Others cannot download my files

[adeboda]

I am using LimeWire 1.6 on WinME. When checking the Monitor tab after being connected I see that there are several unsuccessful attempts to get my shared files. The result is Cannot Download or something similar.

I am connecting to the Internet through a Linksys router. Could this be the problem why others can't get my files? Suggestions?

adeboda

[TruStarwarrior]

If the upload entry reads "File Not Found" a freeloader was downloading from you, and your anti-freeloader features were turned on. You will often see "Transfer Interrupted" when people kill the download or are kicked off. Other than that, there shouldn't be any many other errors. You router shouldn't cause any problems. Are you behind a firewall?

[adeboda]

I tried it again. The error under status reads "Couldn't Connect". I am running Zone Alarm and my router has a limited firewall. "Block WAN request" is enabled on my router along with IPSec and PPTP Pass Through if that means anything.

[TruStarwarrior]

Because you are behind a firewall, you will experience some problems. Since you are able to connect to the Gnutella network, then the problem lies in negotiating download requests. To fix this firewall side effect, open LW, click TOOLS> OPTIONS, go to the advanced tab, and you will see a box at the top called "Force Local IP." In this area, check the "Force IP" checkbox and type in your IP address. Click ok and see how things go. Restarting LW is recommended after doing this. If you are using WIN 98 SE and don't know how to find out what your IP is, click START>RUN, type in "winipcfg", press enter, and you should get a confihuration window that tells you what your IP address is.
Hope this helps! :-)

[adeboda]

I did the "Force IP" as suggested (I'm not sure what it does). My IP address is *********** as I am on a home network. My IP address to the Internet is dynamic. I still get "Couldn't Connect" in uploads, but today there was one which said "Transfer Interrupted" (30% downloaded). I am using DSL to connect to the Internet.

[TruStarwarrior]

It sounds like you are connecting and uploading to others just fine now, but you are getting "Transfer Interrupted" messages because you have a dynamic IP address. As its name suggests, the IP address you have changes every so often. The exact amount of time before your IP change changes is something only you (or somone else with similar service) can discover. Ask your DSL provider or consult documentation. It may be that every dynamically changing IP computer acts in much the same manner (in terms of frequency of changes), but I don't have dynamic DSL (or DSL, for that matter), so I could not say how often it occurs. Ask around. But from what you're telling me, it seems that people are downloading files from you fine. With the Force IP turned on, downloaders can "penetrate" the firewall without using largely unsuccessful push requests. Downloads go fine until they are interrupted your IP address change. The people downloading from you cannot find you (thus, can't resume from you) after it changes unless they search for the file again and attempt to resume from your new IP. Most people give up at this point, though.

This is a tedious solution (not really a solution, but a temporary fix to let quick uploads occur) and becomes more frustrating with time, but you can do this if you want to. Check periodically what your IP address is and change the LW settings to match the new IP. This will get old pretty fast, but I really have no other ideas on how to fix this. It sounds there is need for a feature in LW that automatically discovers and forces your IP address for you so that you don't have to do it manually. Remember, though, that this feature (and the temporary fix) would not solve the interrupted downloads, but it would allow your uploads to occur without having to worry about firewall limitations.
I guess for Gnutella, a dynamic IP address isn't exactly a good thing. Sorry I can't be of any more help! :-)

[adeboda]

Thanks so much for a very comprehensive reply and hopefully helpful to others that also have dynamic IP's. You are correct, there is definitely a need for LimeWire to address this in future builds.

[TruStarwarrior]

Your IP address can only be dynamic on an always-on connection, such as DSL or cable. Only some providers offer this feature. However, if you are using dial up, the address will be different every time you dial up. I have not heard of a dial up ISP that has dynamic IP addressing. Just making sure I'm not confusing anybody. :-)

[Davidh]

There are dynamic dns services that you can use (I use hn.org) that follow your changing IP.

So would putting your url in the local address instead of the IP number work ?

ta
dave

[TruStarwarrior]

Theroetically, it could. But this is as far as my knowledge goes, so I guess if you wanted to, you could just try and find out.

I do have a comment on this, though. On the connection tab of LimeWire, under the "AutoConnect Hosts" section, the default addresses are not numbers; they are urls. So, if I wanted to connect to gnutellahosts.com, you could also just find out what their IP address is and type that it manually.

It is my understanding that would lead me to the following scenario. If you set up the Dynamic DNS service, people could connect to you by typing in the name hereiam.com or whatever. But as soon as they get the real number for your computer, they connect and LW identifies your computer by its IP address. When people are downloading from you, you are still an IP address to them, not a url. So, when you change addresses, the person still cannot find you because all they have is your number and not your url.

Any DNS or specialized DNS service like hn.org are for people who want to host a web site from their computer without telling customers what their IP address is. Instead, you tell them to go to lighthouse.com or whatever. They will be directed to your computer. If that computer should crash of die, etc, a new computer in a different location can replace it by updating hn.org's records. Now whenever lighthouse.com is typed in their browser, the person will be redirected to the new computer. So it is my understanding that using hn.org would not make downloads any more successful than they already aren't.