I have an unusual problem it seems and I am looking for some help or insight on what kind of strangeness is going on with this redirect I have been using reliably for years and now over the past 2 months players have been noticing weird problems.
I have identified a problem I absolutely do not understand why is happening.
Here is what is happening when players connect to my servers. First, if needed the redirect server sends them a fast download of the file but the problem is for UNKNOWN reasons that file has foreign data in and that causes their game to see it as a mismatch and try to download directly from the server which is very slow or if I have turned off direct downloads which I have tried earlier this week they will get that connection failed: server refused to send file message. Anytime they try to reconnect to re-download the file then what happens is the redirect server sends them the file but this time it is perfect and has no foreign data in it and will be a fast download.
I need to find answers to this problem I studied the cache in a hex editor and notice that this foreign data seems to be inserted at the beginning of the file and somewhere into the file and at the end of the file. I have no idea what this small amount of data is or what it means but that's what keeps causing this download mismatch. Knowing there are some amazing people at ut99.org I have come in search of any insight about this and see if anyone here understands what it going on here. For now I leave you with the forensic material of my studies including screenshots of the files in the hex editor, a download link to the hex editor I use (freeware but be sure to dodge the tool bar and spam offers if present) and the two files I have examined. I will see if I can make any sense of this myself in the meantime.
After studying this problem many times it's like this in layman's terms.
1. First download goes fast but always fails.
2. Once the first download fails it will then re-download very slowly when this happens RECONNECT to get a fast good download.
3. Rinse and repeat for every download.
Start of file
![Image](http://gauntletwarriors.com/Images/Problem/RedirectMismatch2x/MISMATCH_001.png)
DIRECT LINK TO FULL UN-CROPPED .PNG SCREENSHOT
In the file.
![Image](http://gauntletwarriors.com/Images/Problem/RedirectMismatch2x/MISMATCH_002.png)
DIRECT LINK TO FULL UN-CROPPED .PNG SCREENSHOT
End of file
![Image](http://gauntletwarriors.com/Images/Problem/RedirectMismatch2x/MISMATCH_003.png)
DIRECT LINK TO FULL UN-CROPPED .PNG SCREENSHOT
Cache I investigated
http://gauntletwarriors.com/Downloads/R ... /Cache.zip
Hex Editor I used (freeware)
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/