Well, I'll ask him, but I'm the sysadmin as well as the user and I'll probably just blow me off.
I got interested, so I did some experimenting. I'm on a WinXP box. The server is running MS Small Business Server, with MS ISA Server as the firewall/proxy. I got these results for both encoders and skins.
With .331 and .336, the "connecting" window appears very briefly, immediately followed by "Failed to connect to server."
Uninstalled MJ. Installed .293 (randomly chosen). After the "connecting" window, I'm prompted by my server for user name, PW, domain. It has to be generated by the firewall/proxy, and it's quick enough that it looks like it's asking permission for the outgoing request, not the incoming stream. When the user info is filled in, the encoder/skin downloads and installs.
Installed .336 on top of .293. I still have the encoder/skins I downloaded for .293, of course, but I can't download anything new - I'm back to "failed to connect."
And just for fun, I repeated the sequence and got the same results.
You might try slipping radarmary an earlier build, just to see if there's any pattern.
Things that make you say, hmmm . . .