It turns out using Opera exclusively has its blind spots! I had absolutely no idea the downloads on the site were completely broken for everyone else, simply because the old download manager plugin I was using worked absolutely flawlessly in my preferred browser.
After a long while of running in accidental “Opera-only mode,” I’ve finally tracked down the issue and fully repaired the download architecture across the entire website. Everything should now load perfectly regardless of which browser you use!
Anyway, once I realized my previous download manager just wasn’t cooperating with other browsers, I knew I had to fix it. The original plugin has been discontinued for a while, but I managed to find an excellent alternative called WP-Filebase, which served as an almost completely seamless replacement.
That said, getting it up and running required “only” two massive, manual steps:
- Database Migration: I had to extract all the download metadata from the old plugin’s architecture—including original upload dates, historical download counts, and category assignments—and manually inject them into the new database tables.
- Tag Replacement: I had to open up and edit every single post across the entire blog to swap out the old custom download metatags with the new WP-Filebase shortcodes.