Sorry if this question's been answered a million times and I can't figure it out.

Reasonably experienced user, LW 5.5.10 on a MacPro 6g ram in Snow Leopard 10.6.4. No firewalls and no performance filters in LW. No limit on dl bandwidth; upload bandwidth limited to 750kbs and 10 uploads at a time. FIOS connection, 25/20; bandwidth should not be an issue.

17 dl's at this time, all connect to 8 or 10 p2p users. I have a full connection sharing 373 files.

They begin rapidly, then decelerate to 0kbs in about a minute. Then LW becomes unresponsive, won't even forcequit, and hangs Finder and the entire system, requiring a hard and very unpleasant restart.

LW status bar indicates the full connection remains and still sharing.

This is a new occurrence as I've been using LW on this system for many years, even after the recent LW, OSX and Java upgrades.

A few of these files, I think, are being requested from specific hosts; meaning I chose 'browse host' and requested files. Not sure if this has any influence, but its the only thing I've done differently than usual.

I created a new admin account on my mac and ran LW from there. Didn't request to browse any hosts and the problem does not recur.

Thanks!

I would be curious to know what happens if you do choose to browse hosts from that account to see if same problem happens.

Are these all Gnutella Network files? Or are some Torrent files?

Try this first, go to LW's preferences, Advanced, Performance & disable all options except for out of bounds searching. See if that makes any difference, if not then see below.

Make a note of all your important settings, then delete your LW preferences whilst LW is closed. Be sure to backup your Downloads.dat file, this is very important so you don't lose previous progress on incomplete downloads! Deleting LW Preferences folder in OSX
(note: deleting the LW preferences folder will also remove any LW custom descriptions you have given shared files.)

If this still does not work, could you report back the number of files in your incomplete folder, and how many shared files you have.

One thing I am wondering, if LW is frozen then the connection status might also become frozen. Do you lose internet connection at all? Do the browsers connect ok?

Thanks LotR.
You rock, bruddah.

Sorry: all gnutella network files.

Here's where I stand:
Deleted LW prefs folder, replaced the newly created downloads.dat file and upon restart, same problem.

I disabled all but of band searching. Woolah, dl's began in earnest... for another few seconds.

Didn't go to 0kbs; just stopped everything and stood still. Couldn't force quit and then Finder hung for almost 5 minutes till I did a hard restart.

Went to the new account and ran my dl's to 18. Five or six by 'browse files'.
No trouble.

Back at the problem account there are 17 incomplete files; I keep that folder perfectly concurrent with what is actually downloading.
Interestingly, many have a good chunk completed, meaning those files were downloading fine for a while.

I removed my downloads.dat file again and began some new dl's, requesting some of the same files. None by 'browse files.'

Everything was fine for a 1/2 hour when things went awry again. I noticed as previously, most of the files were coming in from 8-10 users, and the transfer of all files together ranged up toward 3000kbs. Wouldn't that be 3mb of my 25 down, or is it measured differently?

So I immediately paused 7 of 12 dl's and the five remaining went from 0kbs to normal, now transferring (all) at about 775kbs. Began resuming one by one now at 10 files @1500 kbs steady. Some finished, resumed more. Up to 12 transfers at around 3000, then steadies at 10@ 1500 again.

I haven't limited LW bandwidth; I'm wondering if FIOS is kicking me off? Your question about browsers seems pertinent, as Safari was extremely slow but successful for a minute until it indicated it couldn't open a particular page.

Speakeasy says everything is working fine, 25/20. I've left the gnutella port at default, 6811.

No recent FIOS limit issues I could find, but I did come across fios router limitations (albeit from two years ago), in the NAT table the number of connections may be limited. Perhaps?

Also reset the router (what a concept) and in conjunction with keeping number of connections and bandwidth lower have avoided the problem so far.

Perhaps a confusing question, but did you mean 3000 kbps or 3000 KB/s? There's a major difference. kbps = kilo bits per second. KB/s = Kilo Bytes per second. 8 bits = 1 Byte. Sizes on your computer are normally shown in Bytes or KiloBytes (KB), etc. Normally LW shows speeds in KiloBytes (KB/s). Some other p2p programs show speeds in kilobits per second. (Browser speed test sites usually show speeds in kbps not KB/s).

Arguably, downloading at 3000 KB/s (3 MB/s) should = 180000 KB (180 MB) per minute

With speeds suddenly dropping soon after starting, gives impression of ISP bandwidth shaping. However, in your scenario it only happens for one account & the program itself is freezing up on you. So that suggests the problem is at your end.

Yes, I suspect you have your finger on the spot with number of connections your set up can handle. Your router was an earlier thought of mine also. This problem issue is common for wireless setups. And especially if torrents are involved because torrents will often make many more connections & be constantly messaging to and from the tracker server & each of the other peers in the same swarm.

Can you tell us the brand and model of your router and any other connection equipment you are using?
Is it a wireless router?

Its a Westel 9100Em, Ultraline series 3. Its wireless but I'm wired to it. Its straight to the FIOS wall unit from there; no other computers using my connection.

I thought I had the measurements wrong regarding bits or bytes and am not sure of the answer to your first question (kbps or KB/s).

Haveta split town til next week, so I'll get back to it then.

I'm not sure about torrents; I just choose files from the search results.

I didn't find any info about Verizon FIOS restrictions, and I have a business account which they treat with more, uh, respect, if you will (once sent a tech out just to make sure my phone was working because business connections are mission critical).

So I also believe the problem is at my end.

Thanks much LotR. I'll get back to ya.

Hey LotR.
For clarity, I was speaking about LW's KB/s.

I've been keeping a close eye on my connections; limiting them to <100. Haven't been kicked off or had a freeze since. Whether or not that was actually the problem I guess I could research, but I'm content for now.

While I've got your kind attention, how do I become an entity under "browse files" so that someone can browse my library? Is it automatic?