The blog of Steve Root

Google Chrome ” Failed – Network Error.” on downloading files greater than 5MB (ish) – solution for me = Disable QUIC

For the last few weeks I’ve had trouble downloading from Google Photos files. It only happened on large files; videos & zip files of multiple images. The problem only affected Chrome – the files would download fine using Firefox. For single images the download would work so I decided it must be something related to the files size. A lot of googling and it seemed to only affect me so I removed and fully reinstalled chrome, that didn’t fix it.

I found similar problems in the help forum but none of them had solutions (technically, one did by changing the download folder location but that didn’t work for me).

I used developer console to see what happened on the page and try and get more of an error message. I found “load resource: net::ERR_QUIC_PROTOCOL_ERROR”. I then googled that and found a page on stack overflow suggesting that disabling QUIC would help, and to disable it here: chrome://flags/#enable-quic

What is QUIC? It appears to be a protocol to improve performance of pages of the network using UDP. There were mentions that some networks/routers/devices don’t work properly with this format. I don’t know which part of the network between me and Google Photos is at fault, but once I disabled QUIC the downloads completed perfectly. If you want to know more, you’ll need to research it from here yourself. Sorry, I have work to do 🙂

Comments

7 responses to “Google Chrome ” Failed – Network Error.” on downloading files greater than 5MB (ish) – solution for me = Disable QUIC”

  1. Penelope Watson

    Disable Antivirus internet real time scanning.
    Temporarily disable your extensions manually one by one to identify which one is causing the issue. To do this:
    Click the Chrome menu icon Chrome menu on the browser toolbar.
    Select Tools > Extensions.
    Uncheck Enabled for each extension one by one and after each one, check for the error again. This way, you can determine which extension is causing the issue.
    Or follow this steps below
    https://www.errorsolutions.tech/error/err_quic_protocol_error/
    Solution 1. Disable Experimental QUIC protocol
    Solution 2. Disable or Uninstall plugin

    Reply
    1. anat

      Thanks I’ll try that.
      W.M.L. O:-)

      Reply
  2. mkamoski

    Disabling QUIC did NOT work for me. Sad face for Google Photos….. 🙁

    Reply
    1. sroot

      Did you still have the problem using another browser (eg Edge or Firefox)?

      Reply
      1. Jason

        I’ve been trying to backup all my hangout pics that show up in an album but the Download menu item throws a 400 on the page that opens up. Tried disabling QUIC and tried other browsers but it didn’t help.

        Reply
        1. sroot

          I think you’re experiencing a different problem, I didn’t get a 400 error + I could download things fine in other browsers it was just Chrome that had the problem

          Reply
  3. anat

    Didn’t try with Firefox. .did it along time ago..? I’ll try to disabling QUIC &see if it works for my phone.
    I have Laptop lenovo B50-80 .old I know. I’m trying to download most of my videos& pictures *even though I don’t know how to connect the pc.m to the laptop for intranet use instead of the phone. ..it drain my battery fast. .If you have any solutions. .I’ll be happy to read. thanks much. A

    Reply

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