hello, thanks for the reply
.the internet connection is fine (wifi or t moblie web)
what happens is I go to my app manager (nokia n900 btw) and go into the menu at the top, when i select catalogues the phone searches for a bit and then lists all the catalogues as -failed to refresh_ with red hexagons(with white exclamation marks in) next to each catalogue.
eg; nokia applications, nokia system software updates, ovi, maemo.org

because of this I cannot download anything.