Hidden Download add on does not work with any settings

[DBC1717]

Hi. We desire to offer simple downloads for products. I find that Estore does not work for video files. We Downloaded the download monitor and purchased the hidden download add on.

The download monitor works great both for products on our site and for vimeo video download links. But, for vimeo, I desire to hide the download info. I cannot seem to get the hidden download add on to work with any combination of settings, either for files in my wordpress media directory or for external files. Any guidance? Thanks

Tech Info –
Dedicated Server
EStore 8.0.5 Emember 10.1.1 payment Gateway 2.3.4 download monitor 3.8.0 Hidden add on 1.4.2
Wordpress 4.9.10 PHP 7.0.33

[admin]

Vimeo doesn’t allow you to do hidden downloads (similar to YouTube). That’s their business model. You need to host the file on your site if you want to really hide it from other people discovering it.

Most people use Amazon s3 or dropbox to host their video files (if they are going to offer private videos) that needs to be protected. The download monitor has an integration with S3 also.

[DBC1717]

Wow. I use vimeo premium to get a vimeo player with no vimeo branding, so I am surprised that the download links do not work. I am trying to phase our downloads on our wordpress server – Let’s talk abour dropbox. Does your dropbox add on allow for hidden downloads on its own, or would I still need the hidden download add-on or some combination? Thanks

[admin]

The Dropbox addon works on its own (the hidden downloads is not required for dropbox integration). It uses the API to retrieve a file from your Dropbox account and then serve that file to the user.

[DBC1717]

Okay, please clarify exactly how this works as i already purchased a plugin that does not work for my needs and I need some coaching…..

I own Wpestore and have the simple download monitor and hidden download upgrade.

I would like to be able to create a download button that offers the file for download via dropbox that does not reveal the URL of the file. Are you saying that the dropbox plug in will do that?

Thanks

[admin]

okay so lets go step by step. The first thing is to clarify that the hidden downloads addon works exactly as we say on the following page (If you upload a file to your site and then use the addon to handle the download, it will do the job):

Hidden/Private/Secure Downloads for Simple Download Monitor

As I understand it from your previous reply, you want a vimeo hosted video to download. Now, that is not a file on your server so the hidden download addon can’t do anything about it. You are referring to a streaming video URL. Vimeo or YouTube doesn’t let you do that. They want you to embed the video on a webpage. A visitor to your site is not allowed to legally download a file from Vimeo.

So my question to you is, are we still talking about a vimeo video URL download or are we talking about a file that you own and that you will upload to your own site or amazon S3 or dropbox account?

[DBC1717]

Hi. I can work with you any of these ways. Let’s find one that will work best for us:
1)Here is what I want to achieve:
1A) We use WPeStore and WPeMember (for the rest of the forum viewers, these are this companies professional shopping cart and Membership plugins) and sell lots of videos, currently DVDs and flash drives, often in bundles of multiple videos. Ideally, we want to sell a customer a download bundle. They get an expiring link via the EStore shopping cart good for a few days to the download page. Since it expires if they post it on facebook it has limited damage potential.
1B) The download page would have multiple file download buttons, hopefully using this plugin. For extra security I hope to hide the actual URL of the files.

2) Our Top-end vimeo account lets us create download links that anyone can use, they work with sdm but not the hidden add on. Vimeo is easiest as the files are already there. But if that does not work we can manually upload extra copies of files to other servers. Let’s figure out the least painful way:

2A) Simple Download Monitor (SDM) works on files hosted under the same url as the wordpress, as does the hidden plugin. So Both Plugins seem to work. BUT I would rather keep huge download files on another server and/or URL than the wordpress to make daily backups of the wp site easier.
3) We have tried several other ways to host videos using sdm+Hidden:
a) On a different domain on the same physical web server, SDM alone works but on firefox wants to play the video. i believe this can be corrected by writing the metadata to force download?
b) On the same physical web server but different URL, SDM + Hidden gives a “File Not Found” error
C) On a Digital Ocean “Space” SDM works fine but reveals the url, SDM+hidden also gives “File not Found” error The digital ocean space is supposed to be s3 compatible, so maybe your S3 Plugin would work for the hidden function.
But, that space requires monthly fees to rent. I just created it for this test.
5) If your drop Box add-on would hide the URL of the file in dropbox, that may be the best solution
as we already keep a large dropbox account and that saves us from having to keep the Digital Oceans space active.

Based upon this It looks like your drop box plug in to use drop box would be the least painful if it would hide the dropbox url… What do you think?

Thanks

Best Regards

Dave

[admin]

I think the dropbox or the s3 options are both valid options for what you explained. Lets try the dropbox one first. I have sent you a copy of the dropbox addon so you can test it out with one of your download items.

Regarding the forcing a file to download question, the following maybe useful:

How to Force a File to Download

[Author]

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