diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index b721fb7a12..ecdf5db9bf 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+Mon Oct 20 19:06:06 2014  Martin Duerst <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>
+
+	* tool/downloader.rb: Make sure we update to latest version
+	  if network connection is available, but we don't fail if
+	  there is no network connection but option -e is set and
+	  we already have a version of the file.
+
 Mon Oct 20 19:06:06 2014  Martin Duerst <duerst@it.aoyama.ac.jp>
 
 	* lib/unicode_normalize.rb: revert r48046. The s in sIndex
diff --git a/tool/downloader.rb b/tool/downloader.rb
index 71579c536a..4466e53fb9 100644
--- a/tool/downloader.rb
+++ b/tool/downloader.rb
@@ -54,14 +54,14 @@ class Downloader
   #            'UnicodeData.txt', 'enc/unicode/data'
   def self.download(url, name, dir = nil, ims = true)
     file = dir ? File.join(dir, name) : name
-    return true if ims.nil? and File.exist?(file)
+    # return true if ims.nil? and File.exist?(file)
     url = URI(url)
     if $VERBOSE
       $stdout.print "downloading #{name} ... "
       $stdout.flush
     end
     begin
-      data = url.read(http_options(file, ims))
+      data = url.read(http_options(file, ims.nil? ? true : ims))
     rescue OpenURI::HTTPError => http_error
       if http_error.message =~ /^304 / # 304 Not Modified
         if $VERBOSE
@@ -71,6 +71,18 @@ class Downloader
         return true
       end
       raise
+    rescue Timeout::Error
+      if ims.nil? and File.exist?(file)
+        puts "Request for #{url} timed out, using old version."
+        return true
+      end
+      raise
+    rescue SocketError
+      if ims.nil? and File.exist?(file)
+        puts "No network connection, unable to download #{url}, using old version."
+        return true
+      end
+      raise
     end
     mtime = nil
     open(file, "wb", 0600) do |f|