Planetary Exporation Program

Download Manager

PEP downloads high resolution THEMIS images from NASA servers. So, it has a little download manager that supervises the simultaneous reading of several files while keeping a list of other pending requests. To let you know what is going on, it displays the status windows show above. If everything is going smoothly, you can ignore this window. However, if you are curious or things don't seem to be downloading, the window is important.

The top half of the window simply lists how many active downloads are in progress, how many other requests are ready to start and how many errors have occured. The "Number of Download Errors" label is actually a button. You can click on it to show the last error message, show all the error messages or reset the number of errors displayed.

I should say, it is very unusual to get an error. If you get one, the most likely reason is you are not connected to the internet. In this case, if you click on Number of Download Errors -> Show Last Error, the error message will say a server at NASA/ASU could not be found. You'll have to connect to the internet and request the data again. The only other error I have seen is when I unplug my broadband modem while downloading files. If you get errors you don't understand, please let me know.

The lower half of the window shows the details of the downloads currently in progress. For each download, GeoVirgil displays the file name, current status and number of bytes read. The common values for "status" are: None, Connecting, Downloading and PostProcessing.

The status field for each download is also a button. If you have a download that has hung, you click on the current status (for example the text "Downloading"), and a menu will pop up that contains "Reset". If you select it, the Download Manager will restart downloading that file.

When all the downloads have completed, the Download Manager window disappears. The next time you request remote data, it will appear. If you just want to look at the Download Manager window, you can force it to display by going to the main PEP window, selecting "File" and then "Show Download Manager".

Previous Home Next