Download Impossible

[Josebr]

I upgraded to version 5 and the download is abysmally slow and eventually timed out. Just thought you should know. I was so looking forward to installing this new version today. You might need to get better servers.

Jose

Oh, I hope I don't have to go through a CAPTCHa thing every time I create or reply to a post. That would be a bit too much and would mean my not adding much to this group. We already have usernames and passwords (contorted passwords. I hate using Uppercase and non-sense letters in my passwords). It is not clear if I have to just hit Post to post this comment or if I have to use the Verification. That is bad for usability. It should be clear what one is to do next. I don't have your hindsight.

Oh, I just hit post and it wants me to do the Verification letters. This is a bit too much. It's over kill and unnecessary. You are now like Costco where you have to ID three times in the store (unreasonable searches) before leaving.

[Mario]

1. The downloads seem to be OK for most users. You are the first user to complain.
IMatch is hosted on a rather big web farm. Maybe just try again a bit later.

2. The verification is only for your first posts. We had such a bad time with spammers in the last forum, I took measures this time.

[Ted]

Hi Jose,

For what it's worth - I've downloaded at least 30 different versions during the beta testing and NEVER had a problem.  Sounds like maybe you just had a bad day, so as Mario suggested - try again another day.   

Good Luck

[WzeroMN]

I have found that download has always been abysmal compared to my link speed. It is 50meg and the server does not even come close. Not a big deal since not a frequent thing. I am sure it will be awful after new version release. I could not even make an order. I suppose fixing that would mean prices would go up to pay for it..I will just live with it.

[Mario]

I have found that download has always been abysmal compared to my link speed. It is 50meg and the server does not even come close.

This is intentional. The server has a throttle for each connection to protect it from becoming overloaded or flooded. You get about 1MB/sec so the IMatch download is completed in about 60 to 90 seconds.

[reschi]

Hi,

I have to confirm Jose's experience concerning download problems. I am trying to download IMatch 5 for a few hours, but so far without success. Most often the download fails after a few minutes, at 30 to 50%. I never had such trouble with downloading IMatch 5 Beta. (BTW: IMatch 3 download still works fine  ) .
I will try later today or tomorrow.

regards
Florian

[Menace]

1. The downloads seem to be OK for most users. You are the first user to complain.

Second. :-/  Opera download 27 or 32 MB and stopped after this.

Failed also with FF and IE.

[nbagno]

Also having problems. Download stops at 37.4/73.0 MB. Chrome returns a "Failed - Network error"

[herman]

Just checked it, download went smooth and uninterrupted using FF 30.
FWIW, I recall from beta testing that some folks having troubles downloading had some download manager installed.
If you experience problems and you have such software installed it might be worthwhile to deactivate it and try again.

[nbagno]

No download manager installed. I'm downloading from the "your downloads" section of the customer web. Tried multiple times and it just craps out. I also tried my mac, using FF and then VPN'd into my corporate network... Same Issue.

[jch2103]

FWIW, I had download problems about a year ago during beta testing, with similar symptoms (downloading in Western US.) I suspected some server issue or network congestion near the server site, but was never able to nail anything down. Subsequently, no problems...

[nbagno]

I'm in the SF Bay Area.. Western US 

[Menace]

Germany, but slow Internet (2000 kb/s). I have had the same problem in the time of beta until Mario changed something.

No Downloadmanager installed.

[Mario]

If the download always stops around the same size, the problem is usually a caching proxy between my server farm and the client, a download accelerator, a incomplete copy of the downloaded file in browser cache or temp folder.

Please try the tips here, which usually work great:

http://www.photools.com/1198/problems-downloading-files-logging-in/

I test my servers regularly by downloaded files from other servers (automated) and although the server is a bit more busy today than usual, it performs great. This community BTW runs on the same server.

[nbagno]

My d/l attempts do not end at the same point.
Tried on a Windows machine and a Mac

Clear the cache of your browser (Important!).
Did That
Restart your browser.
Did That
If you have downloaded an incomplete file, delete the incomplete file on your disk before downloading again.
Did That
Temporarily disable your virus checker. Don't forget to re-enable after the download has completed.
Did That, Useing ESET NOD32
If the download takes very long or never completes, check your firewall settings.
Tried with Windows Firewall turned off, no change
Temporarily disable all kinds of download accelerators, personal firewalls and similar software
Nothing like that installed
Retry the download
Did that
Add www.photools.com and www.photoolsweb.com to the "Trusted Sites" when you use Internet Explorer
Using Chrome

[Mario]

Please contact me via email and send me the email you use to log in. I can look in your log files to see if the server noticed anything unusual.

I check the log files currently once per hour and it looks good. Downloaded the installer while writing this post, download was done in less than one minute. Downloaded the file via a proxy server in the U.S., downloaded in 87 seconds. Looks good so far.

[nbagno]

Sent, thanks for checking

[Menace]

... download was done in less than one minute. Downloaded the file via a proxy server in the U.S., downloaded in 87 seconds. Looks good so far.

Isn't the problem, if someone have less bandwidth and so the download get canceled?

[reschi]

Clear the cache of your browser (Important!).
Did That
Restart your browser.
Did That
If you have downloaded an incomplete file, delete the incomplete file on your disk before downloading again.
Did That
Temporarily disable your virus checker. Don't forget to re-enable after the download has completed.
Did That, Useing ESET NOD32
If the download takes very long or never completes, check your firewall settings.
Tried with Windows Firewall turned off, no change
Temporarily disable all kinds of download accelerators, personal firewalls and similar software
Nothing like that installed
Retry the download
Did that
Add www.photools.com and www.photoolsweb.com to the "Trusted Sites" when you use Internet Explorer
Using Chrome

Tried the same steps as above, but without success.
Also tried to download via a UK and a US proxy, no luck 
When logging in to CustomerWeb, I some times got "Unknown email address or license code.....", I copy/pasted Email address and License Code, no blanks added by mistake. A few seconds later login worked again without problems.

any ideas what else I could try?

[jch2103]

This probably won't help, but I recall that when I was having download problems last year, it seemed to work better (mostly) when I used Firefox instead of my usual Chrome. Why that would make any difference, I don't know, and I can't prove that it actually did (vs random net problems).

[beickeb]

Hi Mario,

I'm also experiencing problems with the download. I have tried with both Chrome and IE. In both cases the download fails at approximately 50% (mileage varies slightly). Chrome reports a Network error while IE says the download was interrupted. With Chrome I tried the download from home and from my office network (university network). I also tried downloading both versions (5.1.4 and 5.1.2) both with the same result. Download speeds were similar for both networks. They weren't super fast but not excessively slow either.

[cartersfarm]

Same here - always stops at 24.3 MB.  Verizon backbone, Chrome, Win7, no cache, accelerator, download manager, etc.  Will try different browser/computer...  Ed

[nbagno]

Craps out when I try to d/l Imatch 3 also...

[Ted]

Mario,

For what it's worth - I posted earlier that I'd never had a problem and so I tried it just now.  It failed about half way through, so I hit the continue button (using Firefox) and it resumed and finished with no further problems.  Total time: 3 minutes 15 seconds - including the time to hit the continue button.

[lenmerkel]

I can confirm there's a problem (location = Folsom, California, USA).
I've previously downloaded 5.1.4 and every one of the betas without a problem.
I just tried to re-download 5.1.4 and it failed both times, after about 40MB.

Firefox 29.0.1 30.0, Windows 7 Ultimate SP1, 64-bit.
No download accelerators, all caches cleared.

Update: As with other folks here, retrying (continue) after failure completes OK, and the downloaded file has a valid SHA1 fingerprint.

[cartersfarm]

I just tried on a different computer, downloaded Firefox and while it stopped twice, each time I hit reload and it continued - Did get a fully working download this way...  Ed

[nbagno]

Downloaded FF just to try it's resume feature. I was able to complete the download, clicking resume once...

[beickeb]

It took three restarts but I too was successful downloading with Firefox.

[reschi]

This morning the download (via FF 30) worked from my company's network, had to retry just once.
Did another test right now from at home (southwest Germany), no problems occurred 
Something must have changed since yesterday.

[claudermilk]

Probably the server isn't as busy. I tried on & off all day yesterday--always failed. Tried once this morning on a different machine and it came through fine.

[Ferdinand]

Welcome back, Chris.  We missed you.

[herman]

Good to see you back Chris!
I hope all is well?

As far as downloading is concerned, we once had similar problems during beta.
It maybe a coincidence, the problems during beta phase occurred in a weekend, they were gone the Monday following the weekend.

[ColinIM]

No problems here in UK, around 17:20 UTC/GMT this afternoon.

   
• At (hh:mm:ss) 17:19:48 UTC I created a quick text file to hold the SHA-1 hash from the Download page for later reference, as I do.
• I started my IMatch v5.1.4 download at 17:20:44 UTC  (this being Windows Explorer's "File Created" date+time for the new  imatch_5_1_4.exe file)
• The download ended at 17:22:27 UTC   (this being Windows Explorer's "Last Modified" date+time for the same file)

So the download itself took less than 2 minutes.

Of possible relevance here ... or maybe not ... I'll say that for my IMatch login, and for my IMatch 5 purchase via Share-It & PayPal, and then for the eventual download, I used a recently-fresh-installed copy of Opera.

(My browser of choice has previously been Firefox, but for some weeks now my old and cluttered Firefox profile has been mis-behaving on so many different websites ... although to be fair, I haven't suffered any download hiccups or download delays at all from my ISP (Plusnet), and none that I would attribute anyway to my tired old Firefox.)

Colin P.