Comments on 2.8.5
 

Well, I've tried 2.8.5 on MacOS X 10.2.3. Looks nice, with unused interface elements removed. Looks cleaner that way. Still a little pokey compared to older versions under 10.2.

Main problem is that I still can't start a download. I don't think it's a connection problem, as I can do searches, and others can upload from me. It just that pressing the download button does nothing but turn it blue temporarily. There's no error message either.

There's still some download attempts in my download window, but they've been there since early November; I've not been able to add any since, and the IP addresses on those are apparently too old to go through.

Continue trying. It works on my computer.

I don't believe it; I just solved my performance and other problems, and it works perfectly now. All I did was kill one of the downloads in the download window, one that had been there for months and always seemed to say "Connecting...". Suddenly, LimeWire is quick and responsive, more so than ever before! I also saw some improvements in downloading, now that they work, and how there's a progress bar for verification now.

Only thing, it did quit on its own without me pressing anything, but only after a couple of hours use just when I was thinking of quitting.

that's really strange, alphax.

i wonder what was happening ...

glad to see that it works now tho. (although it really shouldn't quit on its own, so i wonder what is still happening)

I've been seeing that too, it seems to be a performance problem in the downloader code, when you have found lot's of alternate locations. Especially when you choose to download a group of 30+ files from your search tab it seems to happen more often.

Since 2.8.4 and now using 2.8.5, I see a lot of upload connections dropping. They come right back, but this is new and not better behavior than previous versions. Plus I have my preferences set to one file per user at a time, yet I had one IP connected to 4 different files uploading. Then they would drop off one by one, and then reappear, and the process would run through again. Over and over.

Too bad fixing one thing breaks another thing. At least that's the way it seems. This app will kick butt one day, I hope.

I've been playing with 2.8.5 a little more, and the upload window is still acting crazy. Uploaders pop into the window, then disappear after a few seconds. Then they come back, and then disappear. Only a few come in solid and perform a complete upload.
It's really weird. What's going on with this new version?

Both uploads and downloads are doing it in sections, if both ends support it. It just looks a bit different, like people can't maintain a connection, but it works.

No it doesn't work.

I left LimeWire on all night trying to upload some largish .avi files (56M) while others were trying to upload similar files. Both uploads and downloads skipped in and out continuously. Neither downloads or uploads got anywhere near completion even though the estimated completion time was only 2 hours.

Well, my downloads worked anyway; it would drop to zero servers every few seconds, but the status bar kept moving, and overall throughput seemed to be above average. The dozen or so files I successfully downloaded earlier tonight seem to indicate that it's working. I'm not sure about all of the uploaders, but some seemed to finish what they were working on.

>I left LimeWire on all night trying to upload some largish .avi files (56M) while others were trying to upload similar files. Both uploads and downloads skipped in and out continuously. Neither downloads or uploads got anywhere near completion even though the estimated completion time was only 2 hours.

januss -- try unchecking 'clear completed uploads', you'll see that the problem really is a display issue.

what is happening is that the most recent versions of limewire opted to try and let these chunked uploads display a smoother progress indicator. so, instead of using the requested size (which an intermediary version had done) to see the % completed, it uses the whole file size, and then appends the amount that was previously uploaded ..

since there is really no way for these chunked downloads/uploads (officially called HTTP/1.1 transfers) to say "I am eventually going to recieve this much in total", the time remaining becomes a complete estimate, and it was opted to assume that people will try to recieve the entire file.

this can have two different effects, depending on if you've got 'clear completed uploads' checked or not. if it is checked, after every chunk finishes, it will be wiped from the screen and the new chunk will be put in its place, but the progress will only go a meager amount, and the time remaining will appear completely off. if it isn't checked, the progress will smoothly flow to near-complete and the time remaning will appear closer. this will continue until the person is finished retrieving the file, at which point the status will stop at complete, but the progress may not necesarily be 100%, since they don't need the full file to be complete.

if you check the uploads column in the library tab, you'll see that these chunked transfers have a huge amount of completed / attempted uploads, because each little chunk is counted as a distinct upload. whether or not it should do this is another story - but it is an indicator that things are working the way they were meant to.

i agree that there could be some improvements to the display (and i've thought of a few ways to do it), but the core behavior -- namely the actual transfering of the files -- is working exactly as intended.

Well, it may be working as intended, but as a matter of interface design, it is horrible, in my opinion.
I connect to others fine, and download fine, but the upload and monitor windows need some serious work to reflect what is going on. It worked great in earlier editions, so it is not a matter of reinventing the wheel, just go back to what worked before. Even the progressive upload idea where a 10,000 kb file looked like 100 uploads at 100kb each made sense. You could tell what was happening. Now I have no clue, it looks as though no progress is being made from looking at the bar graph, just connecting, uploading, disappearing, connecting, uploading, disappearing, connecting, uploading, disappearing.
I'd like to believe that the programmers did not think this was a desirable effect.

it's really an unintended consequence of adding functionality to the core downloading/uploading engine. i doubt there was any intention of making it this way. it does end up looking kinda odd -- the best suggestion, for now, is to uncheck the 'clear completed uploads' box. things look much more normal that way.

it'll be fixed soon enough -- but its the holidays now, so people are generally on vacation.

Thanks, I didn't have it turned on. I used to, but in the morning, I would have a scrolling list about 10 miles long, so I disabled that.

Well, we will have something to look forward to in the New Year, when they fix the bugaboos.

Another question, since you are well versed. Even the LimeWire web site acts oddly. Is that Java also? I try to use the navigation bars, and they do not handle smoothly. On OS 10, it's hard to get the right box to turn green.

not sure about the site -- i run on a pc with windows 2000, using internet explorer 6. it seems to work just fine for me.

I tried the limewire site using Mozilla for OS 10, and it works much better. Apparently, MS Internet Explorer and LimeWire aren't real friendly. Might be something to do with the Sun MicroSystem and Microsoft battle?