Common download problems and their resolutions

In this tutorial, I will be explaining some common download problems you may encounter while using WFDownloader App and how to resolve them. If you are having link search issues you should read common link search issues and what to do instead.

Sometimes when you start a batch or resume a download item in the batch, after some time, its progress displays "Stopped". This means that a download error has occurred and its download has been stopped. In order to resolve the problem, you have to first determine the cause of the error. To do this, right-click on the download item and select "Properties" action. Next, check the details section at the bottom. You will see the message "Failed." and the reason below it. Most of the time, the message tells you what to do to resolve the issue. First I will start with download problems in general and then I will explain common download error messages and their resolutions in the next section.

Download problems in general

WFDownloader App is downloading the wrong the file. It says "Complete" when it clearly isn't so.

You discover that for a download item, it says "Complete" when the download clearly isn't completed from what you can see. For instance you are expecting a video size of 100MB where as it downloaded 20KB and indicates completed. This usually indicates that the download has expired and the server is serving a html page (You can try opening the file in your browser to see what the server is saying). Most times, WFDownloader App will automatically resolve this issue, however some servers give non-standard response leading to the situation above. In this case, right-click the offending download item and select "Refresh". After it says "Refresh Ok", restart (not resume) the download and it should progress without any issues. If it says "Stopped" instead, get the reason for the error and check the resolution for it in the next section.

I left WFDownloader App to download some files but when I came back some files failed.

It's frustrating when you leave the application to download a batch of items (e.g. a whole season of a tv series) and when you're back only 4 out of 24 completed successfully! This means you have to start the batch again, go somewhere else and hope by the time you're back the remaining downloads have completed successfully. Or you have to keep monitoring it from time to time, restarting the batch as needed. First of all the reason why this issue occurs is because the internet connection or the server was in a poor state at the time the download items were being downloaded. To help alleviate this problem, right-click on the batch containing the download items, select "Properties", provide a value for "Maximum number of retries on batch fail" e.g. 100, and then click "Accept". Now when the batch finishes it run, it will check if there are any failed downloads and if so, it will automatically keep retrying the failed ones up to the value you specified (in this case 100 times). So you won't need to restart/resume the batch manually.

I'm trying to download an image/wallpaper gallery into the same folder however some of the downloads failed because some of the items have the same name.

For instance you are downloading an animal gallery and there are 2 different images called "dog.png". When WFDownloader App is downloading an image gallery, due to the possibility of this kind of conflict arising, it will normally put all the image items in their separate child folders. However sometimes, you may not want this behaviour and might have specified for all the items to be downloaded into the same parent folder. To solve this problem, right-click on the batch containing the images, select "Properties", go to "Download conflict action", select the value "Create numbered file if it already exists", and click "Accept". Now images with the same names will be numbered automatically.

Download link refresh is taking too long

Either the server is slow and taking too long to respond or your internet connection is poor or experiencing difficulties at that moment. If the cause is your internet connection, try resetting/restarting it and try again.

Common download error messages and their resolutions

It's been explained in the introductory paragraph how to view the error messages. The most common ones are highlighted below:

When I tried to resume the download, I discovered that the server gave a different file-size of %v meanwhile I was expecting %u. This might indicate that the file has changed since last download attempt or it's just having some temporary problems for now. This is why I stopped the download. Use Restart on this download link to download it from the beginning or try again later.

This means during resume, the server gave gave a different file size. Either the server is experiencing difficulties in which case you should try again later, or the file has indeed changed since the last time it was downloaded. In the latter case, use "Restart" on the download item to restart the download from the beginning.

When I tried to resume the download, I discovered that the server gave a different file-type of %v meanwhile I was expecting %u. This might indicate that the file has changed since last download attempt, the link is expired or the server is just having some temporary problems at the moment. This is why I stopped the download. Use Restart on this download link to download it from the beginning or try again later.

This means that on resume, the server gave a different file type. For instance, WFDownloader App was expecting to resume download for a file of video type instead, it got a file of text type. Either the server is experiencing some problems or the file has expired. Either try again later (for the first case), or use the "Refresh" action on the download item before trying the resume action (for the latter case).

Downloading this item would have overwritten an existing file with same name at %filelocation and I didn't want to do that without your permission. To overwrite this file, use the Restart action on this download item. For other options, use the 'Edit' button and scroll down to 'Download conflict actions'.

It means that the folder you are trying to download to already has a file with the same name as what will be saved. Follow the given instructions above. However for cases where the download is large to the point you don't want to restart it from the beginning and you are sure the existing file is the same, you can continue the download on that same file! In the "Properties" view for the download item, select "Edit", scroll down to "Download conflict actions" and select "Append to existing file" and click "Accept".  Now when you resume the download, it will continue from where the existing file stopped. Be warned that if the existing file's properties is different from what is being downloaded, you will have a CORRUPTED download.

The server indicated that this download link does not support resume (which means you must re-download it again from the beginning). It may be a temporary server error so you may want to give it some time before you try again.

In this case there nothing you can do but to restart the download from the beginning. However, if the server is experiencing some problems at that time, you may try again later.

Can't download this item. The server gave an error response code of %v.

In the above case, the server indicates that an error has occurred. If it's a temporary error, you may try it again at a later time otherwise there is nothing you can do. Typical values for %v you may see are "404 Not Found" which means the file no longer exists, "503 Service Unavailable" meaning the server is experiencing some difficulties, "403 Forbidden" meaning you don't have the right to access the file or the link is expired. An exhaustive list can be found at httpstatuses.com.

Not sure why but the server sent a response that I'm trying to resume the download at an invalid position. It may be that the download is already completed or it's a faulty server response. Please open the downloaded file to see if there are no problems.

In the above case try opening the file to see if it is alright. If it isn't, restart the download from the beginning.

The download url you gave "%v" is malformed.

This means that the download link you gave is not a valid one.

I attempted downloading this item a number of times but hiccups didn't let me until I finally reached the maximum number of attempts allowed. Just "Resume" to finish it.

The above fail case occurs in poor/erratic internet connections or with poor servers which are wrought with frequent disconnections. WFDownloader App will try a failing download for only a couple of times and then give up. If you have a bad internet connection and want to reduce the chances of this error occurring, right-click the Batch containing the download items in the batches panel, select "Properties" and set a value for "Maximum number of retries on batch fail" e.g. 1000. If it's just a download item giving you a problem because its server is slow, right-click on the offending download item, select "Properties", select "Edit", and enter a value for "Max Retries".

An error occurred during download. Connection timed out: connect

The above means that the server is slow to respond during connection util it is dropped. The default timeout is 60 seconds, but you can increase that for slow servers. Right-click the download item, select "Properties", click "Edit" and set values for "Connect Timeout" and "Read Timeout" and click "Accept". For instance to set timeout to 2 minutes, you can set a value of 120 seconds for each of them. Only use this for the offending download items otherwise, you risk slowing down the batch download.

An error occurred during download. Unable to complete https handshake due to certificate verification error. It's not listed under trusted ones.

This means that for a secured connection, WFDownloader App doesn't trust the certificate presented by the server. Either the server is using an unknown certificate authority or the server is self-signed which is usually bad for your security and privacy. In this situation, it is recommended that you get your download from another source. However if for some reason, you must download from that source, go to Options > General Settings and select "Temporarily turn off HTTPS/SSL certificate check (Not Recommended)". I repeat this quick fix is not recommended. Ask yourself this question "Is this download worth compromising my security and privacy for?".

An error occurred during download. Unable to complete https handshake due to severe handshake failure. This app's version may be outdated.

This means that a secured connection handshake failure occurred likely because the version of WFDownloader App you are using is outdated. Get an up-to-date version.

An error occurred during download. Cannot reach the download address. Ensure your internet connection is working and that your firewall is not interfering. Otherwise, the server may be temporarily down and you have to try again later.

As it says above, check and ensure you have a working internet connection, otherwise the server may just be down at that moment in which case, you should try at a later time.

An error occurred during download. Cannot reach the download address. Ensure your internet connection is working, your network is configured correctly, and that your firewall is not interfering.

As it says above, check and ensure you have a working internet connection, and your network is configured correctly. If you are using a proxy, ensure that you have applied the proxy setting via menu Options > Proxy Settings.

Note that the above list is not exhaustive. More will be added as needed. If the error you are having is not found here or still cannot be resolved, you can consider contacting us.

Thank you for reading!

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