Having issues while downloading your libraries? This guide can help!
Download Manager is a desktop utility built to facilitate the downloading of large libraries to a local hard drive, when you'd prefer to manage your sounds locally. You can also access every individual sound you purchase from Pro Sound Effects by logging into SoundQ or our Website, without needing to store the entire libraries yourself.
When Download Manager is downloading library content, it looks at your destination drive, checking to see what sounds you may already have downloaded from that library, to make sure you don't end up with duplicate content, and to facilitate pausing or restarting downloads in case your connection is interrupted.
Check your internet connection
You've probably already considered this, but a robust internet connection is essential to downloading a large library. We encourage you to use a hardwired connection wherever possible (as opposed to Wi-Fi) and test the connection speed if you're experiencing problems. Note that some home internet service providers (ISPs) throttle large downloads.
You may also want to try restarting your router or modem to refresh the network connection.
Also try temporarily disabling any firewall or antivirus software that could be interfering with the network connection. If you are using anti-virus software, make sure that you have enabled PSE Download Manager as a trusted application, or turn off your anti-virus software while downloading libraries.
Download Manager will automatically reduce the bandwidth slider if downloads seem to be failing, which reduces the number of parallel download threads active at one time, and can usually help the library to download successfully.
If Download Manager is experiencing repeated connectivity issues, it will attempt to restart the download multiple times before cancelling it and displaying the download as "failed."
You can always restart a download at another time, and it will pick up where it left off.
Check your sleep / power saver settings
Some computers will shut hard drives to sleep after a certain time period of "inactivity" even if a download is going on in the background. Check your screen saver and power conservation settings, and turn them off temporarily while completing your download.
Ensure your drives aren’t going to sleep during a download. Here are some helpful instructions from Western Digital on how to prevent hard drives from going to sleep on either Windows and Mac, and a free utility from Microsoft for advanced configuration of sleep settings in Windows
Download to an internal drive
External drives can also present bottlenecks that slow down the download process or cause it to fail. If you've able to download to an internal drive, try that first, and then move the content over to the external drive you wish to store your content on long-term. Make sure the drive you're downloading the library to has more than enough space for the entire library.
If you must use an external hard drive
There are some massive libraries that aren't able to fit on an internal drive. If you must use an external drive, see how fast the drive is and use the fastest connection method possible. SSD drives with a USB-C connection are ideal.
Avoid using drives connected through USB hubs, which can also go to sleep after some period of "inactivity" disrupting a download.
And as mentioned for internal drives, make sure the drive you're downloading the library to has more than enough space for the entire library.
For smaller libraries, find your ZIP files
Many of our smaller libraries are available as ZIP files from the "My Account" section of our site, so you wouldn't need to use Download Manager at all.