Downloading videos issue

[sweatyfox]

Hi there,

So everything has been going fine with downloading videos til today. Basically now what happens when I try to save a video to my HD, it comes up with download complete almost immediately and has only downloaded about 61KB of the video. I thought it was maybe something to do with Norton Internet Security so I tried turning that off for a few minutes but this time when I tried to download the same videos, a box comes up with the white cross on red background saying connection to server reset. Switching Norton on again and I get the same result as described earlier in this paragraph.

Any ideas, think it's anything to do with my firewall or the Windows Updates my computer did last night.

Hope you can help, this happens with videos from another site too so it isn't AW specific and is only happening since this morning. The VNL podcast was fine when I saved it and watched it.

SF

[Lesley]

I suspect that you are not authorised on the media server, which is done by cookie. We do have all sorts of problems with security software blocking the AW cookie, and Microsoft regularly breaks computers with the updates.

Are you using a download manager?

L

[sweatyfox]

Hey Lesley,

No I'm not using a download manager (only cos have never needed one before). Also there is not a download limit on my provider. The only thing that changed from yesterday is that my computer was taking a long time to switch off last night and it seems that it was doing about 81 Windows Updates before it did so. I did wonder about trying to get Firefox instead.

Recently I did have the problem where very occasionally an AW video would be only part way through saving and then my computer decided that it was done and went to download complete. However this was usually resolved on the second or third attempt and only happened maybe two or three times in a week. That was an AW specific problem but todays issue also happened when I tried to download an mpeg from another site too.

SF

PS Also there seems to be some kind of spyware on my computer which I need a good programme to get rid of but that's another question and I don't think it's the problem as things were working fine yesterday.

[sweatyfox]

Okay this gets even less funny when I tell you that I tried to download AdAware which clears stuff off your computer and again got a download complete message after about a second. If I can't even download a download manager, anti-Spyware software or Firefox, what am I gonna do?

SF

[Lesley]

(From the point of view of AW, this is not a site specific issue, so we need to try to get you some general help.)

I have known some malware prevent the antidote programs like Adaware from running.

There was a spyware program that broke the internet connection when it was removed which was a real pain to fix.

This sounds like a similar problem. I suspect either the Microsoft update or maybe a virus/malware problem.

If you are using Windows XP can you restore the system to a few days ago, see if that works?

L

[sweatyfox]

I will give it a go. Can you tell me how to restore the system to a few days ago on XP? I will try to find how to do it myself but it would help.

As you say it's obviously a general problem with downloading anything, even when I tried downloading Firefox it was the same, Download Complete after a second or so.

To give you a little more info, I do know there is some kind of pernicious spyware on my computer as adverts for casinos open a few times every hour.

Thanks a lot for your help.

SF

[Lesley]

START - ALL PROGRAMS - ACCESSORIES - SYSTEM TOOLS - system restore

It is menu driven and easy to follow.

L

[sweatyfox]

Hey there,

I did it but it wouldn't let me restore it to earlier than yesterday (the two other dates I tried were not successful)and the problem still persists as I tried getting one of the AW videos just now and straight away, 'Download Complete'.

There has come up 'The Page cannot be displayed' box around the top menus on this page, furthering my suspicions that there is spyware on my computer and another ad just popped up on my screen. However as I say this wasn't affecting downloads on Wednesday though I didn't download anything yesterday.

I still can't decide whether it is the Windows Updates or the spyware that is causing this but seeing as I can't download the files for AdAware, Firefox etc, I can't even try and solve this by using programmes.

SF

[Lesley]

Can you vist a neighbour/friend who has a computer to download Firefox, Adaware, and also Spybot would be good?

It just seems odd that you can't download, I am more inclined to think Windows is screwed rather than an infection causing it but it's difficult to judge from a distance.

It would be good to install Firefox and see if that makes a difference.

L

[sweatyfox]

Hi Lesley,

I am sitting here having managed to transfer Firefox onto this computer via a disc. All I can tell you is that it did download a few minutes of the Nessa video with Firefox first time but when I tried to download it again since then, Firefox has gone back to playing up like IE was and giving me the download complete message.

SF

[Lesley]

I don't know...

Do other downloads still not work with FF?

L

[sweatyfox]

I will try FF with a few things later on and tomorrow morning. I guess I can assume that if it's giving me the same problems that it is either the wireless network I am on (which I doubt) or maybe this spyware really is screwing things up or maybe it is my Windows system that needs fixed (if I can't get either IE or FF to do it properly). Could even be the anti-virus software/firewall messing about with stuff.

Whichever I may need to think about backing some of my stuff up in case my computer needs a re-installation of something like Windows or whatever. Like maybe buying an external HD and putting all my files, work and AW stuff on that. I am thankfully subscribed to the PC Help programme of the shop I bought it from for another year. I was also on the online chat of a well known company who provide anti-virus software but they charge you a sum of cash to help you fix it so thought I'd wait til I've been thru the other possibilities.

I noticed the problem with the spyware yesterday and should have downloaded the software immediately but I thought my downloads would still be working fine this morning.

Anyway I'll give you an update tomorrow and thanks for your suggestions, hope I haven't bugged (pardon the pun) you too much. This is just an arsey thing to happen right before Christmas and not being able to download AW videos til it is sorted out is crap enough but not being able to download the software that might resolve it is even more annoying to me.

Have a Merry Christmas and a great holiday Lesley and hopefully I can get this thing back to normal fairly promptly. Nice to see you around the forums on some of the other threads too.

Take care,

SF

[Lesley]

Have a Merry Christmas and a great holiday Lesley and hopefully I can get this thing back to normal fairly promptly. Nice to see you around the forums on some of the other threads too.


SF

I am here all over Christmas!

The backup to an external drive is a good plan.

A reload of Windows will fix it, but it's a drastic move.

Back on duty Monday AM

Regards

L

[ham]

Lesely; Is there any way to get a "snap to" feature as there is on Windows, to work on Mac? Would sure save a lot of mouse work!

[Lesley]

WAAAAAY off topic here....

Lesely; Is there any way to get a "snap to" feature as there is on Windows, to work on Mac? Would sure save a lot of mouse work!

I hate that feature.

Most context boxes on OS X have the default option highlighted so you can hit ENTER.

I have never tried to find the mouse 'snap to' 'cos I don't use it.

L

[frontfoot]

I don't know...

Do other downloads still not work with FF?

L

All's working fine with me..

[Frans]

Re-installing Windows XP doesn't take that long and will fix all your problems more than likely. The fact that you were installing 81 updates this week indicates you were well behind on those since that's about 3 months worth. Also note that IE6 has a known problem with the latest december updates, are you using IE7 or 6?

When downloads finish too quickly, open the file/part that WAS downloaded in notepad or rename it to bad.html (you need to have 'show known extensions' ON for this to work) and open it in a browser. For AW you will see a page with "Access Denied..You're seeing this page because you are not logged into abbywinters.com...." and so on.

It could be much simpler and just a case of your cable/dsl modem overheating though. Really, it could. Though the 'not found' stuff does sound like old malware or worse. You can try free online virus-scanner, Kaspersky is good at this: http://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

You might want to install a network usage meter like DUmeter, just to see if something else is using your network capacity (from your pc).

If you want to investigate some more, determine if you are using a proxy (provided by your ISP) to access the internet (IE7/6: Inter Options -> Connections --> LAN Settings). Also look at the file c:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts , should be that many items in there. You might want to visit http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/ to get a nice hosts file which will help block evil stuff, see site for details.

[sweatyfox]

Hey there,

Thanks for your help Frans.

I guess I should think about an external hard drive to back up all my files, work and AW stuff then, if I may have to reinstall Windows?

I can tell you one of the Windows updates was to install IE7 which has better security provisions than the previous one (about time too) and it did a scan and detected the following:

Backdoor:Win32/NTRoot
Backdoor:Win32/Sivuxa
Trojan.Caiijing

I guess I need to get rid of these before I can deal with the downloading issue.

Meanwhile I will check out the other software you and others have pointed out and try and put it onto CDs from another computer and then install them from that.

It really sucked seeing those lovely Chloe and Gabrielle videos there tantalising me and I couldn't get them yesterday. Anyways even more ironic that my computer wouldn't let me download the programs to help fix it.

Not sure if the download issue also could have anything to do with Norton and it's firewall etc which is now instead of the Windows one. However as I say, turning Norton Internet Security off for a moment doesn't seem to change it.

Gonna keep you posted anyway.

SF

[Frans]

Those three threats are usually detected together so it looks worse than it is. I assume you have OneCare which did that scan? Please run the Kaspersky online scan I mentioned above and see if it agrees on infection of your pc. I tend to trust Kaspersky a bit more

Either way I'm fairly quick to decide and format/re-install windows. I don't know how much experience you have with that, or how easy it would be for you. Cleaning a virus/malware of your pc is a bit like trying to remove an unwanted picture from the internet... never a guarantee it's all done. Best thing to do would be to make a complete image of at least your C partition (I do hope you have a seperate C/system partition???) to an external/2nd drive. Then you can safely format C and install XP on it, once done just copy back the My Documents files and such.

Note: if you use Microsoft Office and specifically Outlook you will want to run it's Save My Settings wizard!

Norton didn't prevent your problems so you might want to reconsider installing it again if you're going for a re-install. Trick is that uninstalling Norton is VERY, VERY hard to do properly (leaves all kinds of mess). So a clean-pc is a good time to decide such things

The fact you got IE7 just now doesn't bode well for your security-status prior to said upgrade, why did you miss/delay so many updates? Did that happen on purpose?

In case you want to download and install a virus-scanner, I've uploaded Kaspersky's trial here: http://rapidshare.com/files/78532272...125en.exe.html (malware won't recognize that url, heh)

[sweatyfox]

Can I update you tomorrow as I am now back at my place with my computer and brought back some stuff on disc to try and sort this out, as well as an external HD to put my stuff on.

Thanks for your help and I downloaded your suggestions which I shall try out.

Speak soon.

SF

[Frans]

If it all possible make an IMAGE of your C-partition and store that on the external HD. That will ensure you have a backup of everything. I use Acronis True Image 9 (yes 9, 10 and higher suck somewhat).

Failing that the build-in Windows Backup can backup open files (this is important since some files are always open on a running system), so backup it to the external HD using that will also ensure you have most files.

The results of a virusscan should be interesting, here another faster (but as good as Kaspersky) online scanner: http://www.eset.com/onlinescan/ . Still a full re-install of Windows would be the cleanest solution prolly.

[Pilot_MoonDog]

Lately I am having some download problems from this site.

I am a PC user running a properly patched copy of XP. My usual browser is Firefox and I am using Free Download manager. I see I am using an old version of that (2.1) so I'll try updating it & see what happens.

What happens with me is the download gets partway through and then stops completely. The download manager then spends some time metaphorically bashing it's head against the wall trying to re-connect. Sometimes it informs me that AW's servers won't allow the resuming of a download, and that the file will have to be re-started.

I am not getting this problem elsewhere I'm afraid, just with AW. If I keep trying I can eventually get a complete file, but it seems to be taking a lot of attempts.

[Frans]

I am a PC user running a properly patched copy of XP. My usual browser is Firefox and I am using Free Download manager. I see I am using an old version of that (2.1) so I'll try updating it & see what happens.

I use FDM as well, nothing much changed.

What happens with me is the download gets partway through and then stops completely. The download manager then spends some time metaphorically bashing it's head against the wall trying to re-connect. Sometimes it informs me that AW's servers won't allow the resuming of a download, and that the file will have to be re-started.

The 'can not resume' thing is a bug in FDM, which is still in the most recent version. Most other download managers properly support resuming from the AW sites.

The STOPPING of downloads however isn't a bug in FDM but most likely caused by the Europe mirror (located in the Netherlands, check your myAW page to see which mirror you use) being too busy. That mirror will be upgraded sometime this week, which should solve a lot of these problems.

If you don't mind waiting a bit for a download it might help if you let FDM download the files you want around 04:00am or such. It's MUCH quieter on the mirror then, I think FDM has a scheduling option.. never used it myself though.

[Pilot_MoonDog]

Much obliged Frans. I am on the European mirror, so I'll try a delayed download & see how that goes.

[altimari]

Ah ! So that is the problem....

I already gave up on downloading in the weekends. It takes 1 to 4 attempts to download a video. Sometimes it stops at 95 % downloaded, and then you can start all over again.... That is more than I am willing to do.

Please let us know when the new server is in place.

Regards

[Frans]

Please let us know when the new server is in place.

Should be up and running on saturday, so you can test it downloading Cleo & Indiana's tier3 video files Sunday afternoon will do just fine for such a test, heh. But seriously, after this weekend the European mirror should no longer give any problems. If it does, you can report that using the feedback form, be sure to mention you are using the EU mirror.

Happy downloading!

Btw. do feel free to report here if all works well, that's always good to hear

[altimari]

I tried downloading on Sunday afternoon, and I did not encounter any problem. The speed is ok (although a bit slow at times), and - most important - it did not stop.

So everything seems to work well.

Thanks and regards.