I've been using LW for a couple of years and upgraded to LW4.9.37 Pro last Oct. About a week ago while searching I started seeing a number of items with 4 blue stars in the Quality column. Thinking these must be some kind of special I looked more closely and realized they were files from one of my shared folders. This has happened a couple of times but not everytime.

At other times my own files show up as completed downloads. Remember, these are files I have had in my shared folders for sometime. I DO NOT shared my completed download folder until I have evaluated what they are.

Neither of these situations occur regularly. Just on odd number Wednesdays and Holidays that fall on Thursdays. I have not changed any options.

I couldn't have missed this for the past two years! Could I?

I don't mind this feature. Keeps me from downloading something I already have. But--

The blue stars mean that someone is on the same LAN as you. Apparently (never happened to me), if you can download from a blue star source, you'll get amazingly fast speed.

I see the same thing with my files showing up as completed downloads. I've always thought it was because that source got the file from me.

Maybe someone else has more ideas/answers???

My last post was Thursday. Magically, today is Friday. Also, magically, without any changes, and LW being on continuously, my searches are no longer showing files from my shared folders.

Birdy--Where did you get the info on blue stars? My LAN consists of me and my wife and she is not running LW. Yes, I would expect to get fast downloads from myself. Never tried it but I certainly will next Wed or Thur or whenever LW decides to offer me my own files.

I tried an experiment one time by running LW on both computers. I had noticed a popular file people tried to upload usually resulted in Transfer Interrupted. Thinking LW might be showing the file as corrupted, I listened to it carefully and then ran it through a program (sort of a spectrum analyzer) to see if there was anything obviously wrong. The file appeared to be ok. So, I tried downloading it from my wifes machine. Searches never displayed the file (in effect I was searching for my own files). Same external ISP but different ports and different internal ISPs. I thought I had proven to myself that I could not search my own files!

I quit worrying about it because I saw most Transfer Interrupted notices were coming from users of brand xx software.

I waited until there were numerous uploads of some of my files. I searched for the same files and sure enough the files being uploaded were being displayed as completed downloads in the search results.

Thanks! I will rest easier now that this monumental problem has been resolved.

this 'bug' has been around for a long time....don't know what the developers really think of it, but it does exist...and as you have noticed, it is a 'rare' occurence', but a real one..

Anybody taking odds on it being an interactive glitch with another type of servent then? ;]

After reading all of your responses I started thinking, which I do sometimes!

Maybe the Completed Downloads I'm seeing is a legitimate function in LW and not a bug. Please consider the following:

If the person(s) uploading from me are sharing their download folder AND they are allowing Partial File Sharing And, I performed a search for the same files (which would include them because they are online) wouldn't LW's response be correct in notifying me that I already had that file?

Whatdya think? You can experiment a little yourself to see if this holds water.

This is what the user guide says about blue stars

"Blue Stars indicate results from a host in your local network. Any result with blue stars downloads incredibly fast"

http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...ght=blue+stars

First, I have to retract my last hypothesis. Yesterday, my searches did not result in any of my own files showing as completed downloads. Early this morning (with LW on all night) I started showing my own files as completed downloads again and no one was uploading. It would be unusual that people would be on line at the same time with ALL of these files being shared by them. So, my previous post may be a bust. But, maybe not!

Regarding blue stars: As I've said, the only one on my LAN is my wife. I put a folder with 33 files on both computers and started LW on both. Thirty two of the files showed as completed downloads during my search and one showed with blue stars. If I tried downloading the blue starred item LW did not recognize it as a duplicate and downloaded at my wife's max upload speed. Possibly, a minor glitch during my xferring to her computer made her copy of this file different than my copy. Attempts to down load the other 32 files immediately were recognized as duplicate files. I accept the blue star concept. I may have had both machines online at the same time when I first saw THE STARS.

I'm willing to put this to bed!