Suddenly incapable of launching a download

[felixblumenfeld]

I am trying to download files using my Samsung Android tablet. Nothing happens when I click on the link for the chosen score. If I long-press on the link to open it in another window, I see a new page with a link such as https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:Imagefro ... 67721/pndp, but nothing happens (this is for Chausson's op. 19). I have see this once in a while, and always when using my tablet. What could be the problem? Is it on the server side?

[felixblumenfeld]

I just discovered that I had reported the problem on 3 October 2021 at https://imslpforums.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10049. (There was thus no intention of crossposting.) The difference now is that downloading from the work's page open in a new window no longer works.

[felixblumenfeld]

Another discovery: I disconnected from my paid IMSLP account and tried downloading a score, and lo and behold, it worked. I connected again and the initial problem recurred immediately. This is most troubling... Can registered users be prevented from downloading?

[felixblumenfeld]

No change a day later with the website on my tablet, but I installed the IMSLP application and logged into my account. To my surprise, everything worked. What strikes me is that the problem I described had happened a few weeks ago, disappeared, then showed up again a couple of days ago.

[Sallen112]

There is a possibility that the servers were having problems or it might have been a bug of some sort.

[felixblumenfeld]

I am happy to report that I was able to download a file without problem yesterday and again moments ago. The problem thus appears to be a transient one.

[Eric]

From time to time I try to download a file using Chrome on my Mac in the usual way and it's no go; I open up the file window in a new tab (the #xxxx tab) and try to save the pdf file in full resolution, and get "this file cannot be downloaded securely, discard/keep" - I can download if I choose keep, but seriously, what's up?...

[mtsb]

I get similar complaints from my browser (Firefox) "File not downloaded: Potential security risk", and I suspect it's because the download links use HTTP and not HTTPS (at least for some of the scores). I can force Firefox to download it anyway and there's probably a setting in Firefox to not require HTTPS, but I don't want to reduce the general safety.

/Mats

[Choralia]

My browser (Mozilla Firefox, too) does not produce any warnings when opening pages or downloading files in http, so you probably have a specific setting activated in your browser. Please find details about this kind of settings here:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/https-only-prefs

In an ideal world browsers should be smart enough to require https only when it is actually required by the nature of the transaction (e.g., for transactions that require a login), however in practice this is not the case: all browsers are quite stupid from this viewpoint, and they apply rather basic rules.

Anyway, you can always copy-and-paste the http URL to a text file, replace http with https, and copy-and-paste the https URL back to your browser. This will (supposedly) bypass any restrictions set by the browser's settings.

Max

[Eric]

Will have to give that a go at some point. As noted at the moment I've had to get to a point where I can save the file and tell it to go ahead, but I may be able to copy-link, paste into a new window, and add-an-s... (oddly, it seems to often work better in Mac Safari. Anecdotally speaking )