Title: Support for HTTP “range” requests Last modified: October 9, 2019 --- # Support for HTTP “range” requests * Resolved [cconstantine](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cconstantine/) * (@cconstantine) * [6 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/support-for-http-range-requests/) * I’m trying to troubleshoot a problem reported with the Google Podcasts player on Android. (I’ve one reporting user and I cannot personally reproduce the problem.) In the process, I went down a rabbit hole looking into HTTP range requests. * I’m wondering: If the the SSP plugin is serving the MP3 audio files via PHP ( which would require the PHP code to implement supporting range requests) or if, after a redirection from the stats-collection URL, it let’s my web server (Apache) just send out the static file (in which case Apache itself handles range requests.) * Thoughts? * The page I need help with: _[[log in](https://login.wordpress.org/?redirect_to=https%3A%2F%2Fwordpress.org%2Fsupport%2Ftopic%2Fsupport-for-http-range-requests%2F%3Foutput_format%3Dmd&locale=en_US) to see the link]_ Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total) * Plugin Contributor [Jonathan Bossenger](https://wordpress.org/support/users/psykro/) * (@psykro) * [6 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/support-for-http-range-requests/#post-12021044) * [@cconstantine](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cconstantine/) thanks for getting in touch. * Do you perhaps have a URL describing HTTP range requests and how they relate to serving files behind the PHP redirect, so that I can understand how it could be causing the problem? From the cursory review I’ve done, it would appear we should update the plugin to support range requests, would you agree? * Regards * Thread Starter [cconstantine](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cconstantine/) * (@cconstantine) * [6 years, 8 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/support-for-http-range-requests/#post-12021084) * …I _think_ it’s not actually a problem, but I wanted to doublecheck my analysis with someone familiar with the code. * For range requests, it’s [RFC7233]([https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7233](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7233))— but before even bother looking at that. I think the answer is that SSP doesn’t handle the serving of the audio file via PHP, but rather leaves that to the underlying web server. (In my case, that’s Apache, which handles range requests of static assets.) * Straight from my RSS feed, I have (for example) `` and if I fetch that URL, I get SSP doing a redirection. Here I’m asking Curl to get me a range of bytes: * ``` Craigs-iMac:~ craig$ curl -I --range 500-600 https://moversmindset.com/podcast-download/4734/062-chris-and-shirley-darlington-rowat-serendipity-family-and-relationships.mp3 HTTP/1.1 302 Found Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 14:55:48 GMT Server: Apache Pragma: no-cache Expires: 0 Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0 Robots: none X-Redirect-By: WordPress Set-Cookie: PHPSESSID=6576b49ab4d78ab7628bb05a727805dd; path=/ Location: https://moversmindset.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MM_62_Chris_and_Shirley.mp3 Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 ``` * …gives me a standard redirection. As expected since SSP wants to track statistics. That new location is a direct-link into the WP assets storage. When I Curl that, making a range request again, it works perfectly. (Apache is happy to give 101 bytes.) Below is both the headers-only (-I in Curl) and full fetch…. * ``` Craigs-iMac:~ craig$ curl -I --range 500-600 https://moversmindset.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MM_62_Chris_and_Shirley.mp3 HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content Date: Fri, 11 Oct 2019 14:58:33 GMT Server: Apache Last-Modified: Sun, 06 Oct 2019 14:51:01 GMT Accept-Ranges: bytes Content-Length: 101 Vary: Accept-Encoding Content-Range: bytes 500-600/29493071 Content-Type: audio/mpeg Craigs-iMac:~ craig$ curl --range 500-600 https://moversmindset.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/MM_62_Chris_and_Shirley.mp3 > ./foo % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed 100 101 100 101 0 0 389 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 388 Craigs-iMac:~ craig$ ls -alh ./foo -rw-r--r-- 1 craig staff 101B Oct 11 10:58 ./foo ``` * So I think the answer is SSP doesn’t _interfere_ with HTTP range requests. And that means the problem I’m trying to solve can’t be caused by my site not correctly answering range requests. * Thread Starter [cconstantine](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cconstantine/) * (@cconstantine) * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/support-for-http-range-requests/#post-12039025) * Further digging revealed that our Apache server was [mis]configured to apply the DEFLATE module (aka gzip) to media files. Turns out that **content-encoding**( not to be confused with transfer-encoding) is not compatible with range HTTP requests. * [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33947562/is-it-possible-to-send-http-response-using-gzip-and-byte-ranges-at-the-same-time](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/33947562/is-it-possible-to-send-http-response-using-gzip-and-byte-ranges-at-the-same-time) * Plugin Contributor [Jonathan Bossenger](https://wordpress.org/support/users/psykro/) * (@psykro) * [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/support-for-http-range-requests/#post-12040571) * [@cconstantine](https://wordpress.org/support/users/cconstantine/) thanks for the update. I’ll see if we can get this added to our support documents. Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total) The topic ‘Support for HTTP “range” requests’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://ps.w.org/seriously-simple-podcasting/assets/icon-256x256.png?rev= 970355) * [Seriously Simple Podcasting](https://wordpress.org/plugins/seriously-simple-podcasting/) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seriously-simple-podcasting/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seriously-simple-podcasting/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seriously-simple-podcasting/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/seriously-simple-podcasting/reviews/) * 4 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [Jonathan Bossenger](https://wordpress.org/support/users/psykro/) * Last activity: [6 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/support-for-http-range-requests/#post-12040571) * Status: resolved