Software downloads are freezing! Please help! (exe file)

[simplifun]

I have been having this problem since January and posted under a different message. Internet Explorer Error is the title.



I use PDF files and a few .zip files. My files are served from external servers, mine and another sellers server.



When the customers copies and pastes from the email they can download the files. When I use yousendit.com to send them the file, they can download it just fine.



This is a huge problem for me. Not only does it frustrate my customers but it takes customer support time to handle the problem.



I have noticed that most the transactions have two download attempts and the ones that contact me with expired links have the max setting of 5 attempts. I think the fact that most transactions have 2 attempts means that just about everyone is having a problem. I don't know if they are click to the download after ordering or using the email link. The ones that contact me are using the email link.



It is not possible to ask them to install another browser. Many don't know what copy and paste means or how to do it from email to browser.

[E-junkie_Guru]

There is literally no functional difference whatsoever between clicking the link to the thank-you/download page in the email vs. copying that link and pasting it into the browser's address bar. I think it only appeared to be a "solution" simply because the second download attempt often succeeds after the first one fails, regardless of how the buyer reached the download page in either case.



That's because the real problem seems to be related to anti-virus/security software on the buyer's computer trying to provide "real time Web browsing protection" (or equivalent marketing-speak) by preemptively scanning Web page links and downloaded files looking for malicious files before the user can open them and potentially unleash a virus or other malware on their computer. Those pre-scans are apparently sometimes getting tripped up and stalling the download on the first try but, depending on which security software they're using and how it works, by the time users try the download a second time it's either finished pre-scanning the file or has already logged the actual file-download URL as scanned, so then the download goes normally without the security software's intervention holding up the whole show.



That seems to suggest that MAYBE, at least with some security software, asking buyers to wait a while before trying the download again, might have some positive effect on their results at the next download attempt. Ultimately however, we may all just be stuck waiting on Microsoft to release a bugfix for whatever component of Windows or IE is broken that these security programs are all trying to hook into and apparently getting stuck on. Microsoft releases a big batch of Windows Updates on the second Tuesday of each month, so let's all keep our fingers crossed for next week Tuesday.

[simplifun]

Why would they be able to successfully download from yousendit.com then?

[bigg]

While it's good to see that e-junkie is working on this problem, it's disheartening, to say the least, to hear the suggestion that I should say to a customer "Well, you might have to download what you bought again" and even worse to read that "we all might be stuck waiting on Microsoft...."



Sellers of e-junkie use it because it's a 24/7 service.



I would expect, as radical as it may sound, that the e-junkie techs should also be working 24/7 to fix what's broken and bring in outside help if that's what it takes.



I understand that the problem may well be within IE and is Microsoft-driven. But it certainly e-junkie's responsibility to fix it or come up with a temporary alternative, and quickly.

[dsieg58]

I'm also having the same problem as discussed above. My experience has been Windows Vista, or 7, 32 bit and 64 bit OS.



As indicated, it is becoming a problem with irate customers thinking you're trying to scam them.



I'm also thinking of switching to something more dependable, like 1shoppingcart.com but I've been here a long time, enjoy using ejunkie and don't want to switch.

[ariana]

My products are all zip files, and I've experienced a drastic increase in the number of people complaining that product didn't download over the last week or so.



My most popular products are bundles, so they buy a product that has 7 separate zip files to download and often it's just ONE of the 7 that times out and they try until they use their attempts up. It's hard to imagine that a scan would effect just ONE of the 7 files?



Also, the majority of my customers are photographers and mac users, so I'd be surprised if all of these are IE users.. I will start to ask though to know for sure.

[ellen]

Everyone,



Please, if you haven't already, open a ticket with support by using the contact form, so that we can track your specific incidence of this issue.



We have a team working on it, but they're still having trouble even reproducing the problem, trying all kinds of things, so every little bit of data you can send us, any hint of commonality between users/systems experiencing the problem (or refutation of what we previously thought) could be helpful. Everything down to individual affected transaction ids.



Our most reliable reproducer at first emailed us yesterday wondering what we did to fix it, saying that he hasn't had any complaints in a week now and can't reproduce it himself. We haven't made any changes; that's how crazy this problem is.



Honestly, unless we can develop a repeatable test case, we're at the point of just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks; taking out various components of our download process (all of which are there for a reason!) to see what happens. I am about to disable the s3 cache for everyone who posted to this thread, so that your customers' downloads will be served directly from our servers; we'll try that for a day and see if there's any impact.



Ellen

E-junkie Engineering & Development

[simplifun]

thanks for the post engineering...

where do we go to open a ticket?

[ellen]

That "contact" link in the bar at the bottom of every page will do the trick, and we generally prefer it because it auto-fills your information so we don't have to go hunting to figure out what account the message is in reference to.



However, we realize the form can be a pain sometimes; you can also just email support@e-junkie.com; please do include the client id# of the account in question.

[ariana]

Is it useful to know transaction IDS even if we don't know what browser they were using?

[ellen]

Ariana,

Possibly, so please do send them (through support) if it's not too much trouble.



Everyone,

It took me a bit of poking to figure out how to do it, but effective 3:40pm MST, I just cut off the s3 for your downloads if your client id is in this list:

18167, 124955, 17582, 5945, 37624, 38156, 21404, 84674



Note I haven't modified the code, just did a little backend database trickery, so any new uploads you do will get transfered to and served from s3 as normal.



Please let us know if this causes any noticeable change for you, good or bad. This is just a test, not a fix--we need to leverage the cloud for low-cost scalability.



Ellen

[dsieg58]

I'm one of the client ID's above. So far, (last night and today) I haven't had any complaints. Whether this means your test was a success or not, I don't know.

[madmoe]

Finally got somebody with five failed downloads to reply to a question.



"I am running Windows XP SP3 and have Webroot as my AV. Hope everything works

out on getting down to the problem and fixing it."



Has anybody been chasing AWS to see if they are having trouble with other clients (other than eJunkie) using their infrastructure?



Seems to me the last few days have been much better, a week ago I was getting multiple fails per day.



Morris

[simplifun]

My customer could not access the download page after their purchase (transaction ID gc-642055226814685). They received a message that: IE cannot open the site; operation aborted.

using IE and never tried from their email message. They selected the button confirmation after purchasing the file.



The log shows no attempt to download, they never could get that far.



I then sent a free link to them because they were then at work without access to the email they ordered with (j-lhg25v340ca2124). She used her yahoo email address and yahoo webmail to click the link. Message: IE cannot open the site; operation aborted.



She tried to copy and paste the link; same message: IE cannot open the site; operation aborted.



I am having to send here the file using yousendit.com



I have the files on my server not e-junkie.

[jprice]

I'm on that list of client IDs. Five of my epub files became corrupt sometime within the last few days. I re-uploaded the files (with no changes to the uploaded files) and now they download and open normally.

[simplyria]

I just joined yesterday and had 4 purchases and all the downloads froze or got error messages. My customers are quite frustrated as am I. This is all new to me and I really don't know what to do. Any help would be appreciated. Thank-you!

[simplifun]

I have not been getting any phone calls or emails for this problem this week. Fingers crossed we are over that IE problem.

[jprice]

One of my customers had a download issue last night. Windows 7, IE 8.0, transaction ID gc-608982015531268, internal ID 8502214

[dsieg58]

I also haven't had a problem in about a week.

[bigg]

Just checked with a customer who bought one of my items via download a couple of days ago, after I asked about his downloading experience:



"Everything downloaded fine without a problem. I use Chrome as my browser on Windows XP."



Has the storm passed?



Fingers crossed!



(Would like to see some type of official statement/wrapup/analysis from the e-Junkie tech crew.)