Why might my progress bar not keep up with the actual progress of my download?

Say I'm downloading a 700MB file. My progress bar says the download is 2% done, but when I look at the actual file size in my Library window or in Explorer, it'll be 718MB, and will even have a time in the duration column (in Explorer). By all accounts, it's done downloading, but Limewire doesn't seem to realize it, and it won't actually wrap up the file so that it will play right until the progress bar says the download is done. So I have to keep it downloading for hours (even days), instead of minutes!

HELP!!! This keeps happening!!!

Rachael

Depends on file & filetype. Sometimes some filetypes reserve the space on the hard disk drive not long after you start downloading the file. Also, keep in mind LW does not download files in sequential order. It will download part of the beginning, part of the middle, part of the end, so ... this start & end portion of the file information is sent to the system which reserves it knowing the size of the file. As the file is downloading, it simply fills in the gaps.

With a program like Phex, you can actually specify to Phex whether to download the easiest found parts or rarer parts first if there are multiple hosts.

I have several incomplete files less than 5% downloaded which take up over 700 MB of disk space.