Why would a .azw3 file work when side-loading but not when downloading?

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by lumpynose

But it's in the equation when it's doing the download. My point was that it may not be correctly downloading the file; it could be mangling it during the download, or creating an empty file, etc.

And I mentioned that earlier (incomplete/broken downloads).

Generally not an issue with a good wifi connection. I've even downloaded 10-15MB files. I think there's a time out, though. Also, no retry/resume if the pipe gets disconnected during transfer. I know it's pretty much impossible to download those large files when I'm just connected to my smartphone's hotspot.

I expect the "experimental browser" is pretty much what's used by the on-device Kindle Store as well. It's very basic but it's not gonna screw up a simple HTTP GET without a reason (typically wifi-related).

[jdunning]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

I expect the "experimental browser" is pretty much what's used by the on-device Kindle Store as well. It's very basic but it's not gonna screw up a simple HTTP GET without a reason (typically wifi-related).

Indeed, there's a directory on the Kindle that contains a cached version of the store's front page at /.active_content_sandbox/store/resource. Loading that into Chrome shows the main page of the store. I assume the rest of the store is also displayed via the browser.

[jdunning]

Originally Posted by jhowell

You state that you see the file on the Kindle. Have you done a file compare to make sure that it downloaded correctly?

Good call. I diffed the files and found all the carriage returns in the original file had been replaced with newlines. But that wasn't the fault of the Kindle browser. I was using a web interface to upload this particular file to my ftp server, while the other ones that worked had been uploaded via an ftp app. Turns out, this web UI was changing the file as it was uploaded, which is bizarre, since it's a binary file. Downloading the file via Chrome shows the same character swaps.

Bottom line: .azw3 files work fine when downloaded via the Kindle browser. Just make sure you upload them correctly.