A requester says their download link does not work

A requester cannot open the records you sent. There are three likely reasons and you can tell them apart from the request itself.

Check the package on the request

1. Open the request and go to Request Details.
2. Find the package in the correspondence thread where you sent it.
3. The package shows its current state on the message.

The three causes

It expired. A package can carry an expiry date, and after it the link stops working. An expired package shows an expired badge and the message says the requester can no longer open or download the delivery. This is the commonest cause by some distance.

It was revoked. Someone withdrew access deliberately, usually because something was released in error. Check with your team before reissuing, because a revocation was a decision rather than an accident.

They never received it. If the reply was posted to the portal without the email toggle on, it is in their portal but not their inbox. Someone who only checks email will not have seen it.

Reading the access history

Access history on the package shows who opened the link and when.

Use it before you reissue. If the history shows the package was downloaded successfully, the requester may already have the records and be looking at an expired link for a second copy, which is a different conversation from never having received them.

Reissuing

Send a new package on the same request rather than starting a new request. The original request is where the release belongs, and reissuing there keeps the record in one place.

Set a longer expiry if the first one was too short. Expiry protects records that should not sit on a link indefinitely, but an expiry so short that requesters routinely miss it creates work for you and delay for them.

Preventing it

Tell the requester the expiry date in the reply that carries the package. The link expiring is not a surprise if they were told when it would.