Anderton
abacab
I wonder if it is a networking or DNS server lookup issue with the assistant? The joys of online installers... 
I don't know, but I added BandLab Assistant as an allowed program in the Windows firewall. That didn't help either.
I gotcha, but I was thinking further out, beyond the firewall. If it was the firewall blocking, the assistant would not connect to anything and you couldn't sign in to it.
But for connected installs, there are often many DNS (Domain name Server) lookups made by an installer client to completely establish a session with a content provider cloud. DNS is the phonebook of the internet.
Each DNS lookup has to go out to your ISP DNS server and obtain the actual IP addresses for the server to connect to. If the DNS server either isn't up to date, or is blocking something, I think the process could possibly stall without an obvious error message as to the cause. Like getting a wrong phone number, or a number out of service.
Using a network monitor, I noticed that Bandlab Assistant makes multiple connections to cloudfront.net when it is working on a download.
So as I see it:
1. you start the Bandlab client.
2. it phones home base and signs you in (so we know that part works).
3. you request a download.
4. the Bandlab client attempts connections with multiple endpoints involving the content delivery network that serves your download content. Assume the specific endpoints are located in different parts of the world as determined by the provider that Bandlab is using, and that are assigned as geographically closest to you. This setup happens dynamically as the request is made. I suppose if any of those requests couldn't connect for whatever reason, the process hangs. There a likely multiple DNS lookups made during the whole handshaking process to get things rolling. Like have you ever had a web page load partly, but is still waiting for some graphics to load? Often times that web page requests parts and pieces from all over, not just one server, and they don't always make it back in time,
So if not everyone is down at the same time, it is logical to suspect your ISP and their DNS server maybe have issues. You can temporarily bypass the DNS server assigned by your ISP to rule this out. This has worked out for me on several occasions where I was having issues connecting with a site on the net.
To work around this as a test, you can either set your home router, or your Windows client, to use an alternate DNS, even temporarily. Cloudflare DNS is at 1.1.1.1, Google Public DNS is available at 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, and OpenDNS is at 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
https://www.cloudflare.co..arning/dns/what-is-dns/https://developers.google.com/speed/public-dns/https://support.opendns.com/hc/en-us/articles/228007207-Windows-10-Configuration