Upload progress Nodejs API

[theophilepace]

Hello,

I am using your API to upload different kind of file through nodeJs.

I saw a lot of people explaining the API currently do not support progress bars and monitoring stuff so I've tried to create a workaround.

I've implemented this method :

monitorTransfer(dbx, fileName, totalSize) {
    console.log('monitoring')
    if (this.continueMonitoring) {
      dbx.filesListFolder({ path: "" }).then((data) => {
        const fileMetadata = data.entries.filter(f => f.name == fileName)
        console.log(fileMetadata)
        // console.log(`uploaded ${fileMetadata.size} on ${totalSize} ==> ${fileMetadata.size / totalSize} %`)
        setTimeout(this.monitorTransfer.bind(this), 500, dbx, fileName, totalSize, continueMonitoring)
      })
      .catch((err) => {
        console.log(`[dropboxConnector] error monitoring : `)
        console.log(err)
        setTimeout(this.monitorTransfer.bind(this), 500, dbx, fileName, totalSize)
      })
    }
  }

I call it every 500 ms until the transfer is over. I have the following problem: 

my file only appears once the transfer is completed : 

monitoring
[]
monitoring
[]
monitoring
[]
monitoring
[]
monitoring
[]
monitoring
[]
monitoring
[ { '.tag': 'file',
    name: 'zouzou-test.js',
    path_lower: '/zouzou-test.js',
    path_display: '/zouzou-test.js',
    id: 'id:WW00APcl7lAAAAAAAAAAPQ',
    client_modified: '2017-06-24T16:28:41Z',
    server_modified: '2017-06-24T16:28:41Z',
    rev: '6458a6c857',
    size: 144256468,
    content_hash: '8968034036d4dd13a8b7ea090245585403a37c2db5386dff6c80da3b00d0c137' } ]

Is there someway to detect my file before the transfer is over? How can I make this work?

I am OK with using chunk transfer if it helps.

Thanks,

Théophile

[Greg-DB]

No, unfortunately there isn't a good solution here. The filesListFolder call will only return the newly uploaded file once it finishes uploading. The API doesn't offer information on uploads that are in progress.

I'll send this along as a feature request for a way to receive progress information for uploads.

[theophilepace]

Hello Greg,

Thank you for the information. Well, that would be a really good feature to implement, especially for long transfers.

Is there anyway or workaround to get an estimation or something ?

[Greg-DB · Accepted solution]

One alternative would be to switch to using "upload sessions", where you upload files in pieces. You could then keep track of how much you've uploaded between each piece:

https://dropbox.github.io/dropbox-sdk-js/Dropbox.html#filesUploadSessionStart
https://dropbox.github.io/dropbox-sdk-js/Dropbox.html#filesUploadSessionAppendV2
https://dropbox.github.io/dropbox-sdk-js/Dropbox.html#filesUploadSessionFinish

That's a good bit more work though. Otherwise, I'm afraid I don't have a workaround to offer.

[theophilepace]

Hello Greg,

thank you for your answer.

I think I will implement that in my application, it also looks safer than 1 file upload. 

Regards,

Théophile