Betfair Price Files Download Manager

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ODPaul82
Posts: 683
Joined: Sun May 08, 2011 6:32 am
Location: Digswell Herts

firlandsfarm wrote:
Fri May 26, 2023 10:04 am

On a technicality the file shows ".xls" but files with macros should be of ".xmls" type
xls is the pre 2007 excel format.
xlsm as paspug said is macro enabled excel format which is post 2007

The key differences are xls is purely binary format for its structure whereas xlsm & xlsx (and others) are a collection of XML files which have been zipped up
If you rename the actual extension to .zip you can unzip them to take a peak at how they're structured.
Same for docx, pptx, they went from propertiary binary encoding of the files to XML structure.
Johnedale
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 10:28 pm

This has stopped working for me, I think the directory has changed again. The files are now at :
https://promo.betfair.com/betfairsp/prices

---

Edit :
apologies, just looked through the vba to try to sort it out myself and it looks like the link is up to date.
I'm getting an error message - possible internet connection problem, error 404
I've restarted the laptop, my connection is ok and I can still download the files manually
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ODPaul82
Posts: 683
Joined: Sun May 08, 2011 6:32 am
Location: Digswell Herts

Johnedale wrote:
Sun Nov 12, 2023 2:26 pm
...
apologies, just looked through the vba to try to sort it out myself and it looks like the link is up to date.
I'm getting an error message - possible internet connection problem, error 404
I've restarted the laptop, my connection is ok and I can still download the files manually
Hi John,

I've just gone to download with no issue this morning, HTTP error code 404 is page not found so would be page not found so may have been a temporary blip their end
Johnedale
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 10:28 pm

[quote=ODPaul82 post_id=342917
Hi John,

I've just gone to download with no issue this morning, HTTP error code 404 is page not found so would be page not found so may have been a temporary blip their end
[/quote]

Thanks Paul. I've tried with a different pc but still getting the same error. I can't connect to the page with power query either although it connects to other sites fine, so probably a problem with bf as you say. Strange that I can still access the page with Chrome though.
Power query spends about five minutes trying to connect then comes up with this weird error :

Unable to connect
We encountered an error while trying to connect.
Details: "The Web.Page function requires Active Scripting to be enabled in Internet Explorer options, See
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkld-506565 for details on how to enable Active Scripting."
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paspuggie48
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Location: South-West

Johnedale wrote:
Mon Nov 13, 2023 6:35 pm
Thanks Paul. I've tried with a different pc but still getting the same error. I can't connect to the page with power query either although it connects to other sites fine, so probably a problem with bf as you say. Strange that I can still access the page with Chrome though.
Power query spends about five minutes trying to connect then comes up with this weird error :

Unable to connect
We encountered an error while trying to connect.
Details: "The Web.Page function requires Active Scripting to be enabled in Internet Explorer options, See
https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?Linkld-506565 for details on how to enable Active Scripting."
I've been using the Downloader since Paul created it May 2021 (including my updated version) and can't recall ever having a problem. Even since you posted a few days ago it has worked perfect for me too, no issues at all.

As for Power Query; PQ will only get the list one sees on the website, it will not get the files themselves.

I've not seen your Active Scripting error before but a quick glance at the Power BI forum someone posted something similar...https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/ ... d-p/631063
Johnedale
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 10:28 pm

paspuggie48 wrote:
Mon Nov 13, 2023 7:20 pm
I've not seen your Active Scripting error before but a quick glance at the Power BI forum someone posted something similar...https://community.fabric.microsoft.com/ ... d-p/631063
Thanks. I've had a look but I'm pretty new to power BI and the discussion was way beyond me!

Both the computers I've run the downloader on share the same connection and the same office365 account so I'll try it somewhere else and hopefully get the files that way
Tiesto13
Posts: 29
Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2023 2:39 pm

Heh, maybe I should have searched the forum to see if there was already a solution to this before I spent all day developing some code to download these files :D

Anyhow, am I comfortable to assume that the 'SELECTION_ID' in these files is a unique identifier applied to horses? Would the same horse ever appear under different 'SELECTION_IDs'?
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ODPaul82
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Location: Digswell Herts

Tiesto13 wrote:
Wed Nov 15, 2023 2:40 pm
Heh, maybe I should have searched the forum to see if there was already a solution to this before I spent all day developing some code to download these files :D

Anyhow, am I comfortable to assume that the 'SELECTION_ID' in these files is a unique identifier applied to horses? Would the same horse ever appear under different 'SELECTION_IDs'?
yes I've come across occurances of that in older data, you may also have a horse that has the same name. Can't remember which one but one has a suffix of GB applied against it for some races.
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gstar1975
Posts: 615
Joined: Thu Nov 24, 2011 11:59 am

I'm getting the same error 404 nternet connection problem. Will there be an updated version?
Johnedale
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Jul 21, 2018 10:28 pm

gstar1975 wrote:
Tue Feb 27, 2024 5:53 pm
I'm getting the same error 404 nternet connection problem. Will there be an updated version?
I was having the same issue but seem to have solved it. Whenever the line

XMLPage.Open "Get", "https://promo.betfair.com/betfairsp/prices/", False

appears in the vba I just took the last / off :

XMLPage.Open "Get", "https://promo.betfair.com/betfairsp/prices", False

No idea why it suddenly became a problem as I'd been using the downloader fine for ages until recently
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