Downloaded file not appearing

FYI, your troubleshooting-2 link gives a 404 not found.

I’m not really sure what “Download Free PDF” is, but it’s not part of the set of plugins that are needed for Email Before Download (which include Download Monitor and Contact Form 7).

It looks like your form is missing the download id for the file you are trying to let people download. Most likely you didn’t put it in your shortcode (the email-download shortcode). Or, maybe you don’t have Download Monitor plugin installed at all and thus don’t even have a download id?).

Anyway, read the past few support msgs … in one of them I listed a sample email-download shortcode (the example I gave was for 2 download_id’s, but you can make it just 1 for single file download, of course).

Sorry about the 404, I made the page public and now you can see the link “Troubleshooting” at https://yourbirthexpert.com. On this page you will be able to view the 3 plugins you referenced, Email Before Download, Download Monitor and Contact Form 7 as I have screenshots of the pages.

“Download Free PDF” is a PDF file that I am offering to visitors after they enter their contact information at https://yourbirthexpert.com/free-gift/

[contact-form-7 id=”203″ title=”Download Free PDF”]
[download id=”255″]
[email-download download_id=”255″ contact_form_id=”203″]

Thanks for your help and if you need anything else let me know.
Jeff

Hard to say what’s wrong exactly, but I suspect the problem is in the Download Monitor area. I would expect to be able to go to https://yourbirthexpert.com/downloads/255 and have that download the PDF file, but that doesn’t work. I also tried “download” rather than “downloads” (because I can’t remember if the default endpoint is download or downloads). Anyway, neither worked. That makes me think you changed the endpoint to something else or else the file is not really there or something. On the Download Monitor screen for that particular file, there is a “URL” field in the top right (you took a screenshot of it in https://yourbirthexpert.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Download-Free-PDF1.pdf but it doesn’t show the whole value). Get that whole URL and post it back in here so I can see what the download URL is (and you should be able to go to that & have it download the PDF .. it not, the file is missing or bad permissions or you have weird redirects or rules in your webserver that affect the “downloads” url or whatever).

Here is the entire URL https://yourbirthexpert.com/download/255/
I got Error 404
Do you have any other suggestions?

Yeah that’s the problem. If that link doesn’t work then that file is not downloadable via Download Monitor (and thus it’s not going to work in Email Before Download since that’s the URL it uses).

Most likely another plugin is interfering. You could try disabling some of them. Or, maybe the file is just not there. Either upload a new file & change your shortcode to reference the new download id, or else on the file with the 255 id, expand that middle section area on the screen so you can see the filename where it & go check and see if it’s there — or just remove it and reupload it.

If you can’t get the file to download in Download Monitor, then it definitely won’t work in EBD.

the easiest & simplest thing to do is just add a new file to Download Monitor. Make sure that you have never uploaded it before. Give it a simple name like “aaaaa.jpg” that you haven’t used before. Once you’ve done that, just try to go to the URL for that file from the Download Monitor screen & see if it works:

If it does, then you know the problem is specific to the 255 one & you should just delete it and re-add it.

If it doesn’t work, then you know something else is wrong – plugins, webserver, permissions, etc

I got it to work and thanks so much for your help. Right now the link in the post for the email before download takes you to the contact page. I am wondering if it is possible to provide an additional link on the home page that will take users to the contact page for the free download or is the link in the post they only way to get there?

I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking. I looked at your site & you have a link from the homepage to the page that has the EBD form on it …. I think that’s what you were trying to do, so I’m going to assume you solved your question. If not, restate what you’re asking (and maybe include URLs because I’m not sure which page is which exactly)

At yourbirthexpert.com at the bottom of the page in a post titled “Free Gift” is the link for the EBD. Is it possible to provide an additional EBD link on the same page that is not in the post area for the same EBD?

Ok, let’s back up a second and make sure we’re talking the same terminology.

On your homepage, you have a 3 column horizontal layout and in the right column there is some text titled “Free Gift” (with the “Sincerely, Vanita Lott”). The “Free Gift” title in that column is a link and right now it just goes back to the same page. I’m assuming that’s the one you’re talking about.

Also on that page, a little further down, you have some things that are 1 column (full-width across the browser). I’m guessing that those are Posts and it’s showing the first few lines for each one, is that right? That’s what I think you mean when you say “in the post area”. The first one of those is titled “Free Gift” and it has a photo of some gift boxes and a “Continue” button. Both the “Free Gift” title & the “Continue” button both link to https://yourbirthexpert.com/free-gift-7/ which is a Post that you created in wordpress. The fact that the “Free Gift” title &^ the “Continue” button are links doesn’t have anything to do with EBD, that’s just WordPress and your theme (or maybe a plugin) listing your recent Posts and turning the titles & continue button (often that’s a “read more” button on other websites) into links that go to the full Post. That full Post (which is at the URL I mentioned) was created by you & you put the EBD shortcode on that page. Now, I’m calling that a “Post” because most WP themes will list your Posts on your homepage, but Pages aren’t listed. However, it’s possible it could be a Page and it’s somehow listed in there, but I suspect it’s a Post. I don’t know if you wanted your EBD to be a Post or a Page, but I can’t think of why it wouldn’t work as a Post, so that’s probably fine. Anyway, that’s why it’s appearing on your homepage like that I suspect.

Thus, the links to the EBD Post are all under your control. In that third column you can put a link in there and just make it go to https://yourbirthexpert.com/free-gift-7/ if you want.

Make sense?

Thanks for all your help as I followed your advice and got it working just the way I wanted.