# Cannot download general registry due to a corporate antivirus

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605>\
**Category:** General Usage\
**Tags:** question, package, pkg\
**Created:** [September 22, 2026, 2:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605 "2026-09-22T14:14:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LaurentPlagne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/laurentplagne/32/10103_2.png) [@LaurentPlagne](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/LaurentPlagne)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2026, 2:14pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/1 "2026-09-22T14:14:26Z")

</div>

A change in my corporate antivirus cause problem when I try to install new packages.  
I tried to change JULIA\_PKG\_DOWNLOAD\_TIMEOUT and Curl.CURLOPT\_LOW\_SPEED limits but it seems to have no effect:

```julia-auto
julia> ENV["JULIA_PKG_DOWNLOAD_TIMEOUT"]
"2000"

julia> ENV["JULIA_PKG_D"]^C

julia> using Downloads, Downloads.Curl

julia> Downloads.EASY_HOOK[] = (easy, info) -> begin
           # Désactive le timeout de vitesse basse (low speed limit/time)
           Curl.setopt(easy, Curl.CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_TIME, 0)
           Curl.setopt(easy, Curl.CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_LIMIT, 0)
       end
[ Warning: CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_TIME is defined in LibCURL and is not public in Downloads.Curl
[ Warning: CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_LIMIT is defined in LibCURL and is not public in Downloads.Curl
#2 (generic function with 1 method)

(@v1.12) pkg> add General
  Installing known registries into `~/.julia`
ERROR: could not download https://pkg.julialang.org/registry/23338594-aafe-5451-b93e-139f81909106/a569d1e036b51ee1f6cf569c1bf28d0df3095bd6 
Exception: RequestError: HTTP/2 200 (Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 20 seconds) while requesting https://pkg.julialang.org/registry/23338594-aafe-5451-b93e-139f81909106/a569d1e036b51ee1f6cf569c1bf28d0df3095bd6

julia> Downloads.EASY_HOOK[] = (easy, info) -> begin
           # Désactive le timeout de vitesse basse (low speed limit/time)
           LibCurl.Curl.setopt(easy, Curl.CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_TIME, 0)
           LibCurl.Curl.setopt(easy, Curl.CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_LIMIT, 0)
       end
#5 (generic function with 1 method)

(@v1.12) pkg> add General
  Installing known registries into `~/.julia`
ERROR: could not download https://pkg.julialang.org/registry/23338594-aafe-5451-b93e-139f81909106/a569d1e036b51ee1f6cf569c1bf28d0df3095bd6 
Exception: RequestError: HTTP/2 200 (Operation too slow. Less than 1 bytes/sec transferred the last 20 seconds) while requesting https://pkg.julialang.org/registry/23338594-aafe-5451-b93e-139f81909106/a569d1e036b51ee1f6cf569c1bf28d0df3095bd6

(@v1.12) pkg> 

```

Any hints ?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![PatrickHaecker](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/patrickhaecker/32/222891_2.png) [@PatrickHaecker](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/PatrickHaecker)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2026, 2:57pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/2 "2026-09-22T14:57:32Z")

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I am not familiar with that and I don’t know whether these environment variables are related, but the libuv threads are created before you set the environment variables in your example. So it could be possible (again: I don’t know) that the environment variables are checked before you set them. Have you tried setting them before you start the Julia process?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2026, 3:37pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/3 "2026-09-22T15:37:48Z")

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I suspect this isn’t an antivirus, but rather a firewall. I also suspect your corporate IT won’t take kindly to circumventing their measures.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LaurentPlagne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/laurentplagne/32/10103_2.png) [@LaurentPlagne](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/LaurentPlagne)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2026, 6:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/4 "2026-09-22T18:40:35Z")

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I will try this tomorrow. The Julia env variable was already set before the Julia session. I wonder if env curl variables will have an effect on the Julia session.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LaurentPlagne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/laurentplagne/32/10103_2.png) [@LaurentPlagne](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/LaurentPlagne)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2026, 6:47pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/5 "2026-09-22T18:47:01Z")

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One IT manager has set (temporarily) a bypass for the antivirus for [julialang.org](http://julialang.org) and [julialang.net](http://julialang.net): The problem was solved instantly.

They are reluctant to set this Bypass permanently and ask me to set the Julia timeout to a high value (more than 30 minutes). It seems that the JULIA\_PKG\_DOWNLOAD\_TIMEOUT had no effect. Since the problem arise for the registry update it seems logical. I cannot find the solution…

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2026, 7:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/6 "2026-09-22T19:40:53Z")

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I don’t understand how changing the download timeout or speed thresholds will help you if your network is blocking access in the first place.

Edit: oh, I get it — they’re doing some on-demand scanning that drastically slows things down?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LaurentPlagne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/laurentplagne/32/10103_2.png) [@LaurentPlagne](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/LaurentPlagne)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2026, 8:06pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/8 "2026-09-22T20:06:43Z")

</div>

yes

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mbauman](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mbauman/32/31082_2.png) [@mbauman](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mbauman)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 2:02pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/9 "2026-09-23T14:02:46Z")

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Could you try doing the download directly? That might help narrow in on the problem. For example, Downloads.jl includes the following example:

```julia-auto
downloader = Downloads.Downloader()
downloader.easy_hook = (easy, info) -> Downloads.Curl.setopt(easy, Downloads.Curl.CURLOPT_LOW_SPEED_TIME, 0)

Downloads.download("https://httpbingo.julialang.org/delay/30"; downloader)

```

You can replace the URL with the actual registry – `https://pkg.julialang.org/registry/23338594-aafe-5451-b93e-139f81909106/a569d1e036b51ee1f6cf569c1bf28d0df3095bd6`. You could then potentially try to see if there’s an equivalent `httpbingo` endpoint that could replicate the issue outside of your network — maybe the [`drip` endpoint](https://httpbingo.julialang.org)?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Alec\_Loudenback](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/alec_loudenback/32/278_2.png) [@Alec\_Loudenback](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Alec_Loudenback)\
**Post date:** [September 24, 2026, 5:03am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/cannot-download-general-registry-due-to-a-corporate-antivirus/139605/10 "2026-09-24T05:03:37Z")

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What I’ve seen can happen is the first time you hit a url a rule can block you from accessing it until the file has been security scanned. When that happened, I just had to retry several times to get the script to ‘touch’ each url. Once whitelisted, the specific versions of dependencies were fast to download.