Nginx node.js express download big files stop at 1.08GB

Question

Nginx node.js express download big files stop at 1.08GB

I have this node.js app proxied by Nginx (on production). A route is something like this:

exports.download = function(req, res){

    var id = req.params.id;

    if (id && id == 'latest')
    {
        res.download(config.items.release_directory+'/<1.6GB-file>.zip', function(err){
            if (err) {
                console.log(err);
            } else {
                // do something
            }
        });
    }
    else
    {
        res.redirect(301, '/');
    }

};

So, clicking the right route/URL the browser starts to download the big file but then it stops always at 1.08GB (the file is about 1.6GB), truncating it.

I really cannot understand why. Any ideas?

EDIT: The config.items.release_directory is a static Express directory declared as:

app.use('/releases', express.static(path.join(__dirname, '..', 'releases')));

EDIT2: On development with grunt serving directly the app without Nginx it works fine.

SOLVED: read the comments below, problem is proxy_max_temp_file_size variable in Nginx

javascript
node.js
file
express
nginx

Answer 1

In case of uploading a file while proxying with Nginx, you can set "max body size" inside of you server{} block in Nginx config:

client_max_body_size 0; # disable any limits to avoid HTTP 413

If you are getting HTTP 413, check your Nginx config and either set it to zero or crank it up, accordingly.

Otherwise, I'd try to increase some timeouts, such as these:

send_timeout 600s; # default is 60s; context: http, server, location

proxy_read_timeout 600s; # default is 60s; context: http, server, location
proxy_send_timeout 600s; # default is 60s; context: http, server, location

For more proxy options, checkout Nginx Proxy module documentation (link).