What can prevent an app from downloading something?

[Redthirst]

The app in question is Discord, a VOIP software. I have no problems with installing it and I encounter no issues when it operates. However, while trying to enable overlay something weird happens. So the way it should work is that you activate the overlay through the app itself, and it downloads all the necessary files. Well, here's an issue: it doesn't. More specifically, it shows a progress bar and doesn't give any errors, but the folder with overlay files is missing.

The obvious culprits would be firewall or an anti-virus, but adding Discord to exceptions list or even disabling them doesn't fix the issue. Furthermore, there are absolutely no errors or messages of any other kind, the folder simply doesn't appear. Contacting support revealed that they never encountered this issue, which (probably) means that it's something on my end.

Did anyone encounter this(not with Discord specifically, but just an application that downloads something and this something doesn't appear, without any errors).

I also have to point out that it only happens in this specific app. Downloading anything else has no issues, and app itself doesn't seem to have any issues in operation(since it's a VOIP software, it does have access to the internet since VOIP portion of it works as it should).

Anyone knows what can cause that, or is there a way to somehow see whether Discord tries to download anything and where this "anything" ends up?

I'm running a Windows 7, by the way.

 

[Ralston18]

Does Discord have its own folder(s)? Have you tried setting the folder attributes to show hidden files?

Could be that the original install failed in some manner.

Look at these links via Discord:

https/support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=default+download+folder

https/support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=Where+is+default+download+folder

The searches were based on identifying/finding the download folder. Sort of opened Pandora's box here......

However, you may spot or otherwise see something in the search results that I do not.

 

[Redthirst]

Does Discord have its own folder(s)? Have you tried setting the folder attributes to show hidden files?

Could be that the original install failed in some manner.

Look at these links via Discord:

https/support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=default+download+folder

https/support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=Where+is+default+download+folder

The searches were based on identifying/finding the download folder. Sort of opened Pandora's box here......

However, you may spot or otherwise see something in the search results that I do not.

The install folder is located in Local AppData, and it appears just fine. Come to think of it, can it be because of Read-only? All of folders in AppData is set to read-only, but I can't seem to remove it. And if it's set to read-only, then how can Discord install itself to begin with?

Just to reiterate: the Discord folder itself is there, and the app is working fine. It's the Overlay folder that is missing for some reason(and as such, overlay doesn't work). The Overlay folder also isn't hidden, since you can usually access hidden folders by manually typing the path. But here windows just tells me that such path doesn't exist.

 

[Ralston18]

Software installs can set up folders, files, and modify rights provided the logged in user has rights to do installs.

Verify that you have the correct Discord app - maybe the version/copy you have was a trial app sans overlays. Verify any registration requirements and that it has indeed been registered as applicable, etc. and is fully functional.

However that is a stretch and hopefully the Discord's support technicians would be aware of or otherwise recognize such things.

Plus I would expect some error messages from Windows.

Have you tried to manually create the Overlay folder within the Discord folders? Set up the necessary folder(s) to match the structure on another computer where Discord and the Overlays are working.

Failing that you may need to do a full reinstall. Watch carefully to see if anything seems astray during the install.

Not sure what else to suggest at this time. See if you can discover anything else - anything might help. Thanks.

 

[Redthirst]

Software installs can set up folders, files, and modify rights provided the logged in user has rights to do installs.

Verify that you have the correct Discord app - maybe the version/copy you have was a trial app sans overlays. Verify any registration requirements and that it has indeed been registered as applicable, etc. and is fully functional.

However that is a stretch and hopefully the Discord's support technicians would be aware of or otherwise recognize such things.

Plus I would expect some error messages from Windows.

Have you tried to manually create the Overlay folder within the Discord folders? Set up the necessary folder(s) to match the structure on another computer where Discord and the Overlays are working.

Failing that you may need to do a full reinstall. Watch carefully to see if anything seems astray during the install.

Not sure what else to suggest at this time. See if you can discover anything else - anything might help. Thanks.

Nah, Discord is currently absolutely free(mainly since it's still in active development), so there are no trial versions and such. I've also did countless full reinstalls and created overlay folder myself(it remained empty after I tried downloading overlay).

One thing I forgot to mention is that overlay worked fine before I had to reinstall my Windows, but while initially I thought that reinstalling it fucked something up, now I'm not sure. Mainly because when I tried installing Discord on my brother's PC, I encountered the exact same problem.

At the same time, Discord support basically said that they never encountered that issue, so perhaps it's a bug introduced in the latest version(which was released on 11th of July) that only affects people who freshly installed Discord, which means that everyone who had it installed before that has no issues. This could potentially explain the lack of reports, since in this case the bug will only occur if someone installed Discord in the last week and started using overlay(which not everybody uses from my personal experience) and actually realized what was happening(instead of writing it off as a bug between the game and the overlay) and actually filled the report.

So if that's true, then I'm out of luck until there are enough reports for them to investigate this issue.

 

[Ralston18]

Do you have access to any of the logs via

%localappdata%\Discord\app-0.0.***highest-number***\overlay\overlay.log

Or is the \overlay\ the "missing" part?

(Reference: https/support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/217659737-Games-Overlay-101)

Which is an interesting link by the way.

Any chance that you have an older version that you downloaded and stashed away somewhere? Some backup?

If so, sucessfully installing that older version may be further evidence of a bug in the latest version. If the older version does not work then your computer could be the culprit.

Very curious all in all....

 

[Redthirst]

Do you have access to any of the logs via

%localappdata%\Discord\app-0.0.***highest-number***\overlay\overlay.log

Or is the \overlay\ the "missing" part?

(Reference: https/support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/articles/217659737-Games-Overlay-101)

Which is an interesting link by the way.

Any chance that you have an older version that you downloaded and stashed away somewhere? Some backup?

If so, sucessfully installing that older version may be further evidence of a bug in the latest version. If the older version does not work then your computer could be the culprit.

Very curious all in all....

Yeah, "overlay" is indeed the missing part. I don't have an installer for old version since I tend to delete old installers and other downloaded files that I no longer need. Furthermore, I don't think it would be possible either way, since Discord automatically updates itself during installation process, so even using old installer I would install the latest version.

Right now I'm asking my friends who don't have Discord to install it and see if they face the same issue. If they do, then it's more than likely an issue on Discord's end.

 

[Redthirst]

So just a little update, even though I don't think anyone really cares. After the latest update to Discord, overlay is working. I still don't have a folder, but it's somehow working. I have absolutely no idea what is going on, but I guess it's fine?

 

[Ralston18]

Does not surprise me per se that the overlay suddenly started to work. Especially after an update.

For the most part many companies are hesitant to acknowledge errors of omission or commission. Especially when the problem is not widely spread.

They make no comments or responses and just quietly fix it one way or another......

 

[Redthirst]

Does not surprise me per se that the overlay suddenly started to work. Especially after an update.

For the most part many companies are hesitant to acknowledge errors of omission or commission. Especially when the problem is not widely spread.

They make no comments or responses and just quietly fix it one way or another......

Maybe. Still weird that it works without overlay folder.

 

[Redthirst]

Does not surprise me per se that the overlay suddenly started to work. Especially after an update.

For the most part many companies are hesitant to acknowledge errors of omission or commission. Especially when the problem is not widely spread.

They make no comments or responses and just quietly fix it one way or another......

And you were ultimately correct. Support from Discord just responded, saying that it was an issue on their end that was reported by more users. Which means that rare bugs that happen in edge cases to few users will be ignored. At least overlay is working now.

 

[Nashima]

Does Discord have its own folder(s)? Have you tried setting the folder attributes to show hidden files?

Could be that the original install failed in some manner.

Look at these links via Discord:

https/support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=default+download+folder

https/support.discordapp.com/hc/en-us/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=Where+is+default+download+folder

The searches were based on identifying/finding the download folder. Sort of opened Pandora's box here......

However, you may spot or otherwise see something in the search results that I do not.