"could not download" error message
 

Hi, I'm new to this and hope you can help.

I recently loaded 2.9.6 and am running on OS X 10.1.5.

Problem is that everytime I try to download anything, I get this error message in the status bar "could not download"

I was having better luck before I paid for PRO

Help please!

If you hold the mouse arrow over the message, you should see a message "awaiting more sources." Just restart the search for that file again (command-click on the appropriate search tab, or enter the criteria again) to find new sources, and if the search turns up more good sources, LW will run through them in the background and the message will change.

If none can be found because hosts go offline or are too busy, or any of the many reasons files won't complete, kill the old download and start again.

If this is happening everytime with anything, upgrade to 10.2.4, try Acquisition or other p2p clients, and you'll find not much has changed. Paying for Pro was a mistake. Donating via Pro is the way to go to help develop a decent gnutella client for OSX.

I've learned to be content with ~10% download success; <1% upload on my mac. It's interesting to see how much changes on different days of the week and times of the day.

Cheers, and welcome.

"Could Not Download; Awaiting Sources"
 

"Could Not Download; Awaiting Sources"

It's not you - It's LimeWire 2.9.8. I've never had an appreciable problem with LimeWire until I installed this version. But now I'm having the same experience on a PC that you're having on a MAC.

Previous versions worked well (~10%) success, but version 2.9.8 blows! I can't get one single download to complete out of more than 100 search hits - That sucks. LimeWire went from arguably the best to possibly the worst.

"Could Not Download; Awaiting Sources"
/kpt

"could not download" simply replaced "requery sent".

Failed downloads will be restarted automatically if you search for the file you are trying to download manually and if this search returns a matching result.

Thanks, but...
 

First, there IS something wrong. You may not want to believe it, but there is. Previous several versions - No problem. This version - Problem.

Second, now that you mention it (I actually didn't), it is disappointing that failed downloads don't restart (without doing a manual search). I wax nostalgic for the days I could leave a list of failed files overnight and wa-lah - In the morning I would have several of the files waiting for me.

/kpt

Well this version works better than most for me after tweaking a few things. I believe you are unhappy, but you don't have to convince anyone here that it doesn't work for you. It sounds so bad I'm tempted to ask if you have your modem turned on!

If you could be more specific about the problems, someone should know a workaround or fix. I've been able to leave a list of downloads running all night and seen some complete in the morning (fair sized .mpg's).

trap_jaw's already given the first answer (best worded, too) to the most obvious problem: what's the next?

Re: Thanks, but...
 

I somewhat agree with you and I would greet a decision by LimeWire to become a little more agressive about downloading myself. There are a few simple changes that would allow us to reduce the number of failed downloads significantly. Unfortunately (from the user's point of view) LimeWire has always been very careful about retrying hosts, when one download attempt has failed. (There are certain risks of unintended DDoS attacks by LimeWire hosts.)

LimeWire's downloading code needs some refactoring, in my opinion, maybe some of those improvements will be made once LimeWire 3.0 with further improvements to the network is out.

Thanks!
 

Thank you, trap_jaw, for making the effort to see my 2nd point (my RFE). I honestly appreciate it.

Empowered, I offer the following additional observation relating to my 1st point (my perceived problem). Once connected, the host count continues to rise while searches are being performed and downloads are attempted. And, with previous versions, the longer I left it - The higher the host count (I mean this as a rule of thumb only - there are times, such as Sunday mid-morning, when the number falls off - Or conversely, such as Saturday early-evening when the number goes way up). However, The host count with the new version drops off dramatically when left unattended. Hmm.. Now that I've put this observation on paper (screen), it occurs to me that it is more likely attributed to the "fear of DOS attack" issue than my perceived problem.

I'll be back..
/kpt

The host count is very likely to go down a little because LimeWire ultrapeers devote less bandwidth to forwarding pong messages (and those messages are used to compute the host count). This has nothing to do with your actual search horizon and if you ask me, the number does more damage than it does good.

Thanks again.
 

Thanks for that explanation - Makes perfect sense now.

After looking at the hosts themselves, I found that almost all of the search hits I'm seeing are coming from two hosts. That's weird, but glossing over that, an obvious answer to my perceived problem is that perhaps both of those hosts are inaccessible (from my NATed address) and that would account for the ridiculous failure rate.

I'm going to get a life now. I'll let you know if I trip over any further info.

Thanks again.
/kpt

Awaiting Sources
 

The new version of LimeWire has a problem ... whether or not LimeWire believes it. Things were pretty fine until I upgraded and now I consistently get the dreaded Awaiting Sources message. Something is broken. I tried this for several days, on audio and video, and everyu once in a while get a d/l, but mainly that remarkably unhelpful message.

penguin40, maybe the message should be changed to something like "search again", "more sources needed", or "awaiting new search". btw, older versions are still available.

sykogurl, any luck?

Downloading problems
 

Ok - what happened? Aren't upgrades supposed to make things better? Now on 2.98, and like many, am now expecting the "Could not Download" message, vs. downloading. It's almost become a game, hmm, let's find a file that lists as being active, click and see what happens. Seems to be more an issue w/larger files, but not exclusively. I'm on Win2k on a decent DSL connection - so reciept shouldn't be the issue. People seem to be able to upload from me.....

Lime Guys? Whassup?

bug error message
 

:confused: i recieved the "bug in limewire" message yesterday. the problem has slowed down my ENTIRE PC!!!!!!! need help asap

downloads
 

It seems obvious to me that when one searches for a file to download, the list of possible download sites that appears be only ones THAT CAN ACTUALLY BE DOWNLOADED FROM! I have been trying for weeks to download from Limewire (2.9.7) only to get, in almost every single instance, the dreaded "could not download, awaiting more sources" message, or, if a download does actually start, the bandwith is set so low as to be virtually impossible to complete. Having read in this forum the brilliant remedy of initiating a new search for the file and trying to download from someone else ( I have tried this but to no avail) I have to wonder why it isn't set up to do this automatically? INown both a PC and a Mac and found Limewire (previous versions) to be an excellent way of finding files for both platforms. Now I am going to uninstall Limewire forever and switch to KaZaa. They don't have a much for Macs yet but I can get a successfull download at least 95% of the time as opposed to 1% with Limewire. I have to wonder why anyone in their right mind would actually pay for limewire pro

You saying I'm not in my right mind? It's gotta be good enough for me!

I DONATED to Pro, and to Acquisition, to do my little bit to HELP p2p for OSX on Gnutella--LW and Acq are doing the most work for my platform, so they deserve some credit and support. I mean to get around to Phex, but they're all Java. Yeah, it's frustrating, but don't dis the progress made! You've read how greedy servents were flooding the network with automatic queries--why do you think responsible clients reluctantly agreed to give up such an obvious advantage?

Sheesh--short fuse tonight: sorry. Back to the u/l problem (I don't care about d/l's--open sharing is what interests me, and there are way too many leechers):

btw--did you know that OS 10.2.4 has a buried setting in the firewall for allowing gnutella[System Preferences->Sharing->Firewall->Other->Gnutella/Limewire (6346)]? I just found that out an hour ago. So much for all the reading I've been doing! If that's all it takes to get around the firewall problem, I need a better reading list. Don't know what difference it makes yet. [Darn--just checked: something quit in Monitors (a lone Gnucleus 1.8.4.0 at 52 KB/s has outperformed the other 9 LW's in completing uploads) and all the 40 + alternates on 3 of the 4 test mpg's have been lost again. Process Viewer looks normal. Hmm. new entry in console: Apr 4 23:29:30 Stief xinetd[1731]: 1731 {hard_reconfig} No available services. Exiting. Mean anything to anyone? Guess I'll start back at square one with a clean install, etc. Sigh]

Something's wrong with the way LW uploads and downloads connect at such consistently slow speeds, but trying to isolate that variable amongst all the many factors that affect internet connections is really tough. Any new information would be appreciated.

Who is doing that work, and for what reward? Most seems to be done by the LimeWire opensource PROJECT, and I notice the contributions there seem to come from a lot of UNPAID volunteers. Maybe there is a LimeWire CORPORATION that will capitalize on the volunteer work somewhere in the future, but in the meantime an open technology is being advanced.

Right mind? Left somewhere. Get in and help! No mind necessary, and don't mind me.

LimeWire can't do much about the actual upload/download speed. The one with the fastest connection (with the lowest latency) get's the biggest share of the upstream.

First thing you do, if you want to investigate a problem, is checking the "Show Advanced Statistics" box in the statistics window.

If you want to know what's wrong with your uploads, disable ultrapeer capabilities and then wait for a little while until you have had some upload requests. Then go to the statistics and look at the number of push messages you received via TCP. If you receive any pushes (or at least more than 1 or 2 per hour) it means people have trouble establishing TCP connections to you.

Thanks trap_jaw. Yes I'm seeing an ave of 0.005 pushes , max 3 total 74 in Gnutella-Received-Number-TCP. I'll have to study the stats more to see if i can understand the data. Thanks for starting me on the "push" stuff.

Flow control-Routing Errors showed zeroes for Push and Reply Errors, but 38,094 total Pong errors. I'll have to do some reading on pongs--I recall something about a different port needed for pongs.

0.005 push messages per second (= 18 per hour) is not necessarily a large value unless you only receive about the same number of upload requests per hour. In that case the rest of the network cannot connect to you properly.

How many HTTP HEAD Requests do you receive per second?

HTTP Requests showed zeroes in ALL, GET, and HEAD columns.

[thanks for adding the "per second" re the push. That makes so much more sense now]

Yes, that means people cannot connect to you directly. If you set up your router for port forwarding and forced your IP, you seem to have made a mistake somewhere.

Aha! I'll have to drag out some monitor/keyboard/mouse and look into my NAT software. (Anyone have some tips for working with IPNetRouter for System 7.61?).

I assume this affects downloads to some degree too. Still doesn't seem fair that the best uploads I've seen all came from old or other clients, but now I hope I can fix that. Thanks for taking the time to help: much appreciated once again.

[very disturbing graphic: really puts so much into perspective]

Yes, my five minutes anti-american anger after seeing a huge american flag and a "United We Stand" logo somewhere in these forums. I think I'll remove it again, now that I've calmed down.

"Could not download, awaiting sources"
 

:confused: Today I upgraded to version 2.9.8. I'm using Windows 98 SE. All previous versions of LimeWire have worked great for me and have given me succesful downloads alomst every time. After my upgrade today, I started getting the message "Could not download, awaiting sources" every darn time I tried to download a file. From reading the very long lists of replies to this problem, I see that I'm not alone. I don't know a lot about file sharing and these things called "p2p". I do know that I don't want to have wasted my money buying the Pro version if it's not going to work. Please help. I love LimeWire and want to keep using it.

"Could not download, awaiting sources" should say "repeat search needed" or "search again" 'cause that all you have to do.

p2p is short for Peer-to-Peer Filesharing, what all these clients try to do. Gnutella is the system coders like Limewire and BearShare are trying to develop so you and I can search each other's hard drives and share our files. As you can see, it sounds easy, but for now,

"Repeat Search" is all we have to do; giving them something is extra.

Somebody recently translated p2p into porn-to-peer (there is some truth in that).

Thanks Stief, I appreciate the help. I have had better luck the last couple days. Thank you also for the info on p2p.:D

You're welcome. trap_jaw has given me the most help on understanding p2p. The porn part is so true and seems to drive the development on gnutella the way it did on the WWW.

Maybe some of you are having luck with 2.9.8 - but obviously some are not. LimeWire was working fine with 2.8.6, now with the newer version I keep getting 'Could not download awaiting sources' I have tried repeat search, force resume, tried same search over etc. Nothing works, have double checked settings ... everything is fine BUT the way Limewire is working for me. I have a DSL connection.... NOTHING has changed except have installed newer version of LimeWire - specifically 2.9.8 HELP!!! I am ready to reinstall 2.8.6 astec40

I hear you, but if you did a clean install, probably can't help more (I'm on OSX). What OS are you using--that info might encourage others to help.

Force resume won't work. A simple "Repeat search" won't return new results. You might have to wait an hour or so before repeating the search. You might try killing the download and download the search result again.

Your settings are not the problem. And LimeWire 2.8.6 probably won't work any better, it will simply go into "Requery Sent" mode and stay there for ages.

Could not download
 

Have Windows XP Professional. Yes, I am sure of clean install. I came here to post problem and have seen that I am not the only one having this specific problem. Thanks

trap jaw, you are not paying attention sir. 2.8.6 worked FINE. It has only been since installing 2.9.8 that I have encountered this problem. I have deleted file... new search, etc, etc etc. Have been using Limewire for quite sometime now - was using Gnutella when Napster was still around, I want to say was using it before Napster was around... but memory isnt like it used to be :) Am working on installing 2.8.6 now.. if I can recover file. Was cleaning house this morning and deleted 2.8.6 bacause was certain of LimeWire's update working correctly. Way it goes man. If anyone has help or suggestions that would be great!! But please dont tell me that going back to previous isnt going to help when I know better. thanks, astec40

Back to 2.8.6
 

I have uninstalled 2.9.8 - recovered my deleted 2.8.6 file, installed it and have downloaded several files that I have trying to download for two days using 2.9.8 - sounds like a bug to me. Not all are are effected by it apparently, by reading posts. I am not a "techie" all I know is that it didnt freakin work right and now it does. peace out.

Does LimeWire ever go into the "Connecting..." state? Activate the advanced statistics. Does LimeWire send Push messages via TCP?

All older versions of LimeWire can be found here:
http://www3.limewire.com/download/

advanced statistics
 

Yes, 2.9.8 did go into connecting.... state every time. But would be for just a second or two then go into the Cannot download mode. Dont get me wrong, I was able to download a few files utilizing 2.9.8 but was a pain in butt to work with. I had to keep freakin messing with it. And with other files it did not seem to matter how much I 'messed with it' I have activated the Advanced Statistics option, but am not familiar with this "Push messages via TCP" Please keep in mind I have reinstalled 2.8.6
And thank you for taking the time to help me resolve problem with 2.9.8 - if we can tentatively work out a solution I would reinstall 2.9.8

The problem I have, is that the basic connection and download code was not really changed. I could imagine that somehow the timeouts are a little more strict in the latest version but that would not explain your problems, unless of course you became an ultrapeer with 2.9.8 and never became an ultrapeer with 2.8.6 since download attempts tend to timeout more often when you are an ultrapeer.

If LimeWire goes into "Connecting..." state the Push statistics is not important anymore. I was afraid it could even be a strange problem causing LimeWire not to request files properly.

Could not Download
 

Yeah yeah, I'm seeing this too. I never had any problems before, but the instant I updated to 2.9.8, everything basically fell apart. I can barely maintain three connections, when I was always able to maintain 6 before. And about 95% of attempted downloads fail with the "Could not Download' message. I'm running OSX 10.2.4.

Yup--lots of changes from 2.8.6 to 2.9.8! Did you notice the fixes? I haven't seen that damned "could not move to library" message (and others) for a long time now, so I sure wouldn't want to go back. Found out a lot of the problems I'd been having were OSX firewall related.

3 connections is normal now and is part of the plan to make three connections work better than 6, I think. As LW gets closer to the 3.0 release and 2.9 is more widespread, we should see that happen. Seems better for me, but there are too many variables like the firewall to say for sure.

Found any new ways to help reduce the "could not download . . ." ?

Re: help me!!
 

down loading problem.

Every time I try to download a song a message comes up that says "could not move to library" and will not download. when I try to delete a song in my file it says "It may be in use by another application" and will not let me delete it. please tell me what I'm doind wrong.I am unable to download or delete.

Your "Incomplete" or your "Shared" directory may be write protected.

Interesting. In the last few hours, I've seen more "could not move to library" errors than I've seen for weeks. This error also blanks out the display of items in the library pane. Usually one click on refresh will bring the display list back, but sometimes two or three clicks are necessary.

I just gave the inc and shared folder full r/w permissions (never had to that before) so we'll see. Might be related to the latest update from OS 10.2.4 to OSX .2.5.

I also tripled the size and number of the shared items. (Can you see if access/content looks OK trap_jaw? I'll try the magnet to provide a link--uploads are frequent but rates are usually <1k) .

Could not library errors can still occur when downloading from clients without HUGE support.

By full r/w permissions on OSX you mean changing the mod to 777 (read, write, execute permission for user, group and everybody else)? Only the user running LimeWire needs full read and write access to the folders.

Not sure about 777.There's probably a terminal line I can use to get info on folder permissions--but I've very limited experience with the Terminal. In Get Info on a folder, I gave the same full read/write perms to the Group and Others categories: same as Owner.

HUGE?--Did note that d/l's from older clients LW 2.7.3, 2.6.5, were more likely to trigger the library error. I tried to trim connections to avoid older Ultrapeers, but that no guarantee of alternate listings.

Yes, that should be more or less the same as chmod 777 <file>. As I said, if the owner of the shared / incomplete dir is the one running LimeWire, he should not encounter any problems unless the owner does not have full permissions to access the dirs.

I'm the only user, but run as an admin. Root user is disabled by default.
don't know what I did here, but
Last login: Sat Apr 12 07:32:01 on ttyp1
Welcome to Darwin!
[Steve:~] steve% chmod 777/Users/steve/Incomplete
usage: chmod [-R [-H | -L | -P]] mode file ...
[Steve:~] steve%

you have to put a space between the mode and the target directory.

chmod 777 <directory> allows everybody to access <directory> but for LimeWire a chmod 700 <directory> (allowing just the owner read, write or execution) will work as well as the other one.

Ah--thanks. man chmod gave me more than I have time for, but looks interesting. btw--Didn't have time for a fresh install, but did a delete incompletes (incl .dat), full restart, fsck -y (safe boot), repaired perms, restart, ran LW, entered same search criteria, and had the same results. Watched for older vendors, but only 1 older (LW 2.1.3) vendor of 12 (mostly 2.9.8; 1 BSh 4.2.5) was involved in the "could not move to lib".

Thought maybe I could trigger it by refreshing the Library/Incomplete display (sometimes took three clicks to refresh from a blank), but couldn't reproduce this consistently. Java draw involved? The spinning lime often disappears.

The "could not download error" quickly went away after "repeat search" found new sources of course. I only have 3 UP's since LW usually crashes if "disable Ultrapeer" is left unchecked. Alternates found ranged up to 20 or so for each of the four .mpg's involved. Each is 100-190MB, and not worth having.

I'm outta here--real work awaits. Thanks for the terminal advice and enjoy your break. Cheers.

What Happened? I can't DL
 

First, I can't find a Post Button just a reply.. (Sorry to the user this reply goes to. Its supposed to be for the Limewire crew) Thanks. NOW....What happened to the Limerwire that I can't DL? I get this 'Cant Download' message even before a token has been sent out of my system. I paid for Limewire because I KNOW it to be a GREAT product of some wizards. I have always loved Limewire so I thought.. Since Limewire was so insistant that I upgrade to the 2.9.8 I did only to find that I can't DL. What Happened guys? There is DEFINATELY soemthing coded incorrectly. People can Download from me but not vice versa.
I am on a Mac OS 10.1.5/DSL/512MB. Everthing used to work now I can't do what I need to do. HELP PLease FIX THIS!!!
Thanks in advance,
germ240

It's Only Fair to tell you
 

I thought it only fair to tell the guys at Limewire that when I wrote my post, Limewire was uploading but not downloading. I began to read the other comments of users with the same prob. I began the process of DL again from different sites and Low and behold, the DL-ing process began; but first, let me tell you what happened.
1. I clicked on the file I wanted to dl and
2. Limewire's DL screen did NOT go immediately to COULD NOT DOWNLOAD (It actually sent a request for the file.. it didn't do this before)
3. I am able to download and upload

So far, The program is functioning. If hosts are turning off their machines or disconnecting from the net, there is nothing we can do about that.
It seemed every host I went to (T1-T3), Limewire would immediately respond with "COULD NOT DOWNLOAD"
Modem and Cable hosts seems to work fine. I'm sure I will update this post in the coming days. Thought I'd share this info.:D