problems getting into RapidShare

[softwizz]

A number of links from postings on this site are to files stored in the filesharing web site RapidShare. This seems to provide a choice of premium paid, unlimited, membership, or freebie limited access. The limited access system appears to require one to key in some code shown on-screen, but I cannot make this work, it almost seems that they have deliberately disabled some part of the process, to force people to have paid-up accounts.

I looked on this site for clues and saw lots of people saying that they could not use RapidShare because of proxies or whatever, but the symptoms being reported did not seem to match exactly with my experiences.

Am I having the normal experience here, or has something changed on RapidShare recently to deny free use?

[CWR03]

The code seems to be case-sensitive, even though it can be difficult to determine the case of certain characters.

[Digga]

they use to change their validation methods now and then but I never had any problems during the last years (neither with rs.de or rs.com).
the shown code is not case-sensitive for all I know, you can both enter upper case and lower case letters. even O and 0 are exchangeable.
further more, I never experienced any problems (besides proxy issues) at all with the service. I'm quite sure that they don't break things on purpose just to get you to go premium. they make enough revenue I guess.

to sum up, you might want to contact RapidShare and see if they are willing to troubleshot.
softwizz, are by any chance visually impaired?
where exactly does the process stop to work?

[softwizz]

I click on the link in the Doom9 site

I get a page of RapidShare saying "You want to downoad file <pathname>" and listing the payment options.

Bottom are two buttons, I click RHS one 'Free'

Up comes a screen saying "No Premium User", confirming tha pathname, providing radio buttons to select server (I leave as is), and providiing nice group of leters/numbers to be keyed in. All simple so far...

...but it says 'Enter... here:' and is indicating a field which is not an input field but is in fact a combo box driving the same selection process as the radio buttons.

At this point I've tried seveal ploys :-

(1) assume the entry field is on the next page, I click in the combo box field - this takes me to a screen which provides for uploading files, and which djust incidentally tells me words to effect "Access code wrong - buy premium account to avoid trouble or click to try again"

(2) tried treating the combo box like an input field, putting pointer in it (is a hand pointer glyph), keying in - no action - I have to click the combo box to go anywhere - same result.

(3) tried entering <CR> after the characters, in case it was assigning the keystrokes to some other, hidden, input field - no effect

So wher am I going wrong? I have gone round this loop dozens of times, so I can't think the problem is simply case sensitivity or O/zero synonyms. The whole UI experience smacks of a broken web page to me.

[Guest]

Did you try the support email?

webmaster@rapidshare.de

[softwizz]

I have just sent in a copy of my last post, to that email address. Lets see if there is a rational explanation - I will post updates as I get them.

Thanks for the advice, one and all :o

[KoD]

Try using a different web browser (Opera, Firefox). And make sure you have javascript and cookies enabled. That's one strange bug you're experiencing there !

[softwizz]

It took RapidShare 38 hours to respond to my email, and then it was just an automated reply asking me to, in effect, re-state my problem if it was not one of a couple of standard ones to which they supplied answers.

I note in passing that the web site I was previously referring to is rapidshare.com, while it seems from what they are posting that rapidshare.de is autonomous and operates to slightly different rules. I may need to revisit this whole help-email process with the .com site in a couple of days - we will see...

[softwizz]

Try using a different web browser (Opera, Firefox). And make sure you have javascript and cookies enabled. That's one strange bug you're experiencing there !

This is all with Firefox 2.0 - I would not use Internet Exploder for anything serious! :sly: