Downloading MP4 files with PHP CURL

Question

I am trying to download a video from one of my servers to another of my servers. I was using CURL because copy() did not download the audio from the video. However, CURL downloaded corrupted files (?) and do not. This is how I'm downloading the MP4 file right now:

$source = "https://link.com/video.mp4";
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $source);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSLVERSION,3);
$data = curl_exec ($ch);
$error = curl_error($ch);
curl_close ($ch);

$destination = "video/video.mp4";
$file = fopen($destination, "wb");
fwrite($file, $data);
fclose($file);

Is there anything special for MP4 files to download properly?

array(26) { ["url"]=> string(60) "https://link.com/video.mp4" ["content_type"]=> NULL ["http_code"]=> int(0) ["header_size"]=> int(0) ["request_size"]=> int(0) ["filetime"]=> int(-1) ["ssl_verify_result"]=> int(1) ["redirect_count"]=> int(0) ["total_time"]=> float(0.135745) ["namelookup_time"]=> float(8.4E-5) ["connect_time"]=> float(0.056009) ["pretransfer_time"]=> float(0) ["size_upload"]=> float(0) ["size_download"]=> float(0) ["speed_download"]=> float(0) ["speed_upload"]=> float(0) ["download_content_length"]=> float(-1) ["upload_content_length"]=> float(-1) ["starttransfer_time"]=> float(0) ["redirect_time"]=> float(0) ["redirect_url"]=> string(0) "" ["primary_ip"]=> string(13) "AN-IP :D" ["certinfo"]=> array(0) { } ["primary_port"]=> int(443) ["local_ip"]=> string(11) "192.168.0.9" ["local_port"]=> int(57478) }

You are not really checking if the transfer performed successfully, you call curl_error() but you are not checking the value returned by that function (you can also use curl_errorno()). — Alberto Martinez

GeorgeQ GeorgeQ · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-14T01:10:23

You must open the file in binary mode to ensure file is saved to disk correctly.

$file = fopen($destination, "wb");

Also use fwrite instead of fputs

fwrite($file, $data);

Check that video.mp4 downloads from the browser correctly. Maybe it is redirecting? If so the add this option.

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);

If is still does not work then dump out this info and post it.

var_dump(curl_getinfo($ch));

Downloading MP4 files with PHP CURL

1 Answers