Please try to download the licensed version of IMatch

[jonz]

I'm in Canada so I was curious and tried the download; no problem. Hash matched, and installer opened. I didn't see anything odd. Chrome.

[Mario]

I'm in Canada so I was curious and tried the download; no problem. Hash matched, and installer opened. I didn't see anything odd. Chrome.

Thanks for trying. So far, in the past two years and on only a very few occasions where users reported problems with downloads they were from Canada or Australia. I guess that in some remote areas of these countries the bandwidth may be low or connections shaky.

Last week I had a new IMatch user from CA who tried to download IMatch for more than a day. No luck. We exchanged many emails, but to no avail. The next day he downloaded the file at a his clients computer in less than 2 minutes. Same city. Just another ISP...

[Mario]

Leider kann ich das nicht in Englisch formulieren.

Bei mir ist der Download auch 2x unvollständig gewesen, hatte also nicht die vollen MB. Dabei ist mir ist aufgefallen, dass in Firefox der Downloadpfeil seine Farbe nicht ändert ( aber nur bei IMatch ). Somit weiß man nicht, ob der Download beendet ist oder noch läuft. Nun könnte es sein, dass manche ( und auch ich ) während des Downloads nachschauen, was los ist und den Download unbewusst abbrechen.

Ich habe beim 3. Mal den Download eine Weile 'orgeln' lassen und dann war alles ok.

The browser cannot know the download size, hence it cannot show a percentage bar. The Apache server farm photools.com runs on uses so-called "chunked" transfer. This means that it delivers content as soon as it has been GZipped. It does not first GZIP the entire download (100 MB) and then starts sending it to the browser. This would cause very slow responses and also a lot of memory consumption on the server side. The negative side effect of this efficient transfer method is that Apache strips the "context length" header and thus the browser cannot know how large the file is. The browser just keeps receiving until the server sends the "finished" signal.

This is standard behavior for large file downloads on servers which use GZIP to save bandwidth.

[hro]

Did you get the file link I emailed you?

Yes. I've downloaded the file. It has only 91.521.024 bytes (instead of  92.812.720 bytes) and thus is missing some data. Incomplete. Hence no install or valid digital certificate.

The Apache server serving the licensed file (and the photools.com web site and this community) is using chunked transfer. This means it transmits data as soon at is ready, splitting large images or downloads into multiple parts. Much faster that way and standard these days. May this is what is causing your browser problems?

I think I've got some clues now.

Today, I downloaded from my home PC and there were now problems. The file size is correct, I can see the digital signature and the installer starts with now warnings and installs properly. Norton Internet Security gives it a big tick as well. GREAT.

I downloaded the problem file at work behind the corporate firewall. In both cases I used Google Chrome.
So I conclude our company's firewall must be the problem. It is an industry standard Sophos UTM appliance. Having said this, it is still a bit concerning as I have never had any problem whatsoever with other software downloads. They all work. I am thinking of corporate IMatch users who may not have the option of downloading from an alternative location.

Cheers. Hartmut

[hro]

I'm in Canada so I was curious and tried the download; no problem. Hash matched, and installer opened. I didn't see anything odd. Chrome.

Thanks for trying. So far, in the past two years and on only a very few occasions where users reported problems with downloads they were from Canada or Australia. I guess that in some remote areas of these countries the bandwidth may be low or connections shaky.

Last week I had a new IMatch user from CA who tried to download IMatch for more than a day. No luck. We exchanged many emails, but to no avail. The next day he downloaded the file at a his clients computer in less than 2 minutes. Same city. Just another ISP...

I am also downunder in New Zealand. We have 200Mbs download speed over fibre. In contrast some places I visit in good old Germany are still struggling with 5Mbs ADSL and abysmal mobile connectivity 
Don't take seriously, just a bit cheaky.

[Mario]

So I conclude our company's firewall must be the problem. It is an industry standard Sophos UTM appliance. Having said this, it is still a bit concerning as I have never had any problem whatsoever with other software downloads. They all work. I am thinking of corporate IMatch users who may not have the option of downloading from an alternative location.
Cheers. Hartmut

It may just that your firewall does not like the route or maybe the anti-virus in your firewall or network breaks the file.
Is the download very slow when you download via your company network? Maybe a timeout issue? My server limits the bandwidth per download to ~ 4 MB/s to conserve resources and ensure QoS for all users.

Maybe you can ask your IT folks to check what the problem is. I'm happy to improve my servers, but so far I could not found any problem. The code that manages the download of licensed products is pretty simple and in use for three years now. It's just that I recently moved everything over to a more powerful and fully managed server running Apache web server under 'Nix. Load and stress tests are all green, no errors in the log files, ...

[Mario]

For all users who had download problems...

I've looked again into the code that manages the download. I found no error but I increased the MB/s setting so downloads run faster. Check it out, thanks.


Bad News...

As I've just learned, it may be that the super-duper new server contract (the server which now runs photools.com, this community, the customer portal etc.) has a small quirk - the hosting company limits all PHP scripts to 2 minutes runtime maximum . Of course such vital info is not part of the flashy presentations or the "What you get for your money" lists on the web site. They explain it to you when you run into it.

A 2 minute script timeout is not a problem for the domain or this community. A typical execution time for scripts is a few milliseconds to maybe 5 seconds.

But it can be a problem for the download functionality. Usually the download takes between 20 seconds or maybe a minute on slow lines.
But users with exceptionally slow connections who need more than 2 minutes to download may run into problems because the server just drops the connection and stops the script from running.



I'm waiting for feedback from the hosting company but it seems that I need to move (again) to another contract which allows me to change the script timeout from 2 minutes to 10. This costs extra money (several times as much as the new contract) and (Gosh I hope not) that I need to move everything again to yet another server. This would mean that last two weeks were totally lost time...only some experience gathered, but the rest in the bin.

IMatch 5.7 is finished and ready for download. I'm not sure if I should announce and release it yet when some users may have trouble downloading it...

[jch2103]

For what it's worth, this (the timeout) may not be a totally new problem. A few years ago (during the IMatch 5 beta, I believe) I had some issues with slow & failed downloads, using a cable modem in Colorado. After repeated attempts, I would eventually get a successful download. The problems seemed (from my end) to be pretty random, and after a while I had no subsequent issues with downloads. I haven't thought about this since (because no problems) but there may have been a timeout in play at the server end at the time, combined with some kind of random internet delays/timeouts/slowdowns between server and client ends (local download speeds at these times were OK according to speedtest.net). Unfortunately, this isn't germane to the current problem, but it does say something about the nondeterministic nature of the internet.

[Panther]

Looks like the timeout thing probably was involved in the problem I was having with my first few attempts for this testing as well.  I just tried it again (after clearing my cache again, like I had done before when it finally worked for me last time) - D/L speed was rather low for some reason and the D/L stopped right after the 2-minute mark - the incomplete file I got was only about 28MB or so.

[EDIT] Not sure what's going on today with the speeds today - although my Internet connection seems to be testing at a pretty steady 12-13 Mbps, the last 3 or 4 times I've tried to D/L this file from the new portal the speeds are down below 300-350 KB/s (often sub-200 KB/s) and the D/L's are stopping at the 2 minute mark.

[Mario]

Looking at the log file (which unfortunately does not show aborted downloads due to timeouts), the last 20 downloads from today took between 16.1 and 111.6 seconds, with an average of about 40 seconds. Slowest download was by owen... with 111.6s (Canada), followed by  fred32.... (USA?) with 95.4 s.

So it's not that bad, really.

I can download the file in 16.1 seconds, because I have a fast internet connection and the server farm is hosted in a German data center.

Let's see what the hosting company comes up with today. I think I will roll out IMatch 5.7 today because so many users wait for it.

[JohnZeman]

I just attempted to download 5.7.2 and it downloads but the file is only 35mb instead of 89.9 so it's a corrupt file.  Tried downloading three times with Firefox and had the same result every time with file sizes ranging from 33.8 to 36.8mb.

No issues with AntiVirus that I'm aware of, I'll do more checking and try downloading with IE to see if that works.

[Mario]

Do you have a very slow connection? If your download takes more than two minutes, we have a problem...

[JohnZeman]

No, it's never been slow before and I've never had problems downloading previous versions on the your other server.  On the other hand I didn't time the download, I can though if you want.

[JohnZeman]

I take that back, it must be slow this morning.  I just timed another download and it stopped after 2:05 with a file size of 36mb.

[Mario]

That's the problem I figured out on Sunday. Apparently the hosting company stops every script (including the PHP script that feeds the licensed version into your browser) after two minutes. They forgot to mention that detail when I signed the new contract and now I'm a bit dead in the water - waiting for them to come up with a solution.

It affects only the download and only for users who have a very slow connection. Most uses download the file in about 35 to 40 seconds. The best download today was 11 seconds. If your connection is slow and you need more than 2 minutes you'll have to wait for a couple of days before I have this somehow fixed.

I apologize for that, but this came to me as a nasty surprise as well.
Typical script runtimes are a few milliseconds to a few seconds for very demanding tasks. And i have never had to wait for 2 minutes for a download so I never ran into this problem before.

[JohnZeman]

Thanks Mario.  No problem for me to wait a few days, I've been gone for a month anyway.
Good luck in finding a solution.

[Panther]

Just tried to D/L the new version - speed started out at over 1,000 KB/s but then slowed down to around 150-250, and eventually timed out at 2 minutes.

Speed tests showing my D/L speed generally pretty steady around 20 Mbps this morning, so I don't really understand why the speed for this D/L drops so low as to cause a problem with the timing.

[Mario]

The last download was on 17:45:56 (now its 18:04 German time) and was completed in 29 seconds (to US), the one just minutes before in 41 s (to UK).
I limit the bandwidth again per download to 4 MB / second.

A download via curl reports a download speed of 3.5 MB/sec on the average.

[jch2103]

No problem here (Colorado) with 5.7.2 download or running install. Download took ~30 seconds.

[Panther]

Not sure why the new site doesn't like me.  Just tried again and, like all the other tries today, the D/L speed hovers around 150-250 KB/s and it times out at 2 minutes with an incomplete file.  Just ran speed test again and my ISP connection D/L speed is still showing solid at around 18 Mbps, and I just D/L'ed a 350 MB file from nVidia's driver site, at speeds that stayed around 1,800-1,900 KB/s, and it completed just fine.

[hro]

So I conclude our company's firewall must be the problem. It is an industry standard Sophos UTM appliance. Having said this, it is still a bit concerning as I have never had any problem whatsoever with other software downloads. They all work. I am thinking of corporate IMatch users who may not have the option of downloading from an alternative location.
Cheers. Hartmut

It may just that your firewall does not like the route or maybe the anti-virus in your firewall or network breaks the file.
Is the download very slow when you download via your company network? Maybe a timeout issue? My server limits the bandwidth per download to ~ 4 MB/s to conserve resources and ensure QoS for all users.

Maybe you can ask your IT folks to check what the problem is. I'm happy to improve my servers, but so far I could not found any problem. The code that manages the download of licensed products is pretty simple and in use for three years now. It's just that I recently moved everything over to a more powerful and fully managed server running Apache web server under 'Nix. Load and stress tests are all green, no errors in the log files, ...

I realise there are more recent posts re. downloading 5.7.2, but I thought my comments are more relevant here:

So I downloaded 5.7.2 from my office connection again (Sophos UTM firewall, etc.)
- The download completed without any problem in about 1:30 min.
- This time the Digital Signature showed correctly in the file.
- The file size is not exactly as you listed on the download page (mine is 89.8 MB, 94,228,696 bytes).
- The installer displayed no errors and installed 5.7.2 without a problem.
- The installer said that components need to be installed and that Windows needs to restart after the install. However
    I did not restart and IMatch works fine.

Knowing that the test download you requested (5.6.22) did not succeed a few days ago from my office connection, did you change something now on your server side? In all cases I had perfect download speed (>100 Mbs) and the download times were always under 2 min.

Anyway, this is pretty good news to report.

[Mario]

The installer said that components need to be installed and that Windows needs to restart after the install. However

Windows Installer thinks that on some machines. This is fully automatic. IMatch comes with the latest set of Microsoft Runtime DLLs and when Windows Installer finds older merge modules it will update them and ask for a reboot, because these are shared components and used by many applications. It's better to do a rebbot, just to be on the safe side. Windows Installer sometimes works in mysterious ways, and I have no control over this.

I have not changed anything on the server. Yesterday I've experimented with the throttling (allowed temporarily for higher download rates per user) but I'm back to 4 MB/s max. per user to reduce overall server load. On normal connections this should allow the download in about one minute for users, without putting too much stress on the server when many users are downloading at the same time (which happens often when there are new releases).

[Mario]

Not sure why the new site doesn't like me.  Just tried again and, like all the other tries today, the D/L speed hovers around 150-250 KB/s and it times out at 2 minutes with an incomplete file.  Just ran speed test again and my ISP connection D/L speed is still showing solid at around 18 Mbps, and I just D/L'ed a 350 MB file from nVidia's driver site, at speeds that stayed around 1,800-1,900 KB/s, and it completed just fine.

This is surely not the server or the hosting company. The data center hosting photools.com is one of Europe's biggest, connected with multiple redundant backbones to the world.

Run a

tracert photools.com

from a command line window (DOS box) to see how many hops your PC needs and how the connection speed is, if there are timeouts etc.

[jch2103]

Just for comparison, here's a tracert run from Colorado done a few minutes ago; my (successful) download yesterday took less than a minute.

[Mario]

This looks OK to me. For this distance, the ping times are normal.

[Aubrey]

I'm also having trouble with connection dropping when doewnloading...
Attached is the ping

I'm not at home but a 162 Mb Nikon codec file downloaded ok.

It's not urgent but I thought to add my 5 cents!

Aubrey.

[Panther]

Not sure why the new site doesn't like me.  Just tried again and, like all the other tries today, the D/L speed hovers around 150-250 KB/s and it times out at 2 minutes with an incomplete file.  Just ran speed test again and my ISP connection D/L speed is still showing solid at around 18 Mbps, and I just D/L'ed a 350 MB file from nVidia's driver site, at speeds that stayed around 1,800-1,900 KB/s, and it completed just fine.

This is surely not the server or the hosting company. The data center hosting photools.com is one of Europe's biggest, connected with multiple redundant backbones to the world.

Run a

tracert photools.com

from a command line window (DOS box) to see how many hops your PC needs and how the connection speed is, if there are timeouts etc.

Hmm - just tried to run the trace per the above but all I get are a series of "request timed out" messages (after what may be 3 hops - not sure if that's what those little asterisks mean).

I did finally manage to successfully D/L the file last night (around 1:30 AM ET USA) on my second attempt at that time - the first one almost worked but stopped after 2 minutes at about 80MB, and the second try worked.

Not sure if it's a time of day thing, or maybe some issue with the browser not liking the chunked D/L approach? (is there any sort of browser setting to make that method work better?)

Just tried to D/L it again just now, but speeds are down around 100-150KB/s and it's timing out.  But my speed test is still showing my general ISP connection D/L speed at 18Mbps.  Don't know what to say.

[jch2103]

Hmm - just tried to run the trace per the above but all I get are a series of "request timed out" messages (after what may be 3 hops - not sure if that's what those little asterisks mean).
...
Just tried to D/L it again just now, but speeds are down around 100-150KB/s and it's timing out.  But my speed test is still showing my general ISP connection D/L speed at 18Mbps.  Don't know what to say.

Try posting a tracert output; might help Mario to see the specifics.

[Panther]

Hmm - just tried to run the trace per the above but all I get are a series of "request timed out" messages (after what may be 3 hops - not sure if that's what those little asterisks mean).
...
Just tried to D/L it again just now, but speeds are down around 100-150KB/s and it's timing out.  But my speed test is still showing my general ISP connection D/L speed at 18Mbps.  Don't know what to say.

Try posting a tracert output; might help Mario to see the specifics.

There is no output as such - it looks like the following over and over again (just tried it again and got the same result):

1    *     *      *       request timed out.
2    *     *      *       request timed out.
3 etc.


The I close the window.

Funny thing is, that at this time of night (again about 1:30 AM ET), I tried the D/L again and speeds stayed up around 1,800-1,900 KB/s and the D/L completed just fine (right size, digital signature info in place, etc.).  Just like last night.  Very odd.

[Mario]

If Windows cannot trace a route, your network connection is disconnected or some intermediate device or hub fails. Usually you should get at least a trace to your dial-up node or the servers of your ISP...

[Mario]

I've work on this last night and I have found a quite good solution.

Please see https://www.photools.com/community/index.php?topic=5886.msg40633#msg40633 for full details.

Let me know below if you have been successful.