I just bought Democracy, and it runs fine until I try to download updates. Then I get the error message “IERROR: Internet: HttpSendRequest() Failed”. Can you tell me how to fix this, please? I’m using our university network, so I’m behind their firewall. Could that be the problem?
Yes that’s almost certainly it, or they have a proxy set up and the game cannot bypass it 
Is it possible to tell the game to use the proxy server, or is it just impossible to download updates if you’re behind a firewall and proxy server?
Edit: Or is there something I can ask our IT officer to change on the firewall that would sort it? Does it use a weird port or something?
it just uses port 80 under http, but it uses WinInet directly, which is built into windows, and affected by proxies. I’m no web coding expert, but it ‘just works’ if you have a non proxy connection. Maybe they will know what settings to change, but I guess its something about the proxy setup.
Is there any way of downloading updates manually, given that we’re stuck behind a firewall?
Also, at some point, it might be worth making the message say something clearer, like “Error. Democracy is being blocked by your firewall or proxy server.”
I should take a look at it, but it’s pretty complex because there are a whole host of different reasons that can fail, and it’s not easy (in code) to work out the true cause.
If you email cliff AT positech.co.uk I can sort out a zip file of the files you can’t get.
Cheers,