Please read my advice on your first post: Failed to Connect

graylox

Looks like I commented on this a few years ago. ... My computer crashed in Feb last year and I lost EVERY one of my giveaways - games and other programs.

My problem started with leaving Netzero and getting a wireless DSL.

But after achieving success for a while, I was back struggling to activate again. I finally gave up.

Today, I decided to tackle it again.

I've not downloaded anything in over 18 months form GGOTD or GOTD.

I've been using FreeDownload Manager for over 3 years, and until we left netzero, never had a problem connecting or activating the giveaways. Downloaded the program using Chrome and then IE without success.

Followed all of the advice that I found ... finally reset the IE to autodetect settings ... but still nothing was working.

So I downloaded the program a third time without using FDM - just using the built in IE downloader .... and it worked.

Kind of shocked.

Oh no my secret job in french school books has been noticed! :p

Glad to hear you have your issues squared away and know you can always count on having future questions answered by me or other members here in the forums.

HI Mr CHIP! (Mr Chip is a man in English school books in France)
Thanks to be so reactive!

in fact i had checked my firewall entries AGAIN
and found the problem

it's working well now !

thks

ps: exept that it was slow from exe to rar to msi...and my msi don't work fine...;))

Hello encule and welcome to the forums. It would help if you were more specific in your troubles so we can try and assist you. Are you able to download and install the program but not activate it when activate.exe tries to connect? If so perhaps you have a firewall blocking it unknowingly. Are you not able to download or install the program at all? Perhaps the compressed file your downloading is being corrupted in the process. If so try using some of the above mentioned softwares for extraction. But if you elaborate more on what your problem is we will be sure to help anyway we can.

hi

I always have the same message for 4 month:
impossible to connect gaotd!!!

http://portableapps.com/
MD5 Hash (for the geeks) do a down load and check the Hash to see if you get the full size, all the tools are at portable apps can run on USB or harddrive,try 7-Zip, winMd5Sum Portable - check md5 sums to verify files on the go

http://portableapps.com/apps/utilities/winmd5sum_portable

What's an MD5 Sum? An MD5 sum is a cryptographic hash used to verify the integrity of files. So, when you download a file, you can check what the publisher says the MD5 sum is and compare it to the MD5 sum of the file you have.

jZip is also good - you may download it here.

Hi Sam, try using 7zip instead of winrar or winzip. I had a similar problem with some zipped files using both of these programs but 7Zip worked fine.

You can download 7 Zip HERE

Regards

Whiterabbit

p.s.

Sometime the cookies that are stored in the internet cache become corrupted. Clearing the cache may also solve this problem. If you're not sure how to clear the cache see my comment above (#4) :)

Using Firefox? It tends to corrupt some downloads. Best bet is to use a download manager (such as FlashGet).

I keep getting error messages, Yesterday's app and game gave me the same message

Extracting to "C:\Users\Samm\AppData\Local\Temp\install\"
Use Path: yes Overlay Files: yes
Extracting readme.txt
Extracting Setup.exe
Error: Invalid compressed data to expand (inflate) the file

I have tried different decompression software and all of them give me an error message. I give up.

Hi,
I have this problem of not succeeding in connecting for activation. I've discovered that is a problem with my firewall. To activate I have to diasble my Sunbelt firewall to pass the activation. Then I can reconnect it and the rest works good.
What I did NOT discovered is WHY the firewall is blocking the connection, for the only programs that are blocked for connection have nothing to do with it (not systems programs, just applications that want to check upgrades). The other are set to ask for permission, but the question is never made for GAOTD.
Cheers from Rio.

Hi, had a similar problem all day long, uninstall, reinstall , clean reg etc. finally found it was my firewall (Bullguard), told BG to check and allow, all cleared, hope this helps.

Thanks, MountainLamb. A lot of times we float solutions and never hear whether we gave good advice or not. I forgot about that setting, glad pcbn2u mentioned it. We'll probably have to remember next time someone gets stuck, as that's probably the safest setting in all versions of IE.

By the way, I checked your profile to see if you were new or a vet checking in after awhile. Did you ever finish JewelCraft? I assume you did.

I've not been able to activate ANYTHING for around 2 months - today I found this thread and used the advice of pcbn2u - it worked. I have XP, not sure which SP, and use IE8.

Well, that sounds like a good thing. I just got the Street Racer and Audio Editor, and only Street Racer lets me activate. It's an odd thing.

Actually, it seems that the activation server can't be down if the main site isn't down because the activation system is on the same www subdomain as the main site. The file server might be different because it is files.giveaway.... , so that could be down. If the site admins would let me post a link to the activation key (not useful by itself), I could describe a way to see if people can connect to the activation system.

I've been having this problem almost constantly the last three weeks or so, enough that it finally drove me to register and make this post.

I have no issues with the activating the games on the weekend. Works like a charm.

But get home from work, jump on the GAOTD, download the latest, and can't get past activation. I do see activity out, I get nothing back, and then it times out.

I see that over the years, different things have happened. If the activation server is down, isn't there a way to indicate it on the site?

Minor technical info: The Giveaway wrapper uses Internet Explorer settings to connect to GAOTD's server. If the settings under your Connection tab under Internet Options isn't correct, you'll have trouble activating. Also, as always, check your firewall. It may be set to block the Giveaway wrapper.

w8tif's question: Why not just give us the serials? Well, it's mostly a matter of choice for the developers. They may want to keep everyone in the dark so that they can't upgrade to the next version (although the conditions of GAOTD are no free upgrades, some developers don't create a special GAOTD version of their software with a special key to prevent upgrades). Also, it may be because that they don't want to overload their activation servers, if applicable. However, mainly the reason is that they don't want people to know their serial numbers.

I don't use IE in any version (nor will I!) and "Opera" has worked perfectly well in the past, but today's GOTD (Wondershare Video Converter) will not activate! After installation, and SEVERAL attempts to use the "Register" application, I keep getting "Unable to Connect" -- which is hogwash!

Why not just provide a serial number and be done with it? Right now, in my opinion, GOTD really sucks!

I have had the same problem for a few days, I tried a few tips but they didn't work. I installed (or reinstalled? can't remember) Internet Explorer 8 and it now seems to work perfectly. Obviously the link is through IE somhow and if it is corrupted it don't go.

Many thanks for a wonderful site

Hi, to this topic there are several threads already, I think you will find them easyly, here is the first one:
activation « Giveaway of the Day Forums

look at:
Installation and activation problems
Not to forget: Welcome to the forums! I hope you'll find the right answer, if not, shout loudly and tell us some more about your system, proxy, firewall....

This happens to me as well. I have Vista. The strange thing is it used to work until a couple months ago and now I get the error message "Failed to connect. Please try again later." I have Norton but when I run Windows Task Manager it does not show up nor is there an icon in the Notification area. I get this error when running game giveaway or regular giveaway. I have tried changing the compatibility settings as well. Any ideas?
Thank you! Dave

hotdoge3

The game was given away 2 weeks ago...I think that it wouldn't connect to giveaway...so there is no use now, he/she will have to wait and see if it comes around again!

Suki

the error message that it failed to connect. it over load try later or firewall some firewall's if you turn block the net & some are open you not say name of firewall or spyware scanner!

I have downloaded Bagh Chal but when I run the setup it gives me an error message that it failed to connect. I did try turning off my firewall but that did not change any thing. I am run XP media center SP 2.

I was getting the same error on my XP SP2 system. Terribyte's solution also worked for me.

However...

After installation, when I ran the game, Zone Alarm Pro told me that Egyptoid wanted access to privileged resources, and could be tracking or logging keystrokes, etc. I clicked "Deny" and my system became unstable, then terminal. After shutting down and rebooting, I ran the program again, got the same message but clicked "Allow" and everything seems fine.

Any clue what this is all about? Did I just install malware?

Terribyte wrote: I found a solution that works for me :-)
I`ve open the Internet Options box under the Tools menu, and then click on lan settings in connections tab. In the lan settings box, I clicked on the top box to let IE automatically detect the correct settings.
I now can activate programs

I am on XP sp3 and Terribyte's solution worked for me. Thanks

close IE & Firefox work OK, set DNS to Auto, then go to Command Promp > " ipconfig /flushdns " you get back it flush ok.

Good day all.

Here is an odd circumstance I encountered which seems, for now, to get around the registration problems. As mentioned previously I am using Vista HP, no SP it failed miserably, on a 1.6gHz with 2G ram, TB hd, slow dialup. I do not use IE rather Firefox unlezss required, IE is version 7.

At first I thought this was a difference between a separate activation module and one built into setup (which actually seems to do nothing other than allow setup to continue) as that is when it started. Further experimentation showed no difference.

I found by the fact that the activation passed absolutely no traffic during its attempt, that it works thru the browser, not the connection. Apparently Firefox is not an acceptable browser for this process. At a later time I accidentally had IE running, some other process had initiated it unknown to me, when I again attempted activation. Mirabile Dictu it worked. Since then I have found that having IE running in the background while trying to activate allows it to function (and also kicks you into the GOTD site). So it -must- work thru IE, not the system set default browser.

Don't know how many this may help, I hope it is something taken into consideration by the GOTD developers. At least enough to make a note in the 'readme' that IE must be accessible during activation.

Cordially,

Mike