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To get help on the current NetPumper window, press F1 key.
In the Main window you can also open help files using Main menu.
To initiate download task add a link (an URL, an internet address of a resource) to NetPumper task list.
You can add a link in several ways:
NetPumper monitors clicks on the links in MS Internet Explorer 4.x - 6.x, Netscape Navigator 4.x and 6+ and Opera 6+ web browsers.
NetPumper uses similar monitoring mechanism for MS Internet Explorer 4.x - 6.x and Netscape Navigator 4.x. You can control which click NetPumper will intercept and which files it will download automatically by specifying file masks at Click monitoring pane in Preferences window. Typically you set only file name suffixes.
Different mechanism is used for monitoring clicks in Netscape Navigator 6.+ and Opera 6.+. You can enable and disable interception of a click for three fixed groups of resources:
You can make these settings at Click monitoring pane in Preferences window.
See Integration with Netscape 6+ and Integration with Opera 6+ sections for more details.
NetPumper needs to know two things :
Defining destination folder
NetPumper has two options for this:
- all resources are stored in the Default Download Folder
- NetPumper asks you where to place a resource for every added link
You can switch between these options at General pane in the Preferences window.
You can set or change default download folder in Main window and in Preferences window.
When NetPumper asks you where to place a file, it shows standard Save As dialog. Note, that file extensions (types) can be omitted in this dialog in dependence of File Explorer settings (such as 'Hide file extensions for known file types'). Nevertheless, NetPumper will create file with filename extension, you must not enter the extension manually.
Note that NetPumper will show Save As dialog in a case of filename conflict in destination folder, regardless of your preferences.
Defining initial task state
NetPumper can start downloading immediately or do it later; NetPumper can also ask you about initial task state for every added link.
You can switch between these three options at General pane in Preferences window.
You can pause and resume a task by Pause and Resume commands in the Main
window.
You can issue these commands by buttons, menu or keyboard keys.
You need not resume a task, which went to Retrying state because of network errors. NetPumper will resume this task automatically. You can control options of automatic resume at Connection pane in Preferences window.
You can open downloaded file directly from NetPumper's Main window. Use Open or Open Folder command, or just make mouse double click on the task or select this task and press Enter key.
You can use several features to manage a list of downloads easily, see Managing task list section below.
Before you begin to take any measures, please try to learn what happens in details. Open Download details window and look at Error description field.
Now read a description of general fault groups and what we recommend to do in these cases.
| Visible behaviour | Meaning | What to do |
| Retrying | This usually means that there is a temporary
network or server-side error. NetPumper will retry automatically until success or
until you stop the task. This behaviour can also occur if your computer is behind a proxy server or firewall and NetPumper is not configured to connect via proxy or its configuration is not correct. |
You can control options of automatic resume at Connections pane in Preferences
window. You can Pause the task if you know that failure conditions will remain actual for a long time and Resume the task again when the conditions disappear. If your computer is behind a proxy server or firewall, check that NetPumper is configured correctly to use proxy. See Downloading via proxy servers and firewalls section below. |
| Retrying and starting from the beginning | This usually means that server does not support resume operation. There is no way to resume from a point of interruption in this case. | You can check server's capabilities in Download details window. |
| Fatal task state | This is usually a serious, unrecoverable error.
There is no reason to retry. However, there are cases in which NetPumper incorrectly classifies an error as fatal or server reports a fatal error (such as 'File not found') and in fact its not the case. |
Use Resume special command to
try to resume the task from a point of interruption. Use Re-enter URL command to restart the task from the beginning. Remove the task if previous suggestions do not help. |
| Completed task state but you are sure that download is not completed. | This normally must not happen. However there is a reported error in NetPumper which looks like this. Sometimes this also can happen when server does not report a size of the resource and so there is no way to check is the download complete or not. |
Use Resume special command to
try to resume the task from a point of interruption. Use Re-enter URL command to restart the task from the beginning. |
| Need help task state | NetPumper needs your help to recover this error. | See When NetPumper needs help section below. |
You can learn more about possible errors here below.
There are several kinds of errors which NetPumper can not recover by itself but can recover with your help
In these cases NetPumper asks for your attention. You can solve the problem "on
the fly".
If you do not help within 1 minute, NetPumper finishes the task. You can correct problem
and resume the task later.
You can distinct such tasks from others by their state: Need help state.
To correct the problem, open Download details window for this
task (use View Details command),
read error description, press Correct button if available, then press Resume
button.
More about download errors
There are a lot problems which can occur while NetPumper download a file(s).
There are several sources of these unwanted events:
- Network problems: you can not connect to the Internet, server which owns a resource is temporary disconnected from the Internet, temporary faults of Internet internal services (such as name resolution (DNS), routers, etc.), modem disconnected, and so on. Most of these errors are temporary.
- Server problems: server is temporary shut down or it is too busy to process a request. These errors are temporary.
- Address problems: an address of the resource is incorrect, there is no such file at specified location, resource no longer exists, server no longer exists, and so on. There errors are fatal and usually there is no reason to retry.
- Local problems: no room at destination drive, no write access rights, no such disk folder, not enough system resources (such as memory, file handles, etc.). Most of these errors are are classified as fatal, except 'Filename conflict' (recoverable), 'Disk full' (recoverable) and 'Not enough system resources' (temporary). We plan to add more detailed classification in the future.
- Authentication problems: server wants you to enter login and password. This is recoverable error.
You can check what has happened in the in the Download Details window.
In general, all errors are divided in three big classes:
Temporary errors
NetPumper handles these errors automatically.
NetPumper will switch the task to Retrying state and repeat an attempt after a period.
You can control options of automatic resume at Connection pane in Preferences window.When retrying, NetPumper tries to resume a download from a point of interruption. However, the server must support resume operation. Modern servers support this, but some do not. There is no way to resume a download in the latter case, so NetPumper will restart downloading from the beginning. You can check whether server supports resume in the Download Details window.
Fatal errors
Usually there is no reason to retry a download.
However, sometimes retrying can help. See instructions in the table above.Recoverable errors
These errors are those which can be recovered with your help.
See When NetPumper needs help section above.
You can effectively control download speed and channel bandwidth used by NetPumper.
(See below: Increasing speed and bandwidth, Limiting speed and bandwidth.)
You can dramatically increase a download speed by tuning two key parameters:
Both parameters influence on a number of concurrent network connections.
Note that your network hardware should have a sufficient speed/bandwidth, otherwise
the tuning will not help.
Moreover, if you have a slow connection, such as a modem connection over public switched telephone network,
it is better to set both these parameters to lowest values.
Note also, that setting these parameters to maximal values provides a huge load of your
computer and network channel,
so tune the parameters with care.
You can set these parameters at the Bandwidth pane in the Preferences window.
When download manager does its work fine, it usually occupies all available bandwidth
of a network channel and so prevents other applications to work with the net.
This is often regarded as inappropriate behaviour.
You can effectively limit a bandwidth used for NetPumper's downloads. (Of course, a speed of downloads will decrease as well.)
In the first words, you can switch between three modes:
You can select appropriate mode at Bandwidth
pane in the Preferences window or at Bandwidth panel in the Main
window. (Read more.)
To execute limited transfers, select an option called "Apply limit".
In the seconds words, you should define a bandwidth limit value to apply with the
"Apply limit" option.
You can set the value at the Bandwidth pane in
the Preferences window or at Bandwidth panel in the Main
window.
(The second way is more quick but less clear.) (Read more.)
Instead of setting bandwidth limit value manually, you can create a bandwidth
usage plan.
In this case NetPumper will set limit values automatically in appropriate times.
You can create and edit the bandwidth usage plan in the Schedule
window. (Read more.)
To open the window, invoke the Edit Schedule
command in the Main window (use main
menu or 
button).
Note, in both cases a limit is in effect if and only if you select the "Apply limit" option.
Instead of executing downloads immediately, you can schedule its automatic start and stop in appropriate times.
To schedule a task or several tasks:
button in the the Main window).Note that you can change start and stop
time of scheduled downloads later, using the Schedule window.
To open the window, invoke the Edit Schedule
command in the Main window (use main
menu or button).
Note: to process the schedule, NetPumper should be running.
The current version does not start automatically on computer start or reboot.
Please, activate NetPumper manually or add NetPumper's shortcut to the Windows StartUp
menu.
(To perform the latter,
- find NetPumper's shortcut in the Windows menu (usually in NetPumper submenu),
- drag it with right mouse button to the StartUp submenu,
- drop the shortcut there,
- select "Copy" or "Create shortcut" action).
There are several ways to make managing the task list easy.
Use this feature to transfer links from one computer to another, to transfer links from one your download manager to another, to exchange collected links with other users.
To export all links use File \ Export links \ All item from Main menu.
To export selected links, select tasks in the task list and use File \ Export links \ Selected item form Main menu.
To import links into NetPumper, use File \ Import links item from Main menu.
If your workstation is behind a proxy server or firewall, you should configure NetPumper to traverse this proxy or firewall.
You need to consult with your internet provider or system administrator and learn parameters necessary to connect via proxy server or firewall:
Then open Proxy pane in Preferences window and enter these parameters into fields. If your computer is just configured to work with proxy, you can import these settings from MS Internet Explorer instead.
Some kind of simple firewalls, such as packet filters, can be traversed with rather simple measures. Use passive FTP mode for such firewalls, at Connections pane in Preferences window.
First time installation is simple and requires no special attention.
On upgrade, be sure that NetPumper is shut down. This usually means that web browsers must be shut down too, because components of NetPumper (dynamic link libraries) can be loaded into browsers and so cannot be deleted and replaced by newer ones.
Installer checks that it can replace all components of NetPumper and pauses installation process until this becomes true.
The same requirements are valid for uninstallation of NetPumper.
Note, that
The latter condition is always true unless you upgrade NetPumper from earlier version and installer explicitly warns you that you will lose your preferences.
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