the forums at degreez.net

Currently using the experimental 5.8.11 client and have had no previous problems with starting a download in the past. Recently when I try to start a download from torrentz (after logging on), then clicking download, all I get is a screen of garbage. However with Suprnova all is well, is this a problem with torrentz.com or a client issue? Also I tried a clean reinstall of the client. Please help torrentz is so vast that I would hate to miss out on such nice appz. Unfortunately torrentz does not allow you to save link target.

That sounds like a mime type problem with the site itself and can be fixed by contacting the webmaster of the site and informing them them about the problem in the non-IE browser you are using (most likely mozilla or firefox) and hoping they even care to test the problem and fix it. Their site is saying the .torrent file downloads are "text/plain" when it really should be "application/x-bittorrent" and Mozilla/Firefox interprets it as a text file and as a result shows it within the browser window like it would for text files.

Click back to the source page, right-click the torrent, select "save target as", then double-click the .torrent file you download.

www.torrentz.com is the site I think the original poster was talking about. There is no link there to any torrent to actually right-click. They have a download button you click to download a torrent, but the mime-type the site responds with is text/plain and Mozilla/Firefox displays it within the browser window. What might work there is to leave the browser open with the gibberish then do File -> Save as and give it a filename with a .torrent extension and then double-click that torrent file you saved.

ah nevermind. There is a download link you can right click on the main page or in the different sections, but not when you actually click the titles of torrents to see the torrent's info. Also, when right-clicking and saving the torrents via their download link you have to give the file a ".torrent" extension.

Here is what worked for me: After right clicking the arrow the file saved was similiar to "download_xxxx", I saved it any way. Then when opening the file I chose to open with my BT client and off it went, cool. As I mentioned previously I have had no prior problems with Mozilla saving the *.torrent file as such and my mime's seem to be in order, but why is the way I download different? Has something changed with Torrentz.com?

It is not a problem with the way you are downloading. The problem with the torrents showing in the web browser instead of showing a download dialog is a site problem.

http://devedge.netscape.com/viewsource/2003/mime-types/
Explains what mime types are.

http://www.mozilla.org/docs/web-develop ... types.html
Explains how mime types are interpreted in Mozilla which differs to how Internet Explorer interprets them.

www.torrentz.com improperly assigns torrent files a mime type of "text/plain" and Mozilla properly handles "text/plain" by displaying it within the web browser. On the web, extensions don't determine how content is handled since content can have ANY extension. It is the mime type the server sends that tells how the content should be handled by your web browser.

Fixing mime types on many web sites is a one liner of:


in their .htaccess file or setting the mime type of *.torrent files to "application/x-bittorrent" if done through some other method in a web server.