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Re: Large uploads via /get_temporary_upload_link are terminated with '413 Request Entity Too Large'

Large uploads via /get_temporary_upload_link are terminated with '413 Request Entity Too Large'

De L.1
Collaborator | Level 9
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Hi!

I am uploading files via the temporarily upload links generated via the /get_temporary_upload_link call. This all works fine, but the POST upload call to the generated upload link (e.g. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/apitul/1/bNi....)  is terminated for files larger than a certain limit.

 

> POST /apitul/1/bNi.... HTTP/1.1
Host: dl.dropboxusercontent.com
Accept: */*
Content-Length: 536871142
Expect: 100-continue
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=------------------------b315544e35df5ae3

< HTTP/1.1 413 Request Entity Too Large
< Server: nginx
< Date: Tue, 12 Mar 2019 10:10:15 GMT
< Content-Type: text/html
< Content-Length: 25658
< Connection: close
< ETag: "5c816ae0-643a"
< X-Dropbox-Request-Id: 9600532cf40be9d1ae39f8cdd6182848
< X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow, noimageindex
< Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=15552000; includeSubDomains
< 
* Closing connection 0

 

This test-file-200MB works fine but this larger test-file-512MB isn't working. The receiving Dropbox account has enough space available to store the large file.

Are there any uploads limits? If there are limits, is there another way to upload files to upload large files via the API without the need of an authorization token?

I appreciate if anyone can help me out with this issue.

Cheers!

1 Accepted Solution

Accepted Solutions

Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
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Unfortunately, the links returned by get_temporary_upload_link do have a file size limit, as you found. Apologies this isn't better documented! I'll ask the team to clarify this.

There isn't an alternative though, so that does mean that in this case, to upload large files, you'd need to either give the access token to the client to perform the upload session calls client-side (which isn't recommended for untrusted clients, of course), or send all of the data to upload through your server to perform the upload session calls there.

I'll also send this along as a feature request for a 'get_temporary_upload_link'-like version of upload sessions to support uploading large files without direct access to the access token, but I can't promise if or when that would be implemented.

View solution in original post

17 Replies 17

Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
Go to solution

Unfortunately, the links returned by get_temporary_upload_link do have a file size limit, as you found. Apologies this isn't better documented! I'll ask the team to clarify this.

There isn't an alternative though, so that does mean that in this case, to upload large files, you'd need to either give the access token to the client to perform the upload session calls client-side (which isn't recommended for untrusted clients, of course), or send all of the data to upload through your server to perform the upload session calls there.

I'll also send this along as a feature request for a 'get_temporary_upload_link'-like version of upload sessions to support uploading large files without direct access to the access token, but I can't promise if or when that would be implemented.

De L.1
Collaborator | Level 9
Go to solution

Thanks for your quick reply, Greg!

It is indeed disappointing that this link has a file size limit as I basically need the upload possibility without access token for my application. Ofcourse, uploading via the server is possible but that doesn't really make sense for large files as it will take (~)twice as long to upload the files to Dropbox.

I would really appreciate it if Dropbox can support uploading of large files without access token for the upload session itself. Is there a specific reason why you think that this cannot be implemented? The other major APIs like the ones for Google One, OneDrive/Sharepoint and Box do support direct uploads where the initial upload link is obtained in the same way as the get_temporary_upload_link' call.

 

 

Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
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Thanks for the feedback! I can't speak to the technical feasibility, so I can't say that it couldn't be implemented. I've sent this along as a feature request, but I can't promise this is something the team will be working on.

De L.1
Collaborator | Level 9
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Thanks! Could you add the decision of the team about this feature request in this topic or is there a specific place where I can follow this feature request?

Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
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I'll be sure to follow up on this thread with any updates on this request.

De L.1
Collaborator | Level 9
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I forgot to ask... could you let me know what the current file size limit is so I can set that in my application?

Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
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Officially, the limit is 150 MB, the same as /2/files/upload itself. Some uploads larger than that will still work, as in your example, but we don't recommend it as they become less reliable. (The strict cut off, where the request will get rejected with a 413 error, is 300 MB.)

Jens S.1
Explorer | Level 4
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Please add this information to the documentation and +1 for the feature request. Thanks.

Greg-DB
Dropbox Staff
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@Jens S.1 Thanks for the note!

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