in attempts to figure out what's going on, I just found this post in another forum...

"I guess you are referring to Google Satellite. Unlike with their Street
map, they limit the downloads for Satellite -- most likely per IP and
day. So, if suddenly you don't get any new Satellite maps, you already
exceeded their limit, and will have to wait a day before downloading
more maps. FWIW, the popup tells you about the failed download. "

So, I guess I'm not the only one. Anybody out there found a way to get around this?

Laughing man... do you know how much you've downloaded?