ERROR 403: Forbidden When downloading ted db

[danielrebib]

Hello,

I've tried to download individual files in the ted folder here: https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Foldclass_databases_for_protein_structural_domains_in_CATH_and_TED/26348605?file=50814849 as well as using the download_dbs.sh script.

In both instances I get this error message:
--2025-09-25 17:24:21-- https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/ndownloader/files/50814849
Resolving rdr.ucl.ac.uk (rdr.ucl.ac.uk)... 52.30.139.228, 52.215.50.29, 176.34.133.250, ...
Connecting to rdr.ucl.ac.uk (rdr.ucl.ac.uk)|52.30.139.228|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 403 Forbidden
2025-09-25 17:24:22 ERROR 403: Forbidden.

Can you please guide me on what I should do? Thanks.

[shaunmk]

Hi there, I tried downloading the file this morning (from outside UCL's network) and it seems to be working - maybe it was a momentary blip. Please try again. If that still isn't working, could you try downloading using a different network connection?

[danielrebib]

Still the same problem... Both at my institute's network/VPN, as well as my home wifi. I am in the United States if that makes any difference.

[shaunmk]

OK - thanks for letting us know.
@DanBuchan, could you please get in touch with RDR about this and see if there's anything they can check on their end (or ask figshare to check for them)? I would do it myself, but I don't have a UCL email address anymore 😅

[danielrebib]

Sorry for the trouble; realized a solution is:

wget
--content-disposition --trust-server-names
--referer="https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Foldclass_databases_for_protein_structural_domains_in_CATH_and_TED/26348605?file=50814849"
--user-agent="Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
"https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/ndownloader/files/50814849"

[DanBuchan]

Glad you've found a work around. I have contacted tech support from RDR and hopefully they can fix this so you and others don't have to work around it this way.

[pirgelis]

Hello,
This still remains a problem. Is there a solution to download TED?
Thank you

[DanBuchan]

Hello, This still remains a problem. Is there a solution to download TED? Thank you

Does the wget command not work for you?

[pirgelis]

wget https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/ndownloader/articles/26348605/versions/2?folder_path=foldclass-db-ted
--2025-11-19 15:13:59-- https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/ndownloader/articles/26348605/versions/2?folder_path=foldclass-db-ted
Resolving rdr.ucl.ac.uk (rdr.ucl.ac.uk)... 52.48.127.113, 34.246.58.166, 54.220.91.93, ...
Connecting to rdr.ucl.ac.uk (rdr.ucl.ac.uk)|52.48.127.113|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 403 Forbidden
2025-11-19 15:14:00 ERROR 403: Forbidden.

[shaunmk]

Hi @pirgelis ,

I think Dan was referring to the workaround in @danielrebib's comment above: #8 (comment)

Could you try this and see if it works?

[pirgelis]

Hello, yes I have tried it and I can not download it still.

[shaunmk]

OK - thanks for checking. @DanBuchan did you ever hear back from RDR about this?

[DanBuchan]

OK - thanks for checking. @DanBuchan did you ever hear back from RDR about this?

I did not. I guess I'll have to chase

[DanBuchan]

@pirgelis @danielrebib can you confirm that you still get a 403 error from UCL's RDR service

[danielrebib]

Hi! Sorry for the late response - no more 403 error but seems to be sending 0 bytes?

wget https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Foldclass_databases_for_protein_structural_domains_in_CATH_and_TED/26348605?file=50814849
--2026-04-22 20:50:14-- https://rdr.ucl.ac.uk/articles/dataset/Foldclass_databases_for_protein_structural_domains_in_CATH_and_TED/26348605?file=50814849
Resolving rdr.ucl.ac.uk (rdr.ucl.ac.uk)... 2a05:d018:1f4:d003:ac0a:4671:c64b:9dd2, 2a05:d018:1f4:d000:edb4:a90:6da6:f69f, 54.246.151.77, ...
Connecting to rdr.ucl.ac.uk (rdr.ucl.ac.uk)|2a05:d018:1f4:d003:ac0a:4671:c64b:9dd2|:443... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 202 Accepted
Length: 0 [text/html]
Saving to: '26348605?file=50814849'

26348605?file=50814849 [ <=> ] 0 --.-KB/s in 0s

2026-04-22 20:50:14 (0.00 B/s) - '26348605?file=50814849' saved [0/0]