I managed to confirm today that my relatively slow connection has nothing to do with my lack of getting significant hosts lately. I did this when i used my college's much better line earlier today, with the same results I achieved at home.

This leads me to put more stock in my previous theory--that gnutella is having major problems for two reasons.

1)people using insane numbers of connections

2)There is a client compatibility issue--supported by the strange ascii strings witnessed in the search monitor.

Also I have noticed seriously absurd numbers of files, in the billions, which again may be a client compatility issue, or may be a new form of spamming which has been as of yet unidentified. I will try to note particular ip's with this anamoly.

I believe all of these factors relate to why host info isn't registering properly, and more importantly why searching is largely uneffective.

Someone mentioned earlier about gnotella tacking on extra bytes to the packets, but i don't think this is the problem since i manage to get the same results no matter what client I use. If anything it's merely a matter of efficiency, nothing more.

I have had the opportunity to try this with different types of machines, with both different hardware configurations and speeds, both having the same results. This again leads back to my compatibility theory.

I wonder how much that java client is affecting things as well?

Thoughts? comments?

[This message has been edited by DarthGummiBear (edited 09-06-2000).]