Installer is doing nothing

First, a slightly offtopic rant. Why (when
portableapps is started) is there no "checking
for updates" message? I have to guess how long
it will take (before I can do something like
get more apps). If I attempt that before the
update check has finished, I get a warning
message, and then a list of "updates" with
"ERROR" in their title and a 0 MB size.

Anyway, I am trying to install additional
apps, but when I select them, I get (after a
few seconds) "apps have been installed and
are ready to use" when nothing has been
installed or even downloaded. Does anyone
have any idea what could cause this (and how
to get around it)? I have tried several times,
even rebooting the machine, and always get the
same result.