Files not loading even though they exist and have been pinned on multiple nodes

If I go to https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmZAzWzyPXfM7q69USzffmBJGWB7o1PYmC1QjGGFZTWA1p, the file exists. I can see it on my local IPFS nodes too. I have it pinned locally + with Pinata and ipfs-pin.

The file also loads locally, in my web app, when working on localhost. But I have found that loading it from a hosted site - e.g. Github pages, or deployment with IPFS & Fleek can take minutes or not at all.
Not being able to load the file also happened on a different computer, on the same local network as the one I was doing the development on.

Is there something obvious that I have missed or I should look at?
(aside from pinning files on even more nodes)

What is the file type? Iā€™m pretty sure ā€˜ipfs.ioā€™ refuses to serve videos on purpose, probably because they donā€™t want to provide free streaming to the world? Iā€™m not sure.

Remember, if you arenā€™t paying any given gateway for itā€™s services (or own it yourself), thereā€™s no way you can really expect it (imo) to necessarily provide free bandwidth to the world, although this is an issue that seems to be somewhat neglected in documentation on IPFS. Itā€™s kind of marketed as ā€œeveryone can retrieve files from everywhereā€ but itā€™s not really true, once bandwidth expenses become non-negligible.

I provided a link to one of the files - it is a small JSON. Do I understand correctly: that you clicked the link I provided and saw nothing?

I think I must have misread your post, sorry. You were clearly saying it was that file and I didnā€™t even try to access it, but I did just now and it comes up fine for me. Just letting you know.

ipfs.io does not refuse to serve videos. In some cases, abusive clients may be rate limited or bandwidth-limited.

@loredanacirstea you need to ask Pinata. The gateways are probably unable to find your file so they should check that the node where they stored it is correctly providing it and well connected.

@hector Glad to hear IPFS is now allowing videos, but regardless I always warn people not to rely on free public gateways, including ā€˜ipfs.ioā€™ because non-technical people donā€™t get that if they start sharing large files that go viral that huge ā€œfree pipeā€ will likely be shut off.

Would be interesting to know how ipfs.io defines abuse? For example if Joe Rogan started publishing his videos on ipfs.io (or any Youtube popular creator), then would Protocol Labs just go ahead and eat the bandwidth costs? Iā€™ve been telling people donā€™t bet on it, and it sounds like you agree.

Abuse is defined per CoC and Legal.

Gateways have rate-limits and bandwidth limits both requester-based (if an IP uses too much it will be rate/bw limited) and content-based (if a file becomes very popular it will be rate/bw limited).

While gateways are very generous on what ā€œfair useā€ is, it is correct that people should not heavily rely on them if they expect content to use huge amounts of bandwidth or cause huge amount of requests.

1 Like