Digital Downloads

[Andrew]

Hi all

I have the Business Plus edition and noticed that I can sell digital downloads.

I dont seem to see much info on this area and was wondering if I can download videos and what the size limit is to download.

Unless anyone can direct me to somewhere where there is more info.

Thanks again

[Duncan Rounding]

There should be no download size limit - Actinic purely creates a filename with a link for it which gets sent to the purchaser.

Bear in mind that Actinic will have to upload the files at least initially and that you may need substantial bandwidth on your hosting plan to accomodate video files.

[Paul Thorp]

Digital Files

Hi

I have been happily using Actinic for selling digital downloads since version 8, but after I upgraded to v9 it started playing up.

When I first upgraded I did a complete refresh and so all the digital files were uploaded. Now everytime I make any changes to the site, the programme seems to randomly select a few digital files to reupload.

I was told by Actinic to upgrade from 9.03 to 9.04, but this made no difference.

All I get from the Actinic helpdesk now is that it is being investigated for inclusion in a future upgrade. It is not being included in 9.05, and I am told it may be in 9.06.

Has anyone found a work round ?

Thanks

Paul

[Paul Thorp]

Upload of duplicate digital files

Does anyone know if this has been fixed by V10. I was given a bug code of AC9-2834 by Actinic Support.

[Paddington Bear]

Happy to join the fray

All in all, I would absolutely recommend using the Digital Download functionality if you want to. I have just over a GB of DDs and all is working fine, but there are some bugs.

Two that spring to mind are:
1. You can't do a duplicate of a DD product. You have to make a copy, and this means you have to have two copies of the same DD file, with different names, on your server. This could give you space issues, and will give you time issues. This also has knock on implications for the search facility (which will find the product twice), but that's not a major point.
2. You can't have SSL on your shop. Your DDs won't work because the file naming convention that Actinic uses get's thrown out.

I have chased Actinic on both of these issues and have either been told they are bugs, or heard the eerie silence of no answer.

If anyone knows of fixes for these, or disagrees, then I am still keen to hear.

I have also developed the habit of having two folders under the site folder on my work computer, called 'The Fake MP3s' and 'The Real MP3s'. The fake ones are 0 byte files with the same names and data as the real ones. Then, when I'm doing testing but don't need to test the download functionality, I swap in the fake ones. This massively reduces the upload time, until such time as I'm happy, then I swap them back to the real ones and do the big upload.

I've been selling 30MB MP3s for over a year now, and basically, it works.

Good luck.

[simonwar]

Old Time DD User

Hi Andrew,

I am a long time DD user and on V7 Catalog .... nobody laugh its worked hard for me.... which I then needed to buy a DD bolt-on, which I dont think you can do anymore ?

I have written many a thread on DD and introducing and back then there was less knowledge about than now.

If you search on me as...

user - simonwar
keyword - digital

you will see loads of threads on problems I had... example, the issue above from Paddnigton bear - duplicating DD's was a problem back then and clearly not fixed until V9/V10??? so that should give you som idea of what we are talking about - but this never really caused me any problems I have to admit.

PSP - Immediate Feedback on Payment OK
The issue with regard PSP responding to successfiu payment is a sublte but important one and limits PSP chosen, well it did back then as you have to have an instant response from your PSP on payment success to Actinic to trigger the DD, if you don't get that you could be wasting a lot of time sending orders to payments that do not go through!

Security - Accepting Orders at 03:00 or from Dubai
Another couple of problems that really peed me off ..... send a letter to your PSP indicating to remove all security of the nature, "do not acept orders at 03:00, or from abroad, Geece, Dubai, etc these kept crashing me out and forcing me acknowledge manually on my trading account, and then carry out manual resends which is time consuming. I appreciate security like this is good for PDQ's but for web only ???.... I get orders from all over the world at all times of day and they are always legitimate.... and hey you can lose a couple of files to cowboys know and again :-)

Any questions let me know, Simon.

[JimL]

Random Uploads

Hi

I have been happily using Actinic for selling digital downloads since version 8, but after I upgraded to v9 it started playing up.

When I first upgraded I did a complete refresh and so all the digital files were uploaded. Now everytime I make any changes to the site, the programme seems to randomly select a few digital files to reupload.

I was told by Actinic to upgrade from 9.03 to 9.04, but this made no difference.

All I get from the Actinic helpdesk now is that it is being investigated for inclusion in a future upgrade. It is not being included in 9.05, and I am told it may be in 9.06.

Has anyone found a work round ?

Thanks

Paul

Hi Paul,

Did you ever find a solution to this problem? I'm using 11.0.3 and have the random upload problem.

Regards,

Jim

[Paddington Bear]

Random uploads

Whilst they aren't random, I am on 11.3 and certain MP3s get re-uploaded every time I publish the site, no matter what. This is quite annoying, and I wondered if anyone can identify the reason why.