# Error downloading HUMAnN databases

**URL:** <https://forum.biobakery.org/t/error-downloading-humann-databases/8974>\
**Category:** Microbial community profiling\
**Created:** [June 17, 2026, 5:17pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/error-downloading-humann-databases/8974 "2026-06-17T17:17:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![amarcial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/958977/32.png) [@amarcial](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/amarcial)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2026, 5:17pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/error-downloading-humann-databases/8974/1 "2026-06-17T17:17:12Z")

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Hi all,

I’m encountering issues with downloading chocophlan and uniref90 databases for HUMANn2. I get the same error for both:

```auto

CRITICAL ERROR: Unable to download and extract from URL: http://huttenhower.sph.harvard.edu/humann2_data/chocophlan/full_chocophlan_plus_viral.v0.1.1.tar.gz

```

and

```auto
CRITICAL ERROR: Unable to download and extract from URL: http://huttenhower.sph.harvard.edu/humann2_data/uniprot/uniref_annotated/uniref90_annotated_1_1.tar.gz

```

In addition, I haven’t been able to access [https://huttenhower.sph.harvard.edu/](https://huttenhower.sph.harvard.edu/) for the past two days. I wonder if this issue is related to what I am seeing. I have downloaded databases for a more recent version of HUMAnN in the past, so this is odd to me. Are there alternative ways to download these databases?

Thank you so much, I appreciate your help!

Best,

Athziri

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**Author:** ![franzosa](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.biobakery.org/franzosa/32/3511_2.png) [@franzosa](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/franzosa)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2026, 5:46pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/error-downloading-humann-databases/8974/2 "2026-06-17T17:46:01Z")

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Harvard’s Research Computing infrastructure is under yearly maintenance this week. Downloads should come back when that’s over. You can also track the status here:

> **[FAS Research Computing - Status](https://status.rc.fas.harvard.edu/)**
>
> FAS Research Computing Status

Sorry for the trouble!

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**Author:** ![amarcial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/958977/32.png) [@amarcial](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/amarcial)\
**Post date:** [June 17, 2026, 6:04pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/error-downloading-humann-databases/8974/3 "2026-06-17T18:04:25Z")

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@franzosa Thank you for the quick reply!

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**Author:** ![aqwe](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/user_avatar/forum.biobakery.org/aqwe/32/3665_2.png) [@aqwe](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/aqwe)\
**Post date:** [June 18, 2026, 1:52am UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/error-downloading-humann-databases/8974/4 "2026-06-18T01:52:31Z")

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> [@franzosa](#):
>
> Harvard’s Research Computing infrastructure is under yearly maintenance this week. Downloads should come back when that’s over. You can also track the status her

I have this alike error CRITICAL ERROR: Unable to download and extract from URL: [http://huttenhower.sph.harvard.edu/humann\_data/full\_mapping\_v201901b.tar.gz](http://huttenhower.sph.harvard.edu/humann_data/full_mapping_v201901b.tar.gz)  
download\_utility.l Thank you for your post. After reading your conversation, I realized that I need to wait for a while before installing.