I recently encountered some odd behavior in nginx involving file upload sizes. Nginx has long had a client_max_body_size setting which controls how large of an HTTP POST or file upload the server will accept by comparing to the Content-Length header. Attempting to send a request larger than this results in a 413 Request Entity Too Large error from the server. But is this always the case?

I use a Subsonic media streamer install to stream my music library on my mobile phone, media center, laptop etc. Recently, my web UI and other client apps stopped working and I noticed the subsonic server was spewing HSQLDB database engine errors.