How do I fix an HTTP 206 error?

If seeking is broken in your video player, confirm the server sends Accept-Ranges: bytes and honors Range (curl -H 'Range: bytes=0-99' -i). If you get 200 with the full file instead of 206, the server (or a proxy) ignores ranges — enable range support or the player will re-download from zero on every seek. 416 Range Not Satisfiable instead means the requested range is past the end — often a stale cached file length.

206 Partial Content

The server is returning only the byte range the client asked for (Range header), with the range described in Content-Range. This is how video seeking, download resumption, and parallel-chunk downloaders work.

What usually causes it

Media players seeking within video/audio files
Download managers resuming interrupted transfers
CDNs serving range requests for large assets

How to debug and fix it

If seeking is broken in your video player, confirm the server sends Accept-Ranges: bytes and honors Range (curl -H 'Range: bytes=0-99' -i).
If you get 200 with the full file instead of 206, the server (or a proxy) ignores ranges — enable range support or the player will re-download from zero on every seek.
416 Range Not Satisfiable instead means the requested range is past the end — often a stale cached file length.

Easily confused with

200OK
304Not Modified

Debugging an API? Build and inspect requests, check response headers, or read the full status-code debugging guide.