Error 403 Forbidden (Speed Downloader tool)

[RunningMan]

I'm also getting 403 errors all over the place when trying to download using Speed Download (a download manager on Mac). I've used this for years with no issue at all, but in the last month it's been painful. I've already re-queueud a whole lot of downloads and now some of those are breaking again. It's not all downloads though - only some. eg. I'm ok with http://cdn11.abbywinters.com/_dzip/c...xl_fenna_2.zip, but broken with - http://cdn22.abbywinters.com/content...757790&dl=true . Whatever the change is it's not a good one so far! These are downloads that were (re)added to the queue in the last few days, so it's not out of date URL's which I originally suspected.

Addition - seems like it's mostly .mp4 files that are broken. Zip's are working ok... also, I normally use Firefox or Safari as a browser and nothing to do with AOL.

[Frans]

Re-adding the same url's to the queue isn't going to work, the url you used for that mp4 expired on Sat, 29 Dec 2012 05:09:50 GMT. You must download content within a few days of initially adding it to your queue. After that links will have expired and the download won't work anymore. That works as designed and indeed isn't related to AOL or Udderwise's problem at all.

Also, your forumname confused me

[RunningMan]

Thanks Frans - sorry for the username confusion I do need to work out how to get that changed (believe it or not it pre-dates the boss going public!)

So, I assume the short expiry is a new thing with the server change?? I've been queuing things up in this way for ages and it's never been an issue in the past - any reason why the expiry can't be longer as it was before. I'd only just gotten around to re-queuing them after last time and now I've got a ton of stuff I'm going to have to queue up again - this is getting painful.

[Frans]

Why do you create queue which takes over 3 days to download? Is your download-speed that low ?

Changing your username is simple as it's only needed on forum really, just tell me or Lux what name you want

[RunningMan]

The queue doesn't take 3 days to download - I'll just add things to the queue over time and then set it off to download when it suits. I can't leave the queue running at any time, and also have to balance quotas, etc. Which often means it's over 3 days between the time I added the item to the queue and the time I start it downloading.

I guess it's something I just need to be mindful of and workaround, but it just seems to be another hurdle. I guess you have your reasons.

[RunningMan]

Has the 3 day limit been decreased further? Now I'm getting 403 errors when trying to continue downloads that are only a day old. This is getting to the point of unusable for me.

[Frans]

Has the 3 day limit been decreased further? Now I'm getting 403 errors when trying to continue downloads that are only a day old. This is getting to the point of unusable for me.

Could you post a expired link here? The limit hasn't decreased as far as I know.

[RunningMan]

http://cdn21.abbywinters.com/content...761515&dl=true

It's started happening in the last few days - this one stopped working within 18 hours or so (ie. I added it to speed download one night and it was broken the following afternoon).

[Frans]

http://cdn21.abbywinters.com/content...761515&dl=true

It's started happening in the last few days - this one stopped working within 18 hours or so (ie. I added it to speed download one night and it was broken the following afternoon).

Thanks, that link should work so I'll forward that to the tech support people.

[Frans]

RunningMan what is your aw login-name (not forum, mainsite). Just the NAME please.

And could you test/try the above link without using any download manager?

[garionhall]

The three-day expiry has not changed to be shorter. This came into effect in mid-December 2012.

If you grab a link now, and wait one second more than 259200 seconds (72 hours, three days, but the system calculates it on seconds) the link will fail to work - you'll need to get a new link from the site, and that WILL work (again, for 72 hours)

Frans is on the right track with RunningMan, we need to know how the same link works with NO download manager (ie, in a web browser). Without knowing how much time has passed, it best to grab a new link for this test, and to describe what happens when using the link in the DLM and in a web browser (note, this link will not work for anyone else, other than RunningMan).

Note also that we do not support all DLM's - our FAQ has a list of what we do support. Other DLM's may work, but we cannot help you troubleshoot the problem.

This may also be related to your setting in MyAccount, Preferences, Media Location. We recommend leaving this on Auto, but changing it may affect your performance (though is unlikely to affect RunningMan's problem).

[RunningMan]

Thanks guys (I think). My username is Garion (no, I'm not kidding!).

The links work fine in (and out of) the download manager for a period of time - it's when I try to resume the downloads later that they fail. So, I can't really test resuming of a link without using the download manager. I've queued up the same download again and it is downloading fine at the moment using Speed Download.

To be honest, it's getting damn frustrating to have fingers pointed back at how I'm using the site. I've been a member virtually since your inception and have used this same tool since that time - with no issues until this new content system of yours. I swallowed the 3 day limit (even though I'm yet to see why this was imposed, and it remains a pain in the a** for me). I thought "upgrades" are meant to benefit customers, not impose hurdles for them to jump over, which is all I'm seeing at the moment.

[Frans]

Runnngman, so the problem ONLY occurs on resuming downloads ?

So I can try to replay the scenario, how does that happen. You start a download of say 500Mb and stop at 200Mb ? How long is the time between the stop and resuming ?

Can you test stop and then resuming a download quicky, say with just one minute between stop/resume?

[RunningMan]

No, it is if I either resume or start a download which was earlier queued up. ie.

Example 1 - queue a file and start downloading... stop it... wait 1 day... resume... fail.
Example 2 - queue a file and never start it... wait 1 day... try to start it... fail.

I've just tried queuing a file (the latest fenna IM) and starting it for a while... paused it... waited a few minutes.. resumed it and it's all fine.

FYI... it only happens with the .mp4 files (not zips)... the same applies to the 3 day rule though so I'm assuming you know about that.

[garionhall]

Runningman, first up, the negative rhetoric is not helpful. We get that you're not satisfied, and we're working with you to resolve it. No one is pointing fingers, and it's no-one's "fault" - it's just a bug we need to first find and then fix (or, work around).

We'll continue working on your issue it until:

* It's resolved
* There's a reasonable work around
* We decide it's not worth resolving an issue that affects only one customer
* Or for some reason, it's deemed "unresolvable"

Of course, the last few possibilities means it sucks to be you, and we loose out because we loose you as a customer, but we work on the principle that we cannot please everyone all the time, and in fact, we don't even try to, cos that never works well for any business (or its' customers). Of course, your loyalty to our brand is appreciated, but if it cost us, say, €2000 in developer hours to resolve this bug, is that really worth it to us? (not to mention the "opportunity cost" we lose from that developer not working on more important problems).

Also consider that around 10% of our userbase use Mac OS, and to my knowledge, no one else is reporting the issue you are (any Mac users are welcome to chime in or help test). So far as we know, this issue is ONLY affecting you, so you need to commit to resolving it as well - there's no magic wand we can wave to resolve this, especially if we cannot even replicate the problem you're having.

I am not sure why you assume that all upgrades are to help customers - that's not true in any business I am aware of. Of course, some may be to benefit customers. But consider that upgrades can also be done to decrease cost, improve security, reduce effort or friction, track marketing efforts, to suit a subset of customers (of which you may not be a part), increase sales, to lay groundwork for future expansion, to improve SEO, reduce piracy, to allow interfacing with other systems that are valuable for the strategic growth of the business, or many other things. These are things we constantly work on in the background, in addition to things we do to improve the customer experience.

--

Back to the problem at hand. You're using Speed Download - can you confirm you're using the most recent version of it? Are you using Speed Download Lite, or Full version? Is it a purchased, licensed version of Speed Download? Is there an option to not do the "download acceleration"? If so, what happens if you turn that off?

What version of MacOS are you using?

Can you please try two other MacOS DLM's we support, Download Deputy and iGetter, and see how they perform? Same problems?

Can you install the same software on another Mac, and see if you have the same problem?

Do you know specifically when it last worked fine with no problems? Has it gradually gotten worse? Does it ever work fine? If it does, what else occurs in that situation?

It'd be helpful to know what time period has to pass before a resumed download definitely breaks - you said that a momentary pause / resume works fine, what if it's five minutes? An hour? 3, 6, 13 hours?

You say it only happens with MP4 files, and works fine with zips - what about WMV, MPG files?

Does the problem happen regardless of the debut date of the files you're downloading? (ie, an update from yesterday, or an update from 2006?)

This data will help us find the bug. Sometimes in cases like this, the hard work is identifying the actual bug, and it's a simple five minute fix to resolve it. That may be the case here.

[Frans]

I've just tried queuing a file (the latest fenna IM) and starting it for a while... paused it... waited a few minutes.. resumed it and it's all fine.

FYI... it only happens with the .mp4 files (not zips)... the same applies to the 3 day rule though so I'm assuming you know about that.

Yes zip works differently. Interesting that pause/resume works with a short gap. Will test the 24hr wait with my setup (win7/firefox). I did try a pause/resume with about 10 between but that worked fine.

Your example #2 is that with or without Speed Downloader? The more 'extra' things we can remove from the problem the easier it is to find a probable cause.

Do you know if your ip-address ever changes? If unknown note it down (according to Apple like this: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10743 - not a Mac owner here, sorry ;-) and compare it in after 24 hours.

[RunningMan]

I've just tried queuing a file (the latest fenna IM) and starting it for a while... paused it... waited a few minutes.. resumed it and it's all fine.

FYI... it only happens with the .mp4 files (not zips)... the same applies to the 3 day rule though so I'm assuming you know about that.

Yes zip works differently. Interesting that pause/resume works with a short gap. Will test the 24hr wait with my setup (win7/firefox). I did try a pause/resume with about 10 between but that worked fine.

Your example #2 is that with or without Speed Downloader? The more 'extra' things we can remove from the problem the easier it is to find a probable cause.

Do you know if your ip-address ever changes? If unknown note it down (according to Apple like this: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH10743 - not a Mac owner here, sorry ;-) and compare it in after 24 hours.

Hi Frans,

Example #2 is with speed downloader. I'm not sure how else I would resume a download later without using the tool. Unless you just want me to copy the URL and try and use it through the browser later? Happy to do so if you think it would help.

My IP address doesn't change - I'm going through a wireless router to the internet which is constantly on, so it would be a static address.

Note, I've also replicated both examples this morning (after approx 12 hours). I will try both examples tonight again which should be in line with the timing of when they originally failed.

[Frans]

Hi Frans,

Example #2 is with speed downloader. I'm not sure how else I would resume a download later without using the tool. Unless you just want me to copy the URL and try and use it through the browser later? Happy to do so if you think it would help.

My IP address doesn't change - I'm going through a wireless router to the internet which is constantly on, so it would be a static address.

For #2 I indeed would like you to try just storing a link/url and try downloading it a day later. Does Speed Downloader show/fetch *any* information on a file even if you only queue it (size for example) ?
As a rule to try figure out this problem I'd would like to recreate the issue without Speed Downloader in between, that way we avoid troubleshooting SD

Your wireless router might still get an address assigned dynamically but if it's always connected that shouldn't change much if ever.

[RunningMan]

Frans,

Little more info from this afternoon. I've tried resuming files that were added last night (approx 23 hours ago). One of the files was half way through downloading. The other had not even commenced. Both failed with the same error. Here is the log file entry for both files:

2013-03-20 07:45:53 +0000
Download of http://cdn21.abbywinters.com/content...940718&dl=true starting
2013-03-20 07:45:59 +0000
Download of http://cdn21.abbywinters.com/content...940777&dl=true starting

They both failed with 403: access forbidden. I will take a copy of two URL's now and try them this time tomorrow night. No, speed download doesn't touch the file until you start downloading - there is no information on size, etc until that point. I've proved this in the past regarding credential issues (ie. it didn't fail creds until I tried to start).

[Frans]

I will take a copy of two URL's now and try them this time tomorrow night.

Thanks for the update. To be clear, you will attempt the download of those two url's tomorrow without Speed Download, right ?

[garionhall]

Runningman, not sure if you're readying my posts (it seems not) but we may have identified the problem: your IP address changes every few days. Any URL's created from an "old" IP address will not be able to be downloaded with a "new" IP address.

We're looking at the best way to resolve that, and should have a solution soon.

[Luxman]

...your IP address changes every few days. Any URL's created from an "old" IP address will not be able to be downloaded with a "new" IP address.

That might be a problem for a lot of people with dynamic IP addresses. I know that my IP address changes every single day.

Lxm

[Frans]

Runningman, not sure if you're readying my posts (it seems not) but we may have identified the problem: your IP address changes every few days. Any URL's created from an "old" IP address will not be able to be downloaded with a "new" IP address.

Oh, I guessed right... nice

I do wonder why an ISP would assign a new-IP number on a (dhcp) refresh of a connected customer though. Would seem to be mostly pointless. All will be solved when everybody starts using IP6 , we'll have enough IP's to give every piece of computer a nice fixed dedicated number.

[Luxman]

I do wonder why an ISP would assign a new-IP number on a (dhcp) refresh of a connected customer though.

Business & money. If I'd like to get a fix IP, there's no problem. It will just cost 25 Euro a month...
Otherwise I get disconnected every 24 hours and reconnected with a different IP.

Lxm

[RunningMan]

Thanks Garion and Frans (yes good guess mate!),

That is odd - my ISP must be forcing a DHCP refresh as nothing is restarting or refreshing on my end (ie. everything stays connected 24/7 barring a power outage).

Is there anything I need to pursue with my ISP? Do you believe this has been introduced with the new CMS or is it pointing towards something off kilter on my end that I should be looking into?

[Frans]

RunningMan, the new cms assumes your IP won't change from the time you get the download until you finishes the download.

I did some digging and your ISP seems to have several dhcp servers, each with their own pool of addresses. As long as stay connected you keep your IP, but if you disconnect even very shortly you CAN reconnect to a different dhcp-server and thus get another IP ('cos what dhcp does is yell around 'I want an IP', first one to respond wins). This theory does assume your modem does disconnect/reconnect to the network daily, which should be logged on your modem/router. If disconnects are indeed seen in the log you might want to contact your ISP tech-support.

Are you on ADSL or Cable ?

Besides the above I'd wait and see what work-around/idea garionhall and the AW-tech team comes back with.