Is the "Download Site" button from NeoCities' Dashboard missing for anyone else?

[SquaredPancake]

I've been working on my NeoCities website today and just noticed that the "Download website" button that was always present in the Dashboard is just... not there anymore. I like to periodically download my website to archive my progress and to keep a copy in case the servers crash and burn.

• I'm wondering if this is happening to everyone or just to me because of me spamming many small updates to NeoCities' servers.
• I'm also wondering if there is a way to cheese this by just finding a specific URL which still activates the download (in the hopes that the "Download Website" previously lead to a specific URL which automatically started the download).
• And then I'm also wondering if there is another way to download your own website from somewhere else.
• And then I'm even more so wondering if something like this happened in the past.

(And also: This is my first forum post. I originally made an account here for a different topic I decided not to make because I felt kind of ashamed about it, but figured that now this might be a good way to see if this is happening to anyone else. I do like the idea of participating in a forum and customizing my profile here, so I might post something else from time to time here!)

[Rowan]

From what I know, you lose the ability to download your site once it exceeds a certain size. 

[Melooon]

Mines been missing for about 5 years It's one of my many Neocities mysteries; everyone starts out with one, but sooner or later it goes! I've heard some people say it's to do with the size of your site.. but yours doesn't seem particularly large; maybe it's the age of the site.. or some other force at work? 

Id love to hear if anyone figures it out, but I think Iv come to the conclusion that most of Neocities behaviour operates on a quantum level that's beyond our comprehension 

I originally made an account here for a different topic I decided not to make because I felt kind of ashamed about it

I don't think you ever need to feel that; if a topic doesn't work out then it can be removed or edited, but you never know how something will go down in a new community! If you'd like to PM me about it I can let you know what I think 

[SquaredPancake]

What?! It's normal that it just disappears out of nowhere?!

From what I know, you lose the ability to download your site once it exceeds a certain size. 

I mean, this would make sense, but I'm pretty sure my website size was around 28-29 MB before, and I still had the ability to download my website for some reason.

This happened after I uploaded a bunch of graphics (stamps, buttons) I wanted to share, so based on that I would think that maybe the number of files is an important criteria (although it's kind of bad logic because one large file could equal 100 small files)? It might even be multiple criteria like "x amount for .png files" or "the file size of all .pngs summed up need to be below a certain size", although that just seems a bit too ridiculous to be true.

Either way, it's strange that it's documented nowhere and just hits you out of nowhere without any notification or reason why it's gone.
I might try playing around the limits by counting the amount of files I've uploaded and/or deleting x amount of files to see if I can get it to appear again, or even dare try attempting to read the GitHub source code for NeoCities.

...

I'm actually kind of shocked by this.

[debleb]

yeah, neocities can be kind of esoteric unfortunately  i’ve heard of people randomly getting their sites deleted with no notice or explanation from customer support before.

[Melooon]

What?! It's normal that it just disappears out of nowhere?!

Like love, popcorn and time - that’s life and the web revival 

[Cobra!]

You can use rclone to download your Neocities site once the download button goes away. I followed this tutorial to download mine.

[Cele]

The link has disappeared from 1 of my sites and that's the one with a lot of files so I assumed it's because of the size.

[SquaredPancake]

You can use rclone to download your Neocities site once the download button goes away. I followed this tutorial to download mine.

Huh, that's a bit suboptimal because it requires a NeoCities Supporter account that I don't have, but at least there is an option available.

Also another update:
By copying the download link of a zip file I already downloaded, it turns out that the URL you need to download your website is:
https://neocities.org/site_files/{SITENAME}.zip

When I opened that URL for my site, I got redirected to the Dashboard and it displayed the alert:
"Cannot download site as zip as it is too large (or contains too many files)"

Which indicates that both total file size and file count matters! And once one of those exceed a threshold, the "Download Site"-button fades out of existance.

(I'm also kind of amazed by how many people responded already!)

[Skykristal]

Mine disappeared a long time ago as well. Honestly, I am not even sure if it is a size issue. Mine got missing at around 128MB. The fact that it disappeared for you at a much much smaller size than that makes me think it has nothing to do with it. I would guess it is the number of files/a file limit that lets the download button disappear.
I use Cyerduck ever since that button went missing. Works perfectly fine for backup!

you can type in https://neocities.org/site_files/YOURNAME.zip to download/force download and this appears for me! it's very likely the number of files.

[Melooon]

Not exactly on topic, but it’s also worth noting that Neocities sites have a hard limit of 100,000 files - after that you won’t be able to upload any more no matter how small they are - I think I’m one of the few people to discover that the hard way 

[purelyconstructive]

Which indicates that both total file size and file count matters! And once one of those exceed a threshold, the "Download Site"-button fades out of existance.

Yes, you are exactly right. Several Neocities users had tested this out a long time ago [and I think Bytemoth was the first person who pointed this out to me personally]. It is dependent on both the number of files (~500 files?) and the size of the website as a whole (~200 MB?), whichever limit is hit first.

[LIA]

My page is almost the same size as yours and my download  link is still there

[lime360]

i had this button removed and later it's back

that's because of emojis i tried to install on my site

[SquaredPancake]

I'm chiming back again to report on something curious I've encountered while working on a website update - the button's back again for some reason! This is despite my total file size (26,7 MiB -> 44,3 MiB) and file count (354 files, 71 folders -> 819 files, 95 folders) definitely being increased, so those two can't be it...

Does the limit increase dependent on how many total views NeoCities has counted? Or account age? Update amount? The amount of followers or likes on posts in the activity feed? Did NeoCities secretly do a backend update that just flatly increased the file size & file amount limits? Is the button sentient and just moody?

As of right now, I have 54,826 views, 12 followers, 4,070 updates and my website is 1 year and 357 days old, but I didn't save those numbers when I made the original post so I can't compare and guesstimate what of the guesses up above might be the reason...

Does anyone else have any thoughts on this? Did it reappear for anyone too despite not really doing anything?