beta 4.9.4 dropping connections
 

Greetings,

we'd like to get as much feedback as possible for a rare bug where Limewire drops all existing connections and refuses to connect unless you restart.

The main details we're interested in are:

* Your OS version
*Your Java version
* Whether you have a firewall or not
* Whether you were on the computer when this happened, or whether you were away and found Limewire disconnected when you came back
* Were you a leaf or an Ultrapeer
* Did you have many active downloads.

Also, it would be very helpful to provide us with a sample bug report if LimeWire goes in that state. To do that you can go to Options->Bug Reports-> View Sample.

Edit: also, if you know how, please get us a stack trace. If you don't know how to do that don't worry.

Thank you again for your help. These beta series have come a long way thanks to all of you.

Re: beta 4.9.4 dropping connections
 

I had this happen this night. It was in that state in the morning, so I did not see it happen.

It is on Win XPsp2. Java -version:

java version "1.5.0_04"
Java(TM) 2 Runtime Environment, Standard Edition (build 1.5.0_04-b05)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 1.5.0_04-b05, mixed mode, sharing)

Im heavily firewalled currently (outside my control), only outgoing TCP connections work via some NAT, no UDP transfers work.
Very few downloads complete in such an environment.

The computer is a leaf and had about 10 downloads pending, but none of them where downloading as I went to bed.

It did happen again, so this time I captured the state:

Thanks a lot. If you have the chance, can you see if limewire in such state is capable of performing any i/o ? The easiest way to test that would be to telnet to localhost 6346 and see if the connection gets accepted. Browse host from another machine would do too.

Thanks!

What do these "Timeout guard" threads do? I can't remember seeing any of them on linux...

@jum:

If this happens again please try to get us a stack trace. Thanks a lot!

Timeout guard is part of HttpClient -- it was built for Java 1.3, so it uses an extra thread to do socket connection timeouts.

See http://limewire.org/fisheye/viewrep/...ler.java?r=1.1 , http://limewire.org/fisheye/viewrep/...ava?r=1.6#l652 , & the various socket factories.

So how does one get one of these under Windows if one starts using LimeWire.exe? I know how to generate them on Unix, but on Windows I have never done it.

Just happened to me. No firewall, but it suddenly started incorrectly showing a firewall in the status bar and four red bars. It refuses to reconnect, saying I have no functioning network connection, which is false. And in the stderr console I found something extremely interesting.

Anyone care to explain why Limewire is trying to connect to www.ebay.com? I can't think of a legitimate reason for it to contact that particular host. I do hope you aren't planning on introducing spyware in version 5 or some such. Big commercial sites are the last place I expect it to be connecting.

And an example bug report, just for completeness, after hitting file -> connect for the umpteenth time with no sign of it establishing any connections:

When LimeWire can't make a Gnutella connection and hasn't been able to connect to anyone at all, it tries to do a HEAD request to a few very well-known sites, to detect if an internet connection is active at all. The list is here: http://limewire.org/fisheye/viewrep/...ava?r=1.14#l47 .

That makes some amount of sense. It was my own hypothesis -- the only legitimate reason for it to try to contact ebay that I could think of.

The real question is: why was it unable to establish a connection, when the web browser, MSN messenger, and other network apps were working OK? I suppose the incorrect firewall detection has something to do with it...

I've configured my copy of limewire not to try to use UPnP to detect a router or firewall since I know darn well there is none and I know autodetect anything is a headache waiting to happen. Unfortunately, it seems to ignore that setting and sometimes tries to autodetect a firewall anyway, resulting in the inevitable headache: it detects a phantom firewall that doesn't exist, chokes, and dies. :P

The incorrect firewall detection is a byproduct of not being able to access the internet. Every so often, LimeWire will 'forget' its firewall detection status and re-detect. If it isn't able to make or take any connections, the redetection shows as firewalled. But yes, the original "why can't it make connections" still stands.

I'm not sure you can get one with LimeWire.exe, but if you do start limewire from the command prompt with "java -jar ..." you can get a trace with Ctrl-break (or just break? someone correct me here pls)

You can download LimeWireDebug from http://www.limewire.org/LimeWireDebug.exe . It'll open a DOS-box when you run LimeWire, which'll contain anything printed to stderr or stdout. It won't have logging, though.

Well , there so many threads running that I cannot record the complete stack trace as it overflows my console scroll back buffer. But I have so many Timeout guards running that I would believe that these must have a problem somewhere:

Ah, good - if there was a deadlock it would be the last thing printed on the console.

Btw the stack trace is printed on stdout, so you can redirect it to a file should this happen again.

Thanks a lot jum! If you can give it one more try with stdout redirected we'd nail this one down :)

Well this is something new -- LW 4.9.4 perpetually stuck at three green bars, two red. It's been this way for at least half an hour. For some reason it is either unwilling or unable to restore the remaining two connections.

@Shinsengumi

Do downloads work?

No -- they reach 20% or so and "await sources", just like always. So no change there. ;P Anyway it spontaneously recovered after an additional half hour and I went on to get a few files (and add a lot more "awaiting sources" items to the list).

OK, this time I got all the stack traces in one file. You can find it at:

http://baghira.han.de/~jum/stack.log

Thanks a lot. Its not a deadlock or a selector problem, but the good old SP2 connecting socket limit. We'll see how we can go about fixing it.

If you feel like more testing, could you try patching your system to disable the limit? Its ok if you don't - we're 99.99% sure this is the culprit.

Thanks Jum, you've been very helpful as always!

Well, the patching of these core Windows components sounds scary enough to not do it in my current situation as I do not have my XP install disks around if I happen to mess things up.

We have some changes in CVS that should alleviate the issue. Wanna give'm a try? ;-)

Oops, I did not see any commit email for two days, did I get dropped off the lists somehow?

Er...
 

Why is there now talk about people patching their operating systems? I thought this had been established to be a Limewire problem, not an OS problem, seeing as how it doesn't affect anything else -- web browsing for example works fine even while Limewire is spazzing out dropping connections, refusing to reconnect, or whatever.

Also, I definitely have the problem, and I have a fully up to date XP home system -- all official patches and bugfixes applied as of this morning in fact. So I don't see how it can be a patch I've failed to install given that I haven't failed to install any patches at all.

Some of the people who post in this forum have been submitting patches, testing betas, and doing other helpful things for the better part of two or three years. It's not unjustified to patch the OS to determine if that is the cause of the problem. Sure, it'd be unreasonable to expect everyone to run a patch, but it's certainly useful to ask a friendly beta tester if they can do it to see if it pinpoints what we should look at to fix the problem.

Well, you've got your answer then -- my own system is fully up to date on patches, but the problem still occurs, so it looks like an out-of-date OS setup isn't the cause.

This is actually a slightly different "patch", an unofficial one that actually reverses an official one from Microsoft. There's more info available through google if you're interested.

Are you telling me that Limewire 4.9.x requires that you NOT install an OS patch in order to work correctly? And that to make it work correctly you have to muck about with system files installing files of dubious trustworthiness? Who's brilliant idea was this? Limewire should work with the OS fully up to date -- period.

Shinsengumi, as my first response to you said, the suggestion was done so that we could pinpoint what was causing the problem. We do not expect, nor want, every LimeWire user to install the patch. We would, however, like a helpful beta tester who is experiencing the problem to let us know if this fixes it. If it does, then we know exactly what is causing it and can look into ways of fixing it.

I have this problem too
 

Since I tried the betas I have found that my connection completely cuts out - downloads and ultrapeers - and then takes a little while to reconnect. Sometimes it won't reconnect again at all unless I go to file/disconnect and then file/connect. This all happens generally 5-10 minutes after opening limewire.

* Your OS version
Windows XP SP2
*Your Java version
jre1.5.0_02 an j2re1.4.1_06
* Whether you have a firewall or not
I use Kerio Personal Firewall 4.2
* Whether you were on the computer when this happened, or whether you were away and found Limewire disconnected when you came back
I was here every time. But I haven't left it open when I'm away
* Were you a leaf or an Ultrapeer
I was connecting to 5 ultrapeers.
* Did you have many active downloads.
Only a handfull.

If you want me to test this out more or do more complex analysis you can contact me at robertwiblin AT gmail DOT com. I've reverted to 4.8.1 because it isn't happening in that version. I was having this problem with 4.9.4. Cheers guys!

Same
 

This just happened to me on 4.9.7. It never happens to me on 4.8.1.

So, any news on this, or is the only fix still to remove an OS patch and, presumably, become vulnerable to code red or sircam or mydoom or whatever it was the patch was released to block?

Shinsengumi, be part of the beta process or not, but your not helping by critisizing the process. patching different things in a CONTROLED environment is how a scientist makes his conclusions and if his hypothesis was correct. have you ever learn the scientific method?

I reported my experiences. Now I'd like a fix that doesn't involve doing unwise things with the operating system. Isn't that the way it goes? We report bugs, you fix them? Or have I misunderstood something about the "beta process"?

lol. as sam said, its to CHECK if that is the cause of the problem and if they can work around it. limewire is not going to require people to install patches... further postings to try to convince you of the truth is worthless, so ill stop. and yes you are right about the process. (but im not a developer, im a fellow beta tester too!)

;)

I only post this because your reply postings are for current. Both your points are now moot. Why??

BECAUSE the current BETA is 9.4.8.

Get with the program fellas.

lol. Come on in. The waters is fine up here.

Damn typos

BETA 4.9.9 now

It does seem to be fixed in the more recent betas.

Do you mean 4.9.13 or any betas before that?

4.9.11, maybe earlier.