一种下载文件并验证downoad是否成功或已被取消的方法

Is there a way to download file and a way to 'track' that download progress and see if download is completed/successful or if it was canceled?

I'm in a position where I should update a state of the file in db upon successful download and I find it very hard to acquire the best way on how to accomplish that.

Over past few days I've been all over the stackoverflow and found very interesting answers, like:

• https://stackoverflow.com/a/8771378/1571756 where Eugen Rieck fears that it's 'impossible' to determine if download is canceled.
• how to update the database upon successful downloading? where Petah is pointing out that it cannot be done (or is extremely complicated) with the technology Ahmad is using.

What is then the right approach/technology/... to detect successful download and update a db table?