Downloaded file invalid; MD5s do not match server

Yes. MD5 warnings generally have to do with security software...so turn off your firewall/antivirals when downloading.

i am also having this same problem when trying to download the 1.05 to 1.19 update for sins of a solar empire....i have tried turning off my anti-virus and have added firewall exceptions for impulse and impulse now as suggested in previous forum thread but am still receiving the same error....after wasting almost ½ of my monthly internet usage quota i coukld really use some help...another way to download the file perhaps as the impulse software despite trying with a clean install and all updates is obviously defective.....and i find it highly unlikely that i have "bad memory" as the entire system is only 4 days old and runs all other applications perfectly

windows 7 home premium 64bit operating system

core i7 920

GTX260o/c

asus P6T-SE

6Gb  kingston 1333Mhz DDR3

16,900 3dMark 06 score

MD5 errors can be caused by a multitude of things.  RAM and security software are the most common, but I've seen a bad laptop wireless card corrupt data before.  Routers act as firewalls, and could also be complicating things.  If all else fails, you can always try http://anywhere.impulsedriven.com/

Rosco... I thought MD5's were phased out because of the "accidental collision" issue, and because they're so easily hacked.

haha...no we just WISH they were phased out DrJBHL then we'd be able to update our game so we could play it...still waiting 2 days later for some feedback on the ticket i submitted to stardock support

so when i do eventually hear back from them it's to tell me to try a program i have no idea how to even get running....looks like i've wasted my time and money...shame coz i heard it was a great game

Was that Impulse?

some memtest program that when i downloaded it had no instructions on how to even install let alone run....apparently i have "bad memory" on a system less than a week old...no help whatsoever

For hashing passwords or for SSL certs maybe, but to verify file integrity they'll do just fine.  The likelyhood of a collision with a good .impulse file and a corrupt one is mighty low.

This is possible, and having worked in {INSERT MAJOR RETAILER NAME HERE} I have seen my fair share of DOA machines.

Memtest86+ is the one we usually send out to people.  The download will be a .iso file that you will need to burn to a CD.  If you just bought the computer recently I assume it has Windows 7 on it, which comes with .iso burning software (finally).  Once you burn the disc, reboot and boot off of CD and it will handle the rest.  No input is really required as the test starts on it's own.  You'll see a "Passes" field on screen that shows how many times the test has cycled through all of your RAM.  1 should be sufficient for the test.  If you see any errors (you won't miss them, they'll be bright red) that's not good, and given that the machine is brand new I would suggest trying to exchange it at that point.

We are actually re-working how the MD5 verification check/download mechanism works. This new method is in testing right now and should be available in an upcoming build of Impulse.

The problem is not with false-negatives.  The way MD5 works (and this is an over simplication, I'll grant you, but it works for our purposes), is similar to taking a sentence, assigning number values to each letter (a=1, b=2, etc), and adding up the corresponding numbers to get a sum.  That's your "MD5" (though the real MD5 creates a much more unique signature than that).  Then tell someone that sentence, and have them write it down.  If they misspell something, then when they add up the digits from their setnence, it will have a different sum.

There are several reasons they could have misspelled it.  Maybe they can't hear very well (bad network cable).  Maybe there is someone between you and the person that has to examine the sentence to make sure there isn't a curse word before they relay it to you, and they might mispronounce something (firewalls, security software).  Maybe the person has dyslexia (bad RAM).

Right now, we're trying to pass the entire sentence to you, so it's easier for something along the way to get something wrong.  The system we've been working on passes one word at a time, so there's less chance of confusion, and if something does go wrong, you'll know about it sooner.

I understand how an MD5 works.  When I say false negatives I don't mean the MD5 is being calculated wrong or something, I just mean that obviously lots of people are downloading files from stardock that are not in fact corrupted by things like bad memory or network hardware.  It's very rare for most people to encounter corrupted downloads, and almost inconceivable to do so repeatably.  So something else is tripping the MD5 difference, be it antivirus software modifying a date stamp or what have you.  Whatever the thing is that's tripping the MD5 difference, in most cases it's probably not a real problem and installation would proceed just fine if you ignored it.  That's what I mean by it hurts more than it helps. The medicine is worse than the disease you are trying to cure.

Glad to hear you are working on changes to the verification system.

We've had more than a few cases where this was the issue, including a couple at the office internally.

I don't think metadata like timestamps go into calculating the MD5s, and we did say check for security apps.  Unfortunately if the MD5 does fail it is not safe to say the file would be fine.  .impulse files are one big file, and if part of it is corrupt it likely won't extract and install.

Even if it did extract and install, you could face program instability. There's nothing worse than trying to track down a bug or crash just to find out it's from corrupt files, not a glitch in programming.

Agreed, problems resulting from an actual corrupted file download would be very difficult to track down.  But you have to ask yourself how many of those problems are you really preventing, vs. how many customers you are losing or at a minimum inconveniencing with these checks.  I guarantee
you the latter is a much bigger number.  The lower level layers used to transmit data already have lots of protections built into them for this kind of thing.  Nobody is having any problems downloading games from Steam or D2D, yet Impulse has a steady stream of these issues.

Asking a customer to mess with/disable their firewall and antivirus software in order to simply download a file is just shoddy.  And when that doesn't work, pointing to a customer's RAM or network hardware is just incredibly silly in 99.999% of cases - and even in the cases where hardware is a problem, the customer should be having all sorts of problems beyond Impulse.

" Nobody is having any problems downloading games from Steam or D2D, yet Impulse has a steady stream of these issues.

Asking a customer to mess with/disable their firewall and antivirus software in order to simply download a file is just shoddy.  And when that doesn't work, pointing to a customer's RAM or network hardware is just incredibly silly in 99.999% of cases - and even in the cases where hardware is a problem, the customer should be having all sorts of problems beyond Impulse."

i couldn't have put it better myself DancingM4chine.....and my pc shows no other signs whatsoever of anything being wrong

untill i had this problem i was all set to shell out the cash for both Entrenchment and Diplomacy add-ons but Stardock will not be getting any more of my money

Unfortunately this is the only way to deal with any issues caused by modern heuristic detection engines.  There is no "Don't make AV touch this" code than can be implemented to work around this.

Experience has shown otherwise.  Even here in the office we have had machines that otherwise appeared to work correctly yet would have chronic MD5 issues.  Memory tests determined that the issue was faulty RAM, and replacing or removing the faulty modules completely resolved the issue.  Memory tests are rather simple to run, and a good way to rule out hardware issues.

sounds like a cop-out to me...classic case of passing the buck

How is asking someone to check something a cop-out?  We ask people to run these test.  If they do and they pass, we can then rule out these possibilities and move on to other options.  I don't understand why this is such a hassle, it should be this simple:

Customer: I'm having MD5 issues.

Us: Check your security software or firewall

Customer: I disabled/added exceptions and it didn't help, I'm turning them back on  OR  Hey, that helped, thanks.  I'll change the settings so this doesn't happen again.

Us(case the former above): Check your memory.  We've seen this commonly on systems with bad RAM.

Customer: Memory checks out fine OR Memory was bad, I replaced/removed the bad chip and it worked!

Us(case the former above): [FURTHER TROUBLESHOOTING ENSUES]

What IS passing the buck, and quite frankly harming the community by spreading misinformation, is blaming some unverifiable server side or Impulse issue.  In this specific case, as we are the sole digital distributor for Sins and it's expansions, it would be obvious if there were a server issue as it would affect any and every customer trying to download Sins.  Clearly, as I and several thousand other customer are able to download with no MD5 issues, this is not the case.

Add me to the list. Seems like lots of folks have problems downloading using IMPULSE these days. Too much, FAR TOO MUCH of a coincidence to NOT be Stardock's problem. The only common thing is STARDOCK. Correct?

...Michael

Tried the same download on an XP laptop. Same MD5 error. Oh my! It's obviously me, NOT Stardock. Same error on Windows XP (up to date) on a laptop, and on a Windows 7 Ultimate system - dual processor, 4 gig RAM, etc etc. Yep, must be me. Thanks Stardock for pointing it out. (Oh, I did run stand-alone memory checks for a couple of hours, what else can I check to find out MY problem! )

Michael Hallady - If you haven't done so already, please email support@stardock.com and start a trouble ticket.

I don't think it's a server side issue; I'm sure it is indeed on the client side.  Eventually, you guys will figure out what the common element across all these client machines is that causes the MD5 to not match after download.    My point is, I bet you $100 when you get the root cause determined, you will find that if Impulse had simply not done any MD5 check at all, everything would have worked fine.

I have the same MD5 error when trying to install Star Trek Online. I turned off virus scanner, defragged, ran a mem test overnight with no issues.

So whats my next step? Either I want a quick fix or I want a refund and I'll go buy it at GameStop. I am fustrated I bought a game 2 days ago and I can't play the damn thing.

Win7 64bit

4 gig RAM

AMD x4 945