Troubleshooting
Once in a while you may run into a link that doesn’t work with Downie. These links can be divided into two categories:
Links That Produce an Error
Since Downie works with 3rd party online services that can change at any time unexpectedly, breaking the integration with Downie. We do not get notified about these changes by the sites (obviously) and unfortunately, we don’t have the resources to be checking all the 1000+ sites all the time. Moreover, some issues may be only with certain videos and with certain combinations of preferences. This means that the compatibility depends on our users reporting issues with the downloads.
If you have run into a link that produces an error (which will be displayed in a similar manner as in the picture above), please, do not hesitate to contact us. To do so, simply click on the button with the warning triangle button. Note that there are three types of errors for which this button doesn’t open a support dialog:
- DRM Protection - for some links, we are aware that the video is DRM-protected (DRM = Digital Rights Management). DRM-protected videos are not and cannot be supported by Downie. DRM protection means that the video is encrypted and either the site uses a custom encryption, or the decryption keys are passed in a secure way through Apple or Adobe servers. If you are interested in more details about DRM encryption, please see my blog post on the topic. Please do not report those videos since there’s nothing we can do about them.
- Use User-Guided Extraction - some sites need to do various computations in order to get the correct download link and in some cases, the computation is too complex or changes too often to be automatically supported by Downie. These links are, however, known to be supported by User-Guided Extraction. Please use the User Guided Extraction instead - see the User-Guided Extraction help page for more information.
- Conversion Error - conversion errors in 99% of the cases are due to dropped connection or other network issues. If you have encountered such an issue, please wait for a few moments and try the download again. If the download continuously fails with the same report, please report the issue via the Support button (see below).
Unsupported Links
When Downie doesn’t have an explicit support for the link that you’ve sent to Downie, it tries looking for various patterns on the webpage. If it fails to find any known pattern, it will display a dialog as shown above. You are presented with three choices:
- Try User-Guided Extraction - The User-Guided Extraction is a very powerful feature that lets you load a link in its internal browser and will detect any media files the web page may load. This way you should be able to download almost any video out there. The downside is that you need to load one link at a time. If the link that you’re trying to download video from is from a site that hosts a lot of videos, please report this link - we’ll do our best to add support for this site. If the link leads only one of a handful videos, please use the User Guided Extraction. See the User-Guided Extraction help page for more information.
- Request Support… - This will open the support dialog, offering you to send us a report.
- Ignore - Ignore this whole incident.
Reporting an Issue
If the support dialog is not offered to you automatically (see above), you can always use the Support button in the bottom-right corner of the main window to reach us. There are 3 options:
- Report a Link - you have a link that Downie doesn’t work with.
- Generic Report - choose this if you’d like to request a feature, or report another issue not related to a particular link.
- Localization Report - some part of the app is not localized to your language? Or some localization is incorrect? Please report it to us.
Please do follow the following guide - it doesn’t only save our time, but yours as well, since we’re most likely to send you a follow-up email where we’ll ask you for the missing information.
- Support is provided in English only. While Downie is translated into various languages, we personally don’t speak them. Please, do not send us reports in other languages.
- Do not use a fake email. We don’t bite. We don’t have mailing lists. We don’t sell your email. We don’t keep your email addresses in any database. We just want to let you know when it will be fixed or how to work around the issue in current version. Or if we have additional questions about the issue. We never email you unless it’s a response to your report.
- Include error messages displayed. Error messages displayed are the most important thing that should be included. The button with the warning sign automatically fills that in for you. If you are reporting an issue manually, please include these error messages.
- Include links to particular videos. Example - http://www.youtube.com/ is a link to a site. It doesn’t lead to a particular video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HL1UzIK-flA on the other hand does lead to a specific video. This is mainly for two reasons:
- On some sites in foreign languages, it is hard to find how to get to the videos - we can’t guarantee that we’ll actually find them.
- Some sites use various configurations for different videos. We may find a video that uses a different configuration than the one you want to download.
- Try not to use phrases like “doesn’t work” or “won’t download”. These phrases commonly describe that something isn’t working as it should - but unforuntately, for us, it doesn’t help figure out what is wrong: “doesn’t work” can mean anything from the download producing a file that won’t play in a certain video player to the app crashing - and everything inbetween.