getContentLength() returning -1 on some devices and not others

Question

I\'m trying to obtain the size of a file before I download it. I use conn.getContentLength(); to do this and it works fine on my home computers Android 2.1 Emul

Answer 1

Use HttpVersion.HTTP_1_0 for your file downloads. This prevents the use of "Chunked transfer encoding"

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunked_transfer_encoding

For example, overload the constructor so that you can specify which HTTP version:

public class HTTPrequest
{
    //member variables
    private SchemeRegistry mSchemeRegistry;
    private HttpParams mHttpParams;
    private SingleClientConnManager mSCCmgr;
    private HttpClient mHttpClient;
    private HTTPrequestListener mHTTPrequestListener = null;

    //constants
    private final int TIMEOUT_CONNECTION = 20000;//20sec
    private final int TIMEOUT_SOCKET = 30000;//30sec

    //interface for callbacks
    public interface HTTPrequestListener
    {
        public void downloadProgress(int iPercent);
    }

    /**
     * Creates an HttpClient that uses plain text only.
     * note: Default constructor uses HTTP 1.1
     */
    public HTTPrequest()
    {
        this(HttpVersion.HTTP_1_1);
    }

    /**
     * Creates an HttpClient that uses plain text only.
     * @param httpVersion HTTP Version (0.9, 1.0, 1.1)
     */
    public HTTPrequest(HttpVersion httpVersion)
    {
        //define permitted schemes
        mSchemeRegistry = new SchemeRegistry();
        mSchemeRegistry.register(new Scheme("http", PlainSocketFactory.getSocketFactory(), 80));

        //define http parameters
        mHttpParams = new BasicHttpParams();
        HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(mHttpParams, TIMEOUT_CONNECTION);
        HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(mHttpParams, TIMEOUT_SOCKET);
        HttpProtocolParams.setVersion(mHttpParams, httpVersion);
        HttpProtocolParams.setContentCharset(mHttpParams, HTTP.UTF_8);

        //tie together the schemes and parameters
        mSCCmgr = new SingleClientConnManager(mHttpParams, mSchemeRegistry);

        //generate a new HttpClient using connection manager and parameters
        mHttpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(mSCCmgr, mHttpParams);
    }

    public void setHTTPrequestListener(HTTPrequestListener httpRequestListener)
    {
        mHTTPrequestListener = httpRequestListener;
    }

    //other methods for POST and GET
}

When you want to do a file download use HTTPrequest httpRequest = new HTTPrequest(HttpVersion.HTTP_1_0); and when you want to do a POST or GET use HTTPrequest httpRequest = new HTTPrequest();