Thanks for the response Nickrose.

will check the version of the downloader but I am pretty sure it is the latest, upgraded from leopard to snow leopard and reinstalled all apps a couple of days ago.  It just seems bizarre that the same computer recognises the tf in normal mode but not in update mode? I doubt that another computer will make a difference as the computer can recognise the tf in normal mode but, ok I will try it. Will take me a couple of days.

But in my opinion if the computer recognises the timefactor in normal mode and detects that it is not in update mode , informs me that I should put the timefactor into update mode but cannot detect the timefactor when I have started it up in update mode then I don't think it is a computer host problem.

many thanks

Klaiq