Downloading Problems

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Hi, can anyone help?
I've had a second hand macbook (running OSX 10.5.8) for about a year or so, having previously only used windows, and it's been generally fine but recently I've had problems downloading new problems or updating old ones.
When I click on the download link the page fails to load properly, it just comes up blank and does nothing (sometimes says stopped or done in the bottom left corner). The problem is the same with firefox and safari, but only happens with certain programs - I downloaded updates for firefox, itunes and other mac software updates no problem, but can't download anything I've tried from sourceforge or adobe.
Can anyone suggest anything I could try, or should I take it in to a shop?
Thanks
 
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Sounds like it could be a connection issue, since it's happening with two different programs.

I'd start by trying a ping to see if there's any packet loss. Just open up a terminal and type "ping -c 100 yahoo.ca" (or any web server that responds to ping); at the end if it shows any packet loss, try calling your ISP. If they don't support Mac, lie and say you have Windows XPee. Your OS only matters for application-layer issues. You can use the XPee simulator on chasms.com to help translate what you're actually doing to how it would be done in XPee.
 

vansmith

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Have you ever used a download manager? In my experience, improperly uninstalled download managers frequently cause download issues. If you have in fact uninstalled a download manager, try reinstalling it and uninstalling it again, making sure to use any included uninstallers.
 
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Vansmith - No I've never used a download manager, unless you count Amazon's Downloader program?!

Citizen Bleys - Did the test you suggested (though had to look up what a ping actually was!). Got the following result: 100 packets transmitted, 91 packets received, 9% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 159.924/254.564/7037.254/715.065 ms

So what does that mean? I rang my ISP earlier today to report a generally intermittent/slow broadband connection and the test they did said there was no packet loss. Does that mean they were wrong? They do support mac but when I asked them about the problem in the same phonecall they said if ordinary pages were loading ok it must be something to do with my OS or browser...

Thanks for your help anyway, I'll call them back with this new information.
 
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Those Ping times look excessive to me, although I'm no expert. When I Ping my ISP it normally has a time of 28 to 40 ms tops.
 

vansmith

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Those ping times do look high. What kind of connection do you have (type, speed)?
 
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Are you connecting through a router? If so, try going directly to your modem and see if you still get packet loss. No packet loss is acceptable, but sometimes applications or hardware on a home network can overload the modem, causing artificial packet loss. If your ISP can ping your modem with the ethernet cord unplugged, ask them to do it -- if there's no packet loss with the ethernet cord disconnected, but there is some when your ethernet cord is plugged in, it's an issue with your own equipment.

VoIP routers are particularly notorious for this; A good VoIP router shouldn't cause a problem, but Vonage seems to ship an awful lot of duds.
 
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Ok so I've done a bit more experimenting and worked out that I generally don't have any packet loss when I connect directly to my modem, but it still goes slow occasionally, which I've now found out is because I'm under traffic management from my ISP (it's a 10mb cable broadband by the way) which will be rectified if I stop downloading lots of stuff between 12pm-12am. So I think otherwise the slow speed is a problem with my Peak wireless router, which I've contacted them about, might have to experiment putting it in a different place in the room or something...

Anyway, all this still doesn't solve my problem which is that even when I'm connected directly by ethernet, when I try to download programs (ie from sourceforge, adobe etc) the download page just comes up blank every time.

Any more suggestions?
 

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