Nothing happens

[DaFur]

After I finish downloading a song, nothing happens. Nothing happens when I click the launch button either. Also, there is no evidence of the song downloaded anywhere on my computer! No file, no icon, nothing! Does anyone know why or how I could fix this? I'm using a Mac 9. something

[David91]

Can I just clarify what you do and see? You see a hit come up in the search box, click on download and watch it download to a completion? But when you look in Library, it is not there? Further, knowing the name of the artists or songs, Finder cannot locate any MP3 matching what was downloaded? All that would be a strange scenario.

The launch button only works if you have an internal MP3 player and that player is set as the default format for downloads from the internet. As a matter of interest, what internal MP3 player does your OS9 something machine have in its bundle or have you subsequently downloaded? I know that, for example, the excellent iTunes did not become available until early 2001. If you acquired your machine before then, it might not have the best MP3 player aboard. I can give you the URL for a download if you can identify which OS you have.

When you give us more information, we can better advise.

[DaFur]

That is the scenario, and yes my MP3 player is iTunes, I got this computer brand new at the very end of 2001. But after downloading nothing happens at all, and when I download from the internet the songs just go into iTunes, and there is an MP3 icon on the desktop, but none of this is true when I download from Limewire.

[David91]

I am concerned that you cannot find any of the titles or artists by using Finder. This would suggest a number of possibilities, eg either that Limewire has not actually saved any of the downloads to your hard disk or that you have a hard disk problem of some form. However, we'll start with the least serious possibility. When did you last do an archive? Finder relies on the current index by content to "find" the target text. If your last archive was performed before the downloads, Finder will not "find" them.

If you open Preferences in Limewire you should see which folder is nominated for saving — it should look like /users/yourcomputer'sname/shared/. If there is no folder nominated for saving, use the default setting. That should give you a more obvious target for future downloads while you wait for the indexing to be completed. If a folder is nominated, open it and you should find you MP3s inside it.

Report back if Finder fails after indexing by content and I'll go to the next step.

[Blackbird]

I had this problem this very day. It crops up when you mess with the save and share settings. I'm on X, but I guess it comes up on 9 too. When you change your save or share settings during a download, the download will not go through the "Saving File" phase after it "Verifies Contents". In order to fix the problem, I just set the share and save settings to what I wanted and restarted the program.

[David91]

This has not happened to me so, as a matter of interest, when you "lost" the files, could Finder locate them? If so, where were they pending the restoration of your settings in Preferences?

[Blackbird]

I was never able to find the files again. Here's my theory. When files are being dled, they stay in LW's RAM. The "Saving File" msg always appears very quickly, as it is no doubt the writing of the file from RAM to an HD. It goes very quickly, which leads me to believe it's a RAM to HD transfer, b/c those are exceptionally quick. I was never able to get the files, b/c, I think the files stayed in LW's RAM, and there isn't a way to initiate a write of the files from RAM to a harddisk, or at least, not one I know how to do or am aware of. I just wrote down the names of what I was looking for, fixed the problem as above, searched and downloaded them again.