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Jul 2011

Hi! Freezing problem is better now, thank you! However, I am still occasionally having customers reporting the freezing problem. Not enough to be of major concern, but I would like to implement your option of sending a bundle containing my setup exe and key and an alternate link to a zip file.



I followed your directions on http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/help.package.htm#bundle but I am having difficulty.



Here are the steps I have taken and the outcome:



1) I created a product called testbundle.

2) I selected PACKAGE FILES FROM OTHER PRODUCTS, AFFECT THEIR INVENTORY

3) I selected LET BUYERS EDIT QUANTITY IN CART

3) I selected my 2 PRODUCTS THAT REQUIRE FILES



a) my setup.exe (contains stored key

b) mysetup.zip.) (has no key)



I click next ---next -- submit then when I send a free download to myself, I do see both links, but the letter has no key at all. and the download HTML has no key. Thank you HTML page says "Your activation key is [%codes%]"



When sending my bundle:

1) I would like download email to have product key for my setup.exe

2) I would like HTML thank you page to have product key



What am I doing wrong?

Hello,



Glad to hear that there are less reported problems with downloads. The specific problem that was discussed in this thread seems to be resolved now, but unfortunately there's always bound to be a few people who have connection trouble during a download so it is one of those problems that can't ever really be solved.



Regarding product bundles, we can only pull the files from a product in a bundle and/or affect the inventory count for the products in the bundle. We cannot pull stored codes or generate codes from products within a bundle, that is why you are not seeing the codes that normally go with the setup.exe product.



What you can do is assign some stored keys to the bundle product itself. Those will be transmitted with a purchase of the bundle product in place of the codes stored with the item in the bundle.

1 month later

OK, I was one of the people you "did something" with and it fixed the problem. I just added another product and the exact same problem is back. Endless downloads, downloads hanging, customer complaints, etc.



I need a solution quick.



David Sieg

OK, I was one of the people you "did something" with and it fixed the problem. I just added another product and the exact same problem is back. Endless downloads, downloads hanging, customer complaints, etc.



I need a solution quick.



David Sieg

Sorry about that but thanks for letting us know the problem is back, if you could please email us at support@e-junkie.com with details on the transactions that were effected we can start investigating the issue further to see if it is a similar problem or something new.

Just received this from a customer:



"I just bought the ebook, and hit problems straight away. First of all the file apparently available to download was not a pdf as indicated but a .exe file. Anyway I clicked on download to desktop as instructed and after only a minute or two got a message saying "Unable to download XXXXX.exe from s3.amazonaws.com. The server returned an invalid or unrecognised response". What is this? I'm a bit disappointed. Anyway, look forward to hearing from you."



This is the sale in question. I deleted names, and email addresses, and identifying info.



2011-07-08 21:26:55 2011-07-08 21:26:59 5GC3575333865702N PayPal Pro (DirectPayment) 9786442 Completed

Buyer IP: 202.12.105.132 For Individual Items: 15percent dkedizcf1dr0na4zm5qrlac08s4s0koco04o0w 0.00 0.00 affiliate@network6000.com

Network 6000 Inc.

ID:27372 0.00 USD 4 attempt(s), Last by 202.12.105.132 @ 2011-07-08 21:59:47



Look, this is getting really old. I just had a promotion and I have to sit on the computer all day and all night because I know problems are going to arise with downloading and I lose sales if I not here to take care of them right away. As it is, I had to buy a sendspace account to send customers to download their products.



What I need you to do is to "do whatever you did" before that fixed this problem. I have added new products since then and these are the ones screwing up.



I have a number of accounts with you guys and I have been with you since the beginning, but this is starting to get really, really, old.

The download link for that order appears to be working fine at present, and that product does appear to be configured to to issue a .exe file rather than a .pdf. Our Dev/Ops team isn't available for me to ask right now, but perhaps they found and resolved the issue by now, or maybe there was a temporary glitch at Amazon S3's end that got resolved without us.



You can test the download link we issue to any buyer yourself; just click on the order's Transaction ID in your E-junkie Transaction Log, which should bring up the same thank-you/download page we generate for the buyer, then you can test the link. If the link works fine for you, then any problem must be with the buyer's own computer or ISP connection. If you confirm the link doesn't work right for you either, then by all means please do let us know, and the Transaction ID is all we'd need to investigate further.

As someone already said in a previous post..."Thank you for the canned response."

Sorry if it seemed canned, but I did actually whip that one together from scratch myself. :^)



There didn't seem to be any problem with the download link for that sale when I tested it, and we have no other reports from other sellers indicating any general problem at our end. Therefore, that case seemed to be a one-off glitch affecting just that one customer, which does inevitably happen from time to time for reasons beyond our control due to glitches with the buyer's own computer or ISP connection. There really wasn't anything else I could do to track down a problem that didn't seem to exist anymore, if there was even anything wrong at our end in the first place when it was happening.



If you do encounter any further problems, please send us their Transaction IDs, and we'd be glad to investigate those cases.

Another case of the "hanging download"



transaction ID 8KJ21975346015259



" I have tried to down-load the 2012 version,but it seem that I have a problem with my labtop, it simply shut-down during the download process, "

That sounds like a problem with the buyer's computer, probably just has it set to Sleep/Suspend/Hibernate after X minutes of inactivity. They may be able to resume the download from their browser's download manager, or they can try downloading again (you may need to reactivate their link) and either "babysit" the download by using their computer for other things until the download is complete, or just disable the power setting that shuts down their laptop after a period of inactivity.

I don't know about that...this thread is filled with people having the EXACT SAME PROBLEM. (hanging downloads) In fact, it has become such an issue, I've had to put my sendspace link on the download page as an alternate download site. (Which never has any problems by the way)



It can't ALWAYS be the buyers fault, come on. And while this is a big download, (30mg) it's not THAT BIG. It's time for you guys to take a little responsibility here. Something is wrong on your end.

Agreed - I have been using ejunkie for under a week now and so far 75% of my customers are unsatisfied. NOT a good way to start my business. This is giving me a bad reputation. I also had to buy the $18 package in order to get ejunkie to even work for me, so I couldn't even use the 7 day free trial. So far, I have paid for a service that is hamstringing my business. I'd be better off mailing out DVDs.



I don't mean to come in here and crap on you, ejunkie folks, but as a new business owner who was so sure I could trust that your service was easy to use and perfect for me, I am sorely disappointed and I'm forced to look for an alternative to your service.



If you can help in any way, you might just save this customer. Yes, I have already opened a service ticket, and yes, the problem is still happening.



My fingers are crossed that your team has some answers coming before my business goes in the toilet.

Don't get me wrong. I might be whining, but I'm not complaining. E-junkie is a fine service, who charges MUCH less than other services out there. Ex: The same package I've got ($18) on e-junkie costs $100 on XXX (we won't say who) ...Just to get digital downloads and you can't even bundle tangible and digital products together!



The tech guys are also great. They've responded quickly and professionally many, many, times since 2008. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend e-junkie to anyone.



But this ONE problem is starting to really suck.

Yep - I've appreciated their quick response time and their willingness to help, but the bottom line is: nice people or not, if I can't run my business through ejunkie I simply HAVE to use another service.

@Devi:

75% is an extraordinarily high complaint rate. Please send the Transaction IDs of affected download orders to our Support team, and we'll help you sort out why so many of your buyers may be reporting problems.



Make sure your products are set to allow at least 5 Attempts, or no fewer than 3 Attempts at the absolute barest minimum (though allowing so few Attempts will almost certainly increase your complaint rate, especially if you are serving a fairly large file). This help page discusses some factors that can prematurely expire download links, which can seem like a stall depending on the download manager they use:

http://www.e-junkie.com/ej/trouble.downloads.expired.htm



Unfortunately, there simply is no such thing as a 100% reliable download service that works perfectly for everyone on their first try every single time for files of all sizes; it's simply not technically possible, due to the way the Internet itself works, not to mention variable factors involving the buyer's own computer (such as how their anti-virus or download-manager software works).



For instance, even if our system and the buyer's computer are working perfectly, and even if software on the buyer's computer isn't introducing any confounding factors, and even if the buyer's ISP has no issues in their own network, there's still the matter of numerous network routing hops along the path across the Internet between the buyer's ISP and our Amazon S3 download server, all of which are out of our and the buyer's and their ISP's control. Any one of those network nodes along the way could be having a problem handling traffic, which can interfere with download performance until they clear up the problem, and in that case there's nothing you or we or the buyer or their ISP can do about it.



This also explains why a direct download link from another server may seem to be working fine while the buyer may be having a problem with their E-junkie link to download from Amazon S3; the path across the Internet between that server to the buyer's ISP may differ from the path between Amazon's network to that ISP, and there may be a problem along one path which does not affect the other path. However, providing a direct link to an alternate download server also means the buyer can share that static link with others, who can use that link directly to download for free, which bypasses the primary point of using E-junkie, ensuring that every link issued can never be good forever if it happens to get shared out.

"However, providing a direct link to an alternate download server also means the buyer can share that static link with others, who can use that link directly to download for free, which bypasses the primary point of using E-junkie, ensuring that every link issued can never be good forever if it happens to get shared out."



Yes, exactly my point. I'm having to by-pass my own built in security system, and put my product at risk, unnecessarily. In addition to paying for the extra bandwidth and service. One of the things we're paying for is the ability to have clients safely download our products. The ripple effect created by this problem is far-reaching.

We would be glad to help you troubleshoot any particular case of download problems if you email our Support team the affected Transaction ID to investigate. At this point, any problems that may occur would be isolated, idiosyncratic cases, as presently we are not getting reports from our other 12,000 merchants indicating any broad-scale, common issue affecting our download system in general, nor has that been the case for quite some time now.



Posts in this thread since March have been about isolated problems unrelated to the matter from springtime -- e.g., your post of July 16 was about a buyer reporting that their laptop actually shut down while they were downloading -- not that the download itself stopped or stalled -- so they were seeking your assistance to resume/retry their download and may just have needed their link re-activated/re-sent.



Most of the other "people reporting the exact same problem" earlier in this thread were affected by a general issue that occurred earlier this spring, which was causing a sporadic few downloads seemingly at random to stall as soon as they started without making any progress at all -- i.e., the download progress-bar dialog would appear and remain open, but the progress bar itself would just sit there without even starting to move at all.



If buyers reporting a problem are not reporting exactly that specific behavior, their issue is unrelated to the problem from this past spring, which has since been resolved. In fact, it seemed to fix itself independently of our own efforts, possibly due to a monthly Windows Update fixing a bug that may have been introduced by an earlier Update. If that was indeed the source of the problem, any buyer still reporting this particular problem behavior may be behind on their Windows Updates by several months.



We also noticed a fair number of affected buyers appeared to be using the FDM (Free Download Manager) browser add-on that caused problems because it would try to split every download into dozens of parts to download simultaneously, which would of course instantly expire the buyer's download link since each download segment would count as an Attempt against the link -- trying to download a file in 20 parts at once when the link only allows 5 Attempts would instantly expire the link as soon as they started their download. Asking the buyer to remove or disable this FDM add-on and then re-activating their link would solve this problem.

Look, I appreciate the fact that you can't isolate the problem. I can understand that no two computers, or customers, or downloads, are going to be the same. I understand perfectly that 100 things have to work in sync. And you know what? That's YOUR job. Not mine, not the customers.



As you know, must customers downloading general internet products aren't internet whiz kids. Most can hardly find the space bar if it had blinking lights. Asking them to download is like asking them to go to a foreign country and no guide book. Asking customers to jump through hoops, and dazzle us with their internet brilliance by taking multiple actions prior to downloading is going to be a hard sell. In fact, that horse died at the starting gate. They are used to Amazon.com where it goes smoothly 99.9% of the time.



Most customers screw it up, granted. They don't bother reading download instructions. I have extensive download instructions in "Dummy-proof" screenshots to explain it, I have my email address for help in 3 different places, I have alternate download links, and STILL they automatically assume the VENDER is cheating them and the VENDOR is a scammer. This causes complaints to Google, PayPal disputes, credit card company disputes, bank disputes, charge-backs, negative forum posts, the list is almost endless. Trust me, I have been living this nightmare. Unfortunately, that's MY JOB.



And what really frosts your nuggets, is I have a quality product, I deal honestly with people, I go the extra mile ALWAYS for good customer service, and I have a business I'm proud of that took me years to build. The resulting ill will, if it was directed at YOU AND YOUR BUSINESS, would move you to take action, I guarantee it. These guys aren't joking...this is a problem that can ruin reputations!



But what really frost your balls is IT ISN'T MY FAULT!!!!! and I can't get the problem fixed! What bothers me the most is I COME OUT looking bad every single time.



I'm just sharing a little bit of the wealth of feeling I get with you. :+)



Now having said that, the problems have dropped off this week. I don't know why. But I also don't know why they dropped off before and then magically reappeared either.



Do you guys have enough bandwidth? Your servers overloaded? Certainly other download services providers MUST have the same problem then. (with FDM add-ons) How did they fix it?



But I love you guys...you know I do. :+)

Just to give you a little taste of what i was dealing with last week...Let me cut and paste...This is from someone I spent the better part of 2 days working with to get their downloads correct. Don't ask for the transaction ID, I already sent it.



"YOU ARE A FUCKING ASSHOLE AND WE HAVE REPORTED YOU TO THE CPU COPS!!!!! THE CREDIT CARD CO HAS ALSO BEEN NOTIFIED OF YOUR LOLIFE SCHEEM AND IF YOU NARE FOR REAL YOU WOULD SEND US SOME REAL INFO.TOOO BAD"



Sweet, huh? How would you like to wake every morning to an inbox full of those?



Welcome to the land of "Hanging Downloads."