All Photos Not Downloading

As of today, my clients(and myself) are unable to download all of the photos from my client galleries.  I had version 4.3 and the zipped folders just quit downloading today.  I would click one of the numbered folders and it would time out and I would get an error message.  I spoke with Dave at Saratoga Hosting and he check everything out on his end and could see that something was getting hung up but said that everything was functioning on his end. He suggested I upgrade to the current version of Sytist so I did.  I now see that the downloading of all photos has changed(the change looks awesome once it's working!).  The photos are still not downloading.  After I click the download all photos arrow and start the download I am getting an estimated time but the status bar never moves from the smallest measurement and it never downloads.  It just sits there thinking about it.  And while it is doing this my whole site is locked up for several minutes(at least 10 minutes) and I can't even browse my site.  It seems that eventually something clears up enough that I can browse my site but the download doesn't happen.  ONE time it did download in the estimated time, but I haven't been able to re-create that, it just sits there on the processing screen.

The attached screen shot is where it just sits.  And it estimated 6 minutes but it's still there 25 minutes later...

Dave suggested that I try a different file type.  My images have been .jpeg and he suggested trying .jpg but after testing both it doesn't seem to be working with either.

Prior to a client bringing the issue to my attention today I had made NO changes with my photo settings in several months and have had no issues.  And I have had clients downloading images consistently all summer with no issues.  I'm wondering if there was some update that happened with maybe php stuff on the servers that messed things up.

An server error or issue with the photos is stopping the process. 

Where do I find the FTP username and password?  Is that something I need to get from my host?

It is the same username and password as your hosting control panel. You probably have it in a welcome email from Dave. If not,  you will need to get it from him.

I tested by downloading the Download Test Marble JPG gallery and it worked fine.

It took some time because the files are really large, like >20MB each photo. Larger photos take longer to transfer from S3 and process the zip file. 

There are no errors.

It's working for me now also.  I attempted to download several different galleries for a long time last night and only one worked.  The rest were never progressing.  Even with only 4 or so images in the gallery.  I have no idea what changed between last night and this morning.  Anyway...

Now that it seems to be working and I have updated to the latest version I am seeing that this new download method for all photos is going to be a problem for me.  It did download a folder with 41 photos in it but while it was zipping my site was unusable.  I understand that my files sizes are large, and the multiple zipped folders in the past had not been an issue for me or my clients to download.  This has been my image delivery method for a few years now and has worked great.  I also noticed that it will not allow downloading a gallery that is over 4gb and I regularly have galleries that are around this size.  Is there a way I can have a gallery downloadable into multiple zipped folders again?

The site is only going to be unusable while it is zipping for the person creating the zip file. For everyone else it will be fine. 

The 4GB limit is a server/PHP limit, not a limit I imposed. I'll make a note to look into doing something when it is over 4gb. 

But if you routinely  having customers download >4GB of photos it would be best  to create the zip file yourself, upload them to Amazon S3 and send them a link. Instead of them having to wait so long for the zip file to be generated. 

Terrific news, Tim.  Thank you for your wonderful program and insight.