i just talked to chater, after running those tests listed above. they said that they are not intentionally blocking any ports, to their knowledge. When i click on the first test, it says that everything is working fine. when i click on the test to check specific ports, it tells me that every port is closed. i tried probably 100 random port numbers, and they're all closed according to the test, so i wonder how many ports are availible to begin with, or if maybe the test doesn't work.. i don't know. I redownloaded bearshare (older version) and bearstart, and have been having no problems. shareaza is fine too.

If they work for you then good. Perhaps stay with them. But if you also want to keep going with LW, ... not sure about the port test you did. Some port tests simply show that your port is properly safeguarded. To check it properly you need to have the program open at the same time to see if the port has been opened for that program.

My thoughts with Charter is they are not blocking ports, but using a bandwidth shaper which detects the p2p program be it a specific one or all p2p programs & shape their bandwidth. Samples of p2p bandwidth shapers Sandvine,
http://www.ipp2p.org/docu_en.html ______ p-cube ______ http://www.ispreview.co.uk/ispnews/a...03/arc15.shtml

And this is an interesting discussion of pro's & cons of isp shaping http://torrentfreak.com/traffic-shaping-good-or-bad/

downloading from charter.. interesting. i can dl audio files, but not video files.. i tried for the heck of it to download several video files at random to test. the only one that worked was an explicit file. i cancelled it before it got far, but it did connect. anyone wondering if their isp is blocking ports, but cannot tell should try to DL several types and random titles. it'd be interesting to see if there are similar results with those having problems but not with a confirmed blocking isp

Then at present your problem is not a connection problem but an upload/download problem. Be wary of Fake files in search results

A magnet link video file, see if you can downld this one http://www.magnetmix.com/video.shtml

Keep in mind Charter doesn't block all p2p users, just the heavy users. Which you'll see on page one under the Charter note link about their fair use policy.

the thing is, I'm not a high use user. I used to be but frankly, i ran out of stuff i wanted to DL. I would get on there, but nothing came to mind. I hadn't used any p2p software in about 6 months on any regular basis, and hadn't used it at all in over a month. I can DL the any of the files you suggested, but when i click on it, bearshare does the DL. i don't know how to make LW do it. BS was shut down at the time, but it opened up. maybe this has something to do, maybe not.. the LW icon on my taskbar used to bee green and yellow when i used to software a year ago. right now, it's grey in the middle??

LW 4.13 beta will give you the option of which you want as the magnet handler. FW next release hasn't come out yet. Shouldn't be too long though.

strangly enough.. all p2p software i've tried is now working just fine.. out of nowhere. LW, BS, and shareaza all working on all files. my firewall was disabled the entire time.. i didn't do anything different. i just kept trying new searches and new DLs and all of the sudden, files that were searching for sources for over 2 days suddenly had them.. how odd!

I was sort of wondering (long after the fact)when that started happening to me.... Is it possible that you had just come to the end of a "monthly" max. data count? Say, your allowed "X" amount and then they pull back on the Raine's?

i am not a very big computer geek....but know that i am using a LAN for accessing my internet....and i desperately want to access limewire which i had been using from my home but now i work in a company called "3i-infotech" situated in india........i dont know much info about networking or routers.......all i know is that limewire takes a lot of time to open up and after some time only 1 single bar remains green for infinite time....and i cannot connect to the peers.....please guide me how shall i operate.....i have tried checking what i have been told in the earlier posts to check the port 6436 and its showing "your test worked"......if u want to anything more technical info then please tell me how to get that info from my computer like ISP....router n alll.......

thanx in advance

please help me out.

perhaps centurytell dsl may be preventing me from connecting. i have downloaded limewire 3 times on different occasions and tried all fixes and never have been connected completely. i only get one bar and that really sux.