How One Developer Verifies Downloads Are Real MP4 Files, Not Error Pages
A developer building the ramrom.io video downloader found that download links can return a 200 status and an .mp4 filename while delivering an HTML error page instead of a video. To prevent this, the proxy checks the Content-Type header only as a loose hint, then inspects the first bytes of the response for the 'ftyp' signature that real MP4 files contain. It buffers that initial chunk before sending headers to the visitor, so failures are caught before a broken file reaches the browser. The system also flags implausibly small or truncated files, and shows an honest error message when a check fails.
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