Help & troubleshooting

Support

Fame idm and the matata browser extension are free and open source. There's no support contract or account — but here is how to get help when something doesn't work.

📬 Email

For private issues (account data, bug reports with sensitive URLs):

siagmoo26@gmail.com

🐛 GitHub Issues

Public bug reports and feature requests — fastest channel for code fixes.

github.com/morris2016/matata-idm/issues

📦 Releases

Latest installer, release notes, and version history.

Release notes

Reporting a bug well

Bug reports we can act on always include the same three things:

  1. Version. Open the app → Help → About, or check the title bar of the popup. For the extension: open chrome://extensions (or about:addons on Firefox), find "matata download helper", note the version.
  2. Steps to reproduce. The site you were downloading from (if public), the file extension you expected, and what you saw vs. what you expected. A 5-second screen recording is worth a page of description.
  3. Logsonly if the app is misbehaving. In the desktop app open Help → Open log folder and attach the most recent matata-*.log file. Be aware logs contain download URLs; redact anything sensitive before attaching.

Common questions

The extension popup is empty / shows "no native host"

The browser extension talks to the desktop app over Native Messaging — they must both be installed, and the extension must be registered with the native host. After installing the desktop app:

install-extension.bat <EXTENSION_ID>

You can find the extension ID at chrome://extensions (toggle Developer mode). The registration writes a small JSON file under %APPDATA%\Google\Chrome\NativeMessagingHosts\.

Downloads are slow or stall

By default Fame idm runs up to 32 connections per file with HTTP/2 multiplexing. Some servers throttle on connection count — try Settings → Connections per file and drop to 8 or 4. If a stream stalls completely, check that the URL hasn't expired (signed download URLs typically expire after a few hours). Use Right-click → Refresh headers to re-derive the request from the browser session.

YouTube / streaming site shows DRM-protected

Some YouTube videos are encoded with DRM (Widevine) and cannot be captured by any third-party tool. This is a protection imposed by the content provider, not a bug. The download picker will show no formats and the popup error pill will say "DRM protected".

HLS (.m3u8) capture isn't working on a page

The extension only sees requests that have already started streaming. If you open the page and the video hasn't loaded yet, the popup will be empty. Tap play (or seek to a later position) so the player issues the manifest request, then re-open the popup. The detected streams list refreshes in real time.

Where are my downloads saved?

Default: %USERPROFILE%\Downloads\. Change it under Settings → Default output folder. Per-download overrides are honoured when you set them from the confirmation dialog.

Can I resume a download from a previous session?

Yes — partial downloads are stored next to the target file as name.ext.mtpart. Re-add the same URL and Fame idm detects the sidecar and resumes from the byte it stopped at. If the server doesn't support range requests, you'll be prompted to restart from zero.

The desktop app says "update available" but I just installed

The in-app updater checks for a newer version only when you explicitly run Help → Check for updates, so a fresh install will only see "update available" if it was published before the current latest. The check makes a single HTTP request and reveals only your IP + installed version.

Privacy / data-removal requests

Fame idm does not collect any data on our servers — there is nothing to delete from our side. All preferences and download history live on your computer; uninstalling the app and clearing the registry key under HKCU\Software\matata erases the local state. Full details on the Privacy Policy.

Reporting a security issue

If you find a security vulnerability please email siagmoo26@gmail.com instead of filing a public issue, so we have a chance to ship a fix before disclosure. Include reproduction steps and the affected version. We aim to acknowledge within 72 hours.