Unable to connect to the NetBeans Distribution because of Zero sized file

Question

I recently reinstalled Netbeans IDE on my Windows 10 PC in order to restore some unrelated configurations. When I tried checking for new plugins in order to be able to download the Sakila sample database, I get this error.

I've tested the connection on both No Proxy and Use Proxy Settings, and both connection tests seem to end succesfully.

I have allowed Netbeans through my firewall, but this has changed nothing either.

I haven't touched my proxy configuration, so it's on default (autodetect). Switching the autodetect off doesn't change anything, either, no matter what proxy config i have on Netbeans.

Here's part of my log file that might be helpful:

Compiler: HotSpot 64-Bit Tiered Compilers
Heap memory usage: initial 32,0MB maximum 910,5MB
Non heap memory usage: initial 2,4MB maximum -1b
Garbage collector: PS Scavenge (Collections=12 Total time spent=0s)
Garbage collector: PS MarkSweep (Collections=3 Total time spent=0s)
Classes: loaded=6377 total loaded=6377 unloaded 0
INFO [org.netbeans.core.ui.warmup.DiagnosticTask]: Total memory 17.130.041.344
INFO [org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.updateprovider.DownloadListener]: Connection content length was 0 bytes (read 0bytes), expected file size can`t be that size - likely server with file at http://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/8.0.2/uc/final/distribution/catalog.xml.gz?unique=NB_CND_EXTIDE_GFMOD_GROOVY_JAVA_JC_MOB_PHP_WEBCOMMON_WEBEE0d55337f9-fc66-4755-adec-e290169de9d5_bf88d09e-bf9f-458e-b1c9-1ea89147b12b is temporary down
INFO [org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.ui.Utilities]: Zero sized file reported at http://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/8.0.2/uc/final/distribution/catalog.xml.gz?unique=NB_CND_EXTIDE_GFMOD_GROOVY_JAVA_JC_MOB_PHP_WEBCOMMON_WEBEE0d55337f9-fc66-4755-adec-e290169de9d5_bf88d09e-bf9f-458e-b1c9-1ea89147b12b
java.io.IOException: Zero sized file reported at http://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/8.0.2/uc/final/distribution/catalog.xml.gz?unique=NB_CND_EXTIDE_GFMOD_GROOVY_JAVA_JC_MOB_PHP_WEBCOMMON_WEBEE0d55337f9-fc66-4755-adec-e290169de9d5_bf88d09e-bf9f-458e-b1c9-1ea89147b12b
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.updateprovider.DownloadListener.doCopy(DownloadListener.java:155)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.updateprovider.DownloadListener.streamOpened(DownloadListener.java:78)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.updateprovider.NetworkAccess$Task$1.run(NetworkAccess.java:111)
Caused: java.io.IOException: Zero sized file reported at http://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/8.0.2/uc/final/distribution/catalog.xml.gz?unique=NB_CND_EXTIDE_GFMOD_GROOVY_JAVA_JC_MOB_PHP_WEBCOMMON_WEBEE0d55337f9-fc66-4755-adec-e290169de9d5_bf88d09e-bf9f-458e-b1c9-1ea89147b12b
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.updateprovider.DownloadListener.notifyException(DownloadListener.java:103)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.updateprovider.AutoupdateCatalogCache.copy(AutoupdateCatalogCache.java:246)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.updateprovider.AutoupdateCatalogCache.writeCatalogToCache(AutoupdateCatalogCache.java:99)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.updateprovider.AutoupdateCatalogProvider.refresh(AutoupdateCatalogProvider.java:154)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.services.UpdateUnitProviderImpl.refresh(UpdateUnitProviderImpl.java:180)
	at org.netbeans.api.autoupdate.UpdateUnitProvider.refresh(UpdateUnitProvider.java:196)
[catch] at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.ui.Utilities.tryRefreshProviders(Utilities.java:433)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.ui.Utilities.doRefreshProviders(Utilities.java:411)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.ui.Utilities.presentRefreshProviders(Utilities.java:405)
	at org.netbeans.modules.autoupdate.ui.UnitTab$14.run(UnitTab.java:806)
	at org.openide.util.RequestProcessor$Task.run(RequestProcessor.java:1423)
	at org.openide.util.RequestProcessor$Processor.run(RequestProcessor.java:2033)

It might be that the update server is down just right now; i haven't been able to test this either. But it also might be something wrong with my configurations. I'm going crazy!!1!

Answer 1

Something that worked for me was changing the "http:" to "https:" in the update urls.

I.E. Change "http://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/8.0.2/uc/final/distribution/catalog.xml.gz" to "https://updates.netbeans.org/netbeans/updates/8.0.2/uc/final/distribution/catalog.xml.gz"

No idea why that makes it work on my end. I'm running Linux Mint 19.1.