I have quite a small Scid database of 650,000 games and want to download some more in chunks but it won't let me!!

I tried downloading the 1.74 million off here: http://www.top-5000.nl/pgn.htm but it didn't work!! It downloaded about 2000 games and gave thousands of error reports about unexpected symbols.

Also I tried downloading a few million games from here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/icofybase/ but it did not work for the same reasons, this time only downloading 8000 games. Any help woud be appriciated :)

try http://icofy-blog.de/en/icofy-base/

Had already tried downloading from there. :/

You may need to buy a primo DB to handle these, such as ChessBase. They're up to 11, if you can afford it look around for CB 7, 8 or 9 cheap at amazon and/or eBay.

I believe much cheaper chess playing programs such as Fritz 12 will also handle these DBs in fact I know F12 will because I own it. Look for it at amazon, Fritz 10 or 11 will also work just fine for you.

I read lots of other peeps managed to download it onto SCID though. They just didn't say how.

any ideas?

The issue seems to be in your DL manager, Browser or Internet connection. Update all your stuff, and/or try another browser. 

NOTE:  your first link is a compliation of TWIC games (the week in chess)  You may want to try the source.

You may download/convert/export chessbase DB's as PGN then plug them into SCID  (multiple tutorials on this elsewhere)  if on linux WINE and ChessBase free version are great for this.   Then you can DL chessbase books, DB's, etc. 

You may try to get a cheap 1 month membership on a DataBase site such as chessgames.com to get the latest and greatest.   

You may try a P2P client for downloading large PGN's and Opening Books

Whatever you do be aware of the source! run your browser in a sandboxie!

Anyhow After you Download the PGN of your choice. And you still have errors.  

1.  Go to scid --> File --> New  -->create a name for your SCID DB and  Save a blank DB.    Go to --> File --> Open --> Open that new blank DB. 

2.  Go to tools --> Import file of pgn games.  (you may select multiple pgn's in this window). 

3.  Go to --> file --> maintenance --> Repair Base/Compact/Spell Check...etc.  

NOTE 2:  there is SCID vs. PC  which is an Improvment to SCID with more options such as pictures, graphs, improved spell checker, improved ECO...etc. 

For download managers, I like the Firefox extension called DownThemAll! It's about the only DL manager I use now.

http://www.downthemall.net/

Yes me too...its better than flashgot IMO...but some DL managers have drag and mouse pattern action, and also autorename or 'actual source' auto name features.

Nowadays; admins throttle pipelining and multi-requests making DL managers useless except for autorename and auto MD5 and SHA checksum features useful.