I honestly read the FAQ here, in the help menu of Limewire, and it's "usage" docs to try to find out about these issues: (i have no firewall; using home dsl; winME; lots of RAM/mhz)

-- I have a friend, we want to share some files. Can we both just enter an IP that is showing in one or the other's current connections? We did this and found each others files a few times, but now we never "see" each others files. Plus when we DID, they usually stopped up at 99%.

-- I used winipcfg and netstat to find my IP. They show different numbers. Using www.dslreports.com's IP relfector shows that netstat's results are accurate... why is winipcfg different? ( have winpppoet dsl)

-- Even giving my friend my actual IP, he can't find my files anymore. The FAQ never says how we find our "port" number so we used 6346...

-- Connected hosts: if there are hundreds of hosts out there, how is my computer finding significant numbers of search "hits" when I have only 3 or 5 hosts connected at a time?

-- Even if I'm happy with the hosts I have, they seem to randomly change over time, out of my control.

-- Setting the option to autoconnect to a host on start doesn't seem to do anything. I add an IP xxx.xxx.xxx.xxxort but once I am online I instead get randomly changing hosts again as noted earlier.

-- Do I need the "connect1.gnutella.xxxxx", etc etc, hosts in the autoconnect options?

Once the Browse-Host-feature is reimplemented (I think it will come in LimeWire 3.0. At the moment it looks like there will be a 2.4 before 3.0, however) you should be able to browse your friends files and directly download from him.

If both of you are shielded clients, there is no way for you to open a connection in the connections-panel to each other.

The statistics are fairly inaccurate. It depends on certain messages it receives to count hosts. However it only receives those messages from Ultrapeers and Ultrapeers usually don't send those messages very regularly. To calculate the exact number of hosts you can reach, you have to multiply the number in your host count by 30 or 40.

When you loose a connection, all the hosts, you have received messages from via this connection are deleted from the host count. LimeWire has to start counting from zero again.

Static connections cannot be established at the moment. If one host fails, LimeWire will automatically search for a new one.

Yes, as a backup in case router.limewire.com fails.

Thanks so much for helping to clear a few things up... Apologies for the length of my queries, but I'm trying to get all my questions answered in as few shots as possible. The FAQs and user guide don't specifically answer these questions.
Thanks again for your patience.


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when the Browse-Host-feature is reimplemented (I think it will come in LimeWire 3.0. you should be able to browse your friends files
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So when Cyclotron's FAQ says to enter each other's IP, that FAQ is actually wrong or outdated for the current versions of Limey? Hmm... too bad. It's one of the reasons I thought Limewire was for me (and my friends).




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If both of you are shielded clients, there is no way for you to open a connection in the connections-panel to each other.
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What is a shielded client, how do I found out if I am one, and how do I disable it if so.

I am thinking we aren't shielded, since we were at first ABLE to open the same IP in each other's connection-panel and get files from each other.

Should he and I toggle our ultrapeer option? Or is that unrelated.



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Static connections cannot be established at the moment. If one host fails, LimeWire will automatically search for a new one.
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So if my friend and I have the same IP showing (USA to Canada connection) and then one of our Limewires auto-searches for a different one(s)........ Will he and I still eventually find each other or should one of us just re-enter an IP from the other one's connection-panel?

Or should we just wait several minutes to see if "search hits" occur? We both have DSL.

MORE ULTIMATELY: He insists that to find each other's files, one of us always *has to* manually add an IP from the other person's connection-panel (often, this works, and we find each other's shared files)......... So, WITHOUT manually adding the IP, would Limewire find his shared files, would it just take a lot longer or would it fail??

This whole manually-entering IPs is highly confusing to me. Is it EVER necessary???

I had asked of him, What is the point of the search feature if you already have to know the other person's host IPs??


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-- Do I need the "connect1.gnutella.xxxxx", etc etc, hosts in the autoconnect options?
Yes, as a backup in case router.limewire.com fails.
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Sorry, I also wanted to know if *that* one was necessary. I was thinking of deleting *all* the default limewire autoconnect hosts and using some of my own I've seen on the connect-panel.

I guess I shouldn't from what you are saying. They are necessary for Limewire to work?

There are freeware ftp-servers, which would serve that purpose much better than LimeWire ever could.
You can disable it in the limewire.props file, by editing the option "FORCE_SUPERNODE_MODE=true". If you for example became an Ultrapeer (formerly known as Supernode), your friend would be able to enter your IP to establish a direct connection to you.

A shielded client is any client that does not accept incoming connections.

You will probably still be able to find each others files. But it's not completely sure.

If both of you are connected to the same host, you can be absolutely sure to find each others files, since this host will submit search queries between your clients. If you aren't connected to the same host, that will not necessarily happen.

Don't do that, router.limewire.com and the other autoconnect hosts are online 24/7 and have static IPs.

No, but they are necessary if you want to connect to the public gnutella network. If you wanted to form your own private network, you can delete all autoconnect hosts and enter the IP of the person you want to be connected to.

A thousand thank you's.

Things are much clearer now. I apreciate you taking the time to help a newbie.

You are a "senior member" - just someone who uses limewire a lot, or are an admin for the forums? Or a developer? Anyway, thanks again!

I will look into your suggestion of ftp sites for my friend-to-friend needs and use Limewire for more general searches.

Take it easy.

You become a "senior member" if you write a certain number of posts, there's nothing special about that.

I'm not a real developer, either, but I'm trying to contribute a little to the LimeWire open source efforts.

Until recently I used LimeWire just occasionally for mp3s (there was that linux version of kazaa, that downloaded files much faster, and edonkey2000 which I used for rare *** movies).