I've been using LimeWire for sometime, but lately when I enter an artist's name, instead of getting a steady stream of hundreds of downloads, I get none, or one or two with the Limewire icon and a "buy me" at the beginning of the file. What's going on here? It's absurd to think there are no files of music from Miles D*vis or the B*atles!? What am I missing that's changed, here?

How many green bars do you see at LW's bottom left corner?

Short answer: five. After I posted that note, I tried a search again and it worked fine. Just now, the next day, same problem. Enter "Miles Davis"= 0 returns, "Beatles" = 0 returns.

I sometimes have bad search days. I think it might be related to ultrapeers you're connected to.

Go to LW's menu bar, View menu -> Show Hide Connections. Then right-click heading bar & tick option to show vendor/version. Select one (if any) that are not LW version 4.18, then press Remove button at bottom of window. Even if all 4.18, select one anyway & do that. Now wait for LW to find another ultrapeer to connect to .. wait until LW stabilizes its connection. Then go & try a search again. You may need to repeat this process.

The thing about how LW works is .. a search will only find a certain % of the entire network. It therefore depends on ultrapeers you are connected to to get results you are looking for.

Keep in mind also, some ultrapeers are actually spammers & some are just poor functioning ultrapeers.

When I went to connections, there were no entries at all under "Vendor/Versions". At the top of the graph it read:

"0 Ultrapeers, 0 peers, 0 Leaves, 10 connecting, 0 Standard"

So it looks like, for some reason, my LW is not connecting with any peers.

After I posted my last note, I left LW on in the background and went about doing other things online. When I went back to LW, there were well over a dozen Ultra-peers showing. I guess it sometimes takes awhile for LW to locate them? I don't recall that happening in the past. Has something changed in the LW software or procedures?

Right-click heading bar. Or did I forget to say that. That will give you more column view options. Same applies on all the other windows.



You should be seeing 3 stable ultrapeers. If up to nine or more coming & going, it means your connection is unstable. I did warn you to be careful about that.
(My example shows 5 ultrapeer connections, because I'm using LW Pro. My bandwidth was shaped mid month & now on dial up speed for another couple of days, but no problems connecting.)

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Not sure which classifies as the "heading bar", but I clicked on several areas, with no effect. In any case, my "Connections" page showed three Ultrapeers, which I gather is what we want. Earlier there were probably two dozen or more, which you said means I have an unstable connection. Anything I can do about that for next time it happens?

It's natural for LW's connection to become unstable for a little while whilst it searches for a new available ultrapeer in the nearby area.

The Heading bar is the horizontal line. See above image example, the heading bar is .. Host, Messages, Bandwidth, Dropped, Protocol, etc. (If you're using MacOSX, then use Control-click).

OK, thanks for all your tips. Most helpful. On another note, I (re-)discovered that there are more than a few files you download from LW that contain viruses and/or Trojans. Fortunately, I have the protection of both firewall and anti-virus software. That's what they're for, right?