ESO Archive Frequently Asked Questions

Data Request: I have problems using the Download Manager

See also: Related FAQs

Last update (December 2013):
Apple has progressively moved away from in-house support for Java. Starting with OS X 10.7, Apple has removed the Apple's Java Preferences utility in favor of Oracle's tools. Various Java tools on the Mac are now configured with reference to the Java runtime with the highest version number, ensuring that Oracle Java 7 or later will be used once it is installed, regardless of any other runtimes that may be present.

In general, for the above reason and also given that all ESO tools are moving towards Java 1.7, we encourage you to move to Java 1.7 in the near future [Download java version 1.7 here].

The Download Manager has been tested on the following configurations:

OS JDK Browser
Mas OS 10.6.8 jdk 1.6.0_37 Safari 5.1.7, Firefox 17.0.1, Chrome 23.0
Windows 7 jdk 1.6.0_32, jdk 1.7.0_10 Firefox 17.0.1, Chrome 23.0, IE 8
SL 5.3 (Boron) Linux 2.6.18-128 jdk 1.6.0.37, jdk 1.7.0_09 Firefox 17.0.1
Mac OS 10.7.5 jdk 1.6, jdk 1.7_0.10 Safari 6.0.2, Firefox 18.0
Mac OS 10.8 jdk 1.7_0.11 Safari 6.0.2, Firefox 18.0

What to do if you experience some issues while opening the Download Manager

  • if you have the Java Preferences.app installed (/Applications/Utilities/Java Preferences.app) then please:
    1. Open your Finder
    2. Go under Applications, and from there to Utilities
    3. Open java preferences=Double-click on Java Preferences.app
    4. In the Network tab uncheck the "Keep temporary files for fast access"
    5. Restart the browser and attempt to download.
  • If you do not have the Java Preferences.app installed, and still running a Java version <1.7, then please recover it from a back up (e.g., your time machine) and perform the steps 1 to 5 above.
  • With Java 1.7 and above, make sure to "Enable Java content in the browser" in the Security tab of the Java Control Panel, which is available in the "Other" panel of the System Preferences.
  • If you are running Java 1.7+ and use Safari, please:
    • open Safari preferences
    • get to the Security tab
    • click on the Manage Website Settings... button
    • in the left panel click on Java
    • in the right panel click on the "dataportal.eso.org" pulldown menu in the right panel
    • and select the "Run in Unsafe Mode"

Do you get a message informing you that Your Java is insecure and/or the java is not loading?

Please update to the most recent Java version:

  • if you have Java 1.6 installed (from Apple), then use the Software Update of your Mac to get the most recent Java for OS X 2013-005 which updates to Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_65, or download it from this apple site.
  • if you have Java 1.7 installed (from Oracle), then please download the latest Java update from this Oracle site.

File chooser

Since around August 2012 the java version for Mac OS. 10.7.5 and higher is no longer supported by Apple, but by Oracle instead. It was discovered in December 2012 that MacOSX v.10.7.5 and higher could not anymore use the ESO Download Manager to retrieve data through the Instant Download service.

At that point, we modified the Download Manager which now relies on a file chooser interface different from the Mac native one.


In principle the file chooser relies on the settings of the machine you are running the Download Manager from. This has introduced a few issues that we want to list below, together with their respective fixes.

  • My download manager window opens, but nothing else happens, and the window is blank, or blue:
    • Please make sure you have Java version 1.5 or greater installed on your machine (in the Terminal type: java -version);
    • If your browser requires a plugin to run the Java applet, make sure the plugin is enabled (e.g. about:plugins on Firefox, chrome://plugins in Chrome, Help -> Installed plugins in Safari);
    • We recommend that you clear the cache of your browser, ideally close it, re-open it and try again. This usually solves the problem. You may also remove the "EdmParameters.properties" in your home directory (this file stores the last directory selected for download); if the problem still persists remove also the "defaultSSL.keystore" file in the last directory used for download.
  • When the download manager shows you the file/directory chooser window with the "Set destination directory" disabled (greyed out), you can either navigate to a different directory, or add a period (.) in the File input field if you want to download the file in the present directory: both actions should result in enabling the "Set destination directory" button.
  • When selecting a destination directory I get a "cannot open file null": double-clicking on the destination directory doesn't work, please try again by single-clicking the destination directory.

If the problem still persists, please contact us with the following information: a description of the issue you are having, the operating system version, java version, browser version you used. It would also be useful if you could report any error message you find in the java console (which you can activate from the System Preferences -> Other -> Java, Java Control Panel -> Advanced -> Show console [if you have an ORACLE java installation]).