?na=41.1' saved [415]

[Andreas Olsson (andol)]

(Note that if you are going to download url:s including the & character you should encapsulate the url within single quotation marks for the shell not simply to handle the & as a backgrounder.)

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Andreas Olsson:

wget --trust-server-names 'http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2fa%2f9%2fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2fExcelViewer.exe'
--2011-02-07 01:46:55-- http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2fa%2f9%2fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2fExcelViewer.exe
Resolving www.microsoft.com... 207.46.131.43
Connecting to www.microsoft.com|207.46.131.43|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http:%2F%2Fdownload.microsoft.com%2Fdownload%2Fe%2Fa%2F9%2Fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2FExcelViewer.exe: File name too long

Cannot write to `info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http:%2F%2Fdownload.microsoft.com%2Fdownload%2Fe%2Fa%2F9%2Fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2FExcelViewer.exe' (File name too long).

[penalvch (penalvch)]

It seems I may be crashing into the following wall:

http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?21714

[Daniel Manrique (roadmr)]

Hi Christopher,

I tried reproducing this problem:

wget -c "http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2fa%2f9%2fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2fExcelViewer.exe"

then I get a 75-MByte file named:

info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http:%2F%2Fdownload.microsoft.com%2Fdownload%2Fe%2Fa%2F9%2Fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2FExcelViewer.exe

this name is 199 characters long, and wget had no problem writing the file.

On an Ubuntu 11.04 system with ext4 filesystem, the longest possible filename is 255 characters long. To test:

wget http://www.yahoo.com -O "$(python -c 'print "A"*255')" should succeed.
wget http://www.yahoo.com -O "$(python -c 'print "A"*256')" should fail.

I also tested this on an NTFS filesystem, and I was also able to write filenames of up to 255 characters.

It might be that you're trying to write the file to a different filesystem (FAT perhaps) - could you confirm? Also, if you're inclined to do so, you could find out the maximum suported filename length using the technique I describe above, for the filesystem you're using. This might have another limit and that's why you get the "filename too long" error.

Please note that wget lets you specify the output filename, for cases such as this one, and thus the following command should work for you:

wget -c "http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2fa%2f9%2fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2fExcelViewer.exe" -O ExcelViewer.exe

I'll mark this as incomplete awaiting your confirmation of the actual filesystem you're using and/or the filename length for your particular filesystem, once we have that information we could choose what to do (most likely, wait to see what upstream decides).

Thanks!

---
Ubuntu Bug Squad volunteer triager
http://wiki.ubuntu.com/BugSquad

[penalvch (penalvch)]

Daniel Manrique, thank you for following up on this issue. The recommendation you posted worked like a charm:

wget -c "http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/info.aspx?na=41&SrcFamilyId=1CD6ACF9-CE06-4E1C-8DCF-F33F669DBC3A&SrcDisplayLang=en&u=http%3a%2f%2fdownload.microsoft.com%2fdownload%2fe%2fa%2f9%2fea913c8b-51a7-41b7-8697-9f0d0a7274aa%2fExcelViewer.exe" -O ExcelViewer.exe

As well, I was/am using an ext4 filesystem. Despite this, as long as the functionality to download the previously mentioned file is available with the appropriate switches we can chalk this up to this being an education issue and mark this Invalid.