LimeWire has released the beta version of LimeWire 1.9b, available at:

http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/download_beta

This is primarily a maintenance release, although it includes important improvements over the LimeWire 1.9 beta. The changes include:

<ul>
<li>Significant performance improvements, both in terms of CPU and memory.
<li>Prevents spurious disconnects from UltraPeers after conducting searches that return a lot of results.
<li>Ads in non-Windows versions! Seriously, they are there. Don't worry too much, though -- we did the ads ourselves, so they're a bit less annoying than the Windows ones. If you click on the Amazon link to do late Christmas shopping, a portion of the proceeds goes to support LimeWire and the open source project.
<li>Minor bugs fixes with swarm downloading.
<li>Improved logic for grouping similar results for swarm downloading and smart downloading.
<li>Improved the UltraPeer election process, so you will not get elected as an UltraPeer if you are a modem user.
<li>As many of you have noticed, we are having problems with the Linux and Solaris installers. The betas for both versions will be delayed until Monday.
</ul>

The most important change is really in performance. You should see significant performance improvements, especially as an UltraPeer, over the previous version.

Thanks very much for everyone's feedback on 1.9. Your assistance has been invaluable, and we have fixed many bugs in this version that we likely would not have found without the help of all you forum readers out there!

Please release them in tgz format. I use FreeBSD :]

The source code is at limewire.org. Compiling should not be a problem...

That's what I'll do, since I can't stand Ads.

I downloaded beta 1.9b and installed it. The installation went fine. But then I tried to launch Limewire and I got a fatal error on my Mac OS Classic. The Following is the error.

java.lang.NullPointerException
at javax.swing.ImageIcon.<init>(ImageIcon.java:106)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.NonWindowsCBanner.getIm ageResource(NonWindowsCBanner.java:135)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.NonWindowsCBanner.acces s$600(NonWindowsCBanner.java:18)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.NonWindowsCBanner$Image URLPair.getImage(NonWindowsCBanner.java:221)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.NonWindowsCBanner$Image URLPair.access$200(NonWindowsCBanner.java:191)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.NonWindowsCBanner.<init >(NonWindowsCBanner.java:60)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.StatusLine.<init>(Statu sLine.java:98)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.MainFrame.<init>(MainFr ame.java:140)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.GUIMediator.<init>(GUIM ediator.java:115)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.GUIMediator.instance(GU IMediator.java:230)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.MessageService.displayE rror(MessageService.java:218)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.MessageService.showInte rnalError(MessageService.java:144)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.GUIMediator.showInterna lError(GUIMediator.java:1001)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.Initializer.initialize( Initializer.java:137)
at com.limegroup.gnutella.gui.Main.main(Main.java:17)
at com.zerog.lax.LAX.launch(Compiled Code)
at com.zerog.lax.LAX.main(Unknown Source)
at com.apple.mrj.JManager.JMStaticMethodDispatcher.ru n(JMAWTContextImpl.java)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java)

1) As you might know DSL-users can't upload at a higher speed than ~16k/s. The new bandwidth limitation option does not allow setting a speed below ~20k/s for Cable/DSL users. Could you please introduce seperate settings for cable and dsl users, so dsl-users can limit their upload speed, too? Without upload limit the connections keep failing and the downloads become very slow.

2) Although I disconnected from the network, LimeWire reconnects after a while for no apparent reason. Why is that?

probably crappy verizon's ADSL is limited to 128kbit.
i have good 1.5mbit/768kbit ADSL connection..
so please don't judge everybody's connection on your experience.
just look at DSLREPORTS.com bandwidth distribution.

Adam Fisk here -- I don't have my password, so I can't log in.

We are aware of the problems with the installers and with the error on the Mac. I have committed the fix to the main line of the source code, but I won't be able to make it into the office to rebuild the installers until tomorrow. Unfortunately, I think that only the Windows one works now. Our apologies for the frustration -- we were really pushing to finish everything up yesterday, and didn't have a chance to do proper testing.

The installer should be all set for tomorrow, though.

Kath -- it would be great if you could send me the error messages you received to afisk@limepeer.com. Thanks very much. Anti-Bearshare -- I don't even have ssh set up here, so I can't even post the new code. If you've set stuff up at limewire.org, the code on the main line should be stable now. If not, I will be posting everything tomorrow.

Thanks.

Adam here again.

As far as the DSL issue, we will likely add an option in the Advanced section or something like that to enable you to set your speed more precisely, but we won't get to this for a little while. It's would definitely be nice.

As far as the re-connecting issue goes, are you seeing this fairly consistently? I have not seen this happen since we cleaned up some of the connecting code, but I don't doubt that it could still occur. Are there specific circumstances where you're seeing this? I'll have a look at that section of the code regardless.

Thanks.

One last thing-

If anyone has any interesting ideas for groups to advertise, don't hesitate to let us know. We control all of the ads on non-Windows versions, so we'd like to put up ones that everyone would be interested in -- more like nicely integrated ads into a magazine. I'm thinking along the lines of interesting (lesser-known?) music/cultural magazines, so we could share revenue on subscriptions, something like that.

This route should make the ads work better for everyone -- more interesting (even useful?) ads for you guys, which should translate into more money for us to keep everything moving forward strongly over here.

Adam Fisk
LimeWire

I just posted the 1.9c beta -- really 1.9b with minor fixes. Please let me know if it gives anyone any issues, and thanks for everyone's help as always.