Hello all,

I'm no expert and I'm new to this forum (though I have explored in an attempt to find a solution; but the issue I'm having is not a 'steady-state' kind of problem, so I didn't hold out much hope). I have been using Limewire for years, and various things before that, right back to Napster in the good old days. I'm using Limewire Pro (latest version) on Mac OS X 10.4 (also up to date). I have 512/128 satellite broadband all in perfect working order, but for the first time since I started using Limewire, I've noticed a serious and dramatic drop in the number of hits from a search over the last week or so. This is consistent, no matter what I search for or how many searches I perform.

If I type 'Deep Purple' into the Artist field of the Audio Search section, I'm lucky to get seven or eight hits. Maybe one person, or at most two, is offering 'Smoke on the Water', a song which would normally be offered by many dozens of sources. There will be one each of three or four other Deep Purple songs - and that's it! The entire 'hit list' would have been in the hundreds up until this sudden change. I use Deep Purple as an example because I've been doing searches on them on and off for several months now, so I know what to expect, but the same applies to any other artist I search for; sometimes there are no hits at all, whereas usually all sorts of 'close' and spam results come in. I'm not even getting the spam any more, and I've been swamped by it for ages, in ever-changing forms. The incoming searches, which used to come flying through so fast I could never read them, now come in at a crawl.

I haven't changed any of my settings or added any filters. I'm behind a firewall on my machine, but it has the appropriate hole punched in it for Gnutella, and turning it off makes no difference.

I'm getting the 'Turbocharged' reading on the connection meter. I'm a leaf node, and I'm getting the usual number of connections, which all seem to be functioning.

All other internet app's are functioning normally, and my network speed meter is showing normal network speeds.

Given the distributed nature of the Gnutella network, I haven't been able to guess at what could suddenly affect the number of hits so dramatically. If it had a central server arrangement as Napster did, then ...

Has anyone else noticed a recent change for the worse in their hit rate?

Don't know mate. I tried the search and got over 500 hits. It shouldn't matter if your a leaf or an UP. My first thought would be your isp. Your LW seems to be functioning properly. Possibly try resetting your junk filter.

I run windows not mac, so don't know if it's a mac specific problem.

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I wonder if it's anything to do with my geographical location (Queensland, Australia)? Judging by your Commonwealth English, you could be either in the UK (which doesn't help me much) or down in Aust. or NZ, which would help me to narrow the problem down a bit.

The epithet 6_pac tells me that you either spend a bit of time at the gym and have the ab's to prove it, or that you'll be wading into the stubbies with your mates after a hot day working on your tan at the beach this Christmas, and working on a very different species of abdomen ;->; either way, my guess is that you're as Australian as I am <g>.

Am I right? If so, then the problem's not geographical. Maybe I should be contacting my ISP. It'd be a bugger if they were instituting measures against file sharing; that was the main reason I went broadband, and satellite was the only thing available out here in the bush, with phone cables etc. so ancient that a modem connection took about three minutes to load an average webpage. But with Government-subsidised satellite for bush dwellers to the tune of a few thousand dollars, just slightly short of the entire cost of the disc on the roof, I bloody well hope it's not the ISP, because I'll be up the proverbial if it is; my contract goes for another couple of years (to make the disc pay off) and then I'll own the disc for free (thanks to the Autralian Government; they *are* good for some things <g>, despite all Howard's perpetual brown-nosing of Bush). So switching to anything else would be a major waste of expensive and otherwise fast hardware.

Hi gairlochan,

Sorry, didn't mean to mislead you, I'm from the U.S. I picked up typing mate from being on the forums.

I don't think it's a regional thing. There are several Mods and Regulars on here from Oz and I don't recall them mentioning this. Maybe one of them will know. It would help to know the name of your isp.

As for the nic 6_pac, your second answer nailed it. I have one big ab that covers my entire stomach. No suntanning at the beach around here. We usually hope for a white christmas though this year's looking to be wet and muddy.

Wish I could've been more help. If nothing else, it bumps it back up .

Cheers and Happy Holidays .

__________________
If it ain't broke, fix it till it is!

SORTED! I can't believe I forgot about troubleshooting rule no. 1 after 10 yrs on Macs. DELETE PREF'S! Now I'm back to wading through miles of spam again, because I haven't rebuilt my word filter and list of blocked hosts yet.

But at least it's working as normal ... I wonder what in the pref's could have caused such a bizarre symptom. Usually corrupted pref's cause crashes after certain actions. But this is running on a Java VM, so that might change things.

Love your signature <g>. Sounds just like my first husband. I once asked him for a hand to adjust the chain on my first dirt bike, a three-handed job; showed him which end to hold the spanner and everything. I only found out when I took a steep, muddy downhill and put my foot on the rear brake pedal to have it practically hit the dirt with no result, that he'd been unwinding the rear brake adjuster instead. A mistake anyone could have made <g> (or so I told him through gritted teeth), and I was only forced to use the front brake alone, and consequently went over the handlebars and had a 250lb dirt bike to pick up afterwards; no mean feat, when you're a skinny weakling like me. C'est la Vie!

Thanks for replying ... And enjoy your Christmas, even if you can't have it on a sunny beach. I just spent Christmas Eve performing live locally gratis (another kind of music sharing altogether), nibbling avocado and a take-away chicken (cold) for christmas lunch on the verandah under the banana clump, and partaking in some of the local green stuff and home-brew at the venue, and that's my favourite passtime, so my Christmas has been pretty good.

Especially as I'm getting one of the new MacBook Pro's (when it arrives) as a present from hy current husband (who's blessed with just as many thumbs; I seem to attract that kind of man - they want a father figure, I think ... Someone who can change a fuse/ tyre/ light-globe, chase pythons out of the house, comprehend bush plumbing arrangements, troubleshoot the diesel Landcruiser's mysterious ailments, remind them that it works better if you plug it in, and distinguish the blender from the juicer <sigh>)

Glad you got you problem sorted. i had thought about the prefs folder but wasn't sure how that applied to macs.

Sounds like your having an exciting christmas . Mine will me more subdued. Open presents, eat, put stuff together, eat, lay on the couch and fall asleep watching football(american football).

You are a woman of many talents and your hubby is lucky to have you. I can only imagine what NewYears must be like lol.

My Steelers are playing so I'm gonna go watch them, even though their chances of making the playoffs is very slim.

Take care and Happy Holidays .

__________________
If it ain't broke, fix it till it is!