Hmm. No thread about fake servers, or fake search results?

[RomanHans]

This would really **** me off, if I stopped to think about it.

I was using an old version of Limewire, and I posted here about searches for certain artists that would prompt suspicious returns that somehow stopped Limewire from working correctly. A mod here responded to me that they tried one of these searches with a newer version of Limewire, and now everything is fine.

I installed the latest Limewire for Mac -- 4.0.10 -- and no, it's not fine.

There are two obvious problems that I see. First, there are fake servers out there designed to thwart your ability to download. Connect to these and you'll never get ANY real results back. For one example, on the "connection" page, a vendor/version starting with "morph" means you're connected to a record company's computer.

Second, even the legitimate servers are returning fake results. Probably half the time I search I get something like 25-75 returns, all with the exact string I searched for as the name and the size of 134.4 KB. I have no idea what these folks are doing, but whatever it is it's disabling Limewire somehow, because after a few of these it won't do any more searches at all. (And to the folks doing this: no, it's not stopping me from downloading. I just kill Limewire and then restart it. I hope your fake servers aren't costing you *too* much money.)

Why isn't anybody talking about these problems? Why did some, er, *person* tell me the latest Limewire didn't have this problem? And -- I'm guessing this is the question that'll get ignored here -- is there a solution?

[Only A Hobo]

Everyone on these forums knows that a lot of search results are bogus. Fake files, ipod advertisements and nasty little trojans. The latest versions of Limewire have a junk filter built in . I have not used t, but understand that it is a fairly simple matter to "train" the filter to filter out what you want.

Morph stands for Morpheus which afaik is a Gnutella client .. just like Limewire but not frequently seen. You will experience problems with all clients at times, but I do not tempt providence by attempting to download files of 134.4 kb, or audio files that give no bit rate. I realize that whilst these facts of life are a pita, I cannot see any evidence of them dissabling Limewire ..mind you I do avoid suspicious looking hosts as a matter of course.

You should realize that you might get dubious search results and report them on the forums. If a nother person conducts the same search, it is very likely that he will get different results, being connected through different ultrapeers etc.

So I have no idea if I have started to answer your queery, but let me know

[RomanHans]

Thanks for the reply! My original post was a little harsh so I appreciate your understanding tone.

> I realize that whilst these facts of life are a pita, I cannot see
> any evidence of them dissabling Limewire ..mind you I do avoid
> suspicious looking hosts as a matter of course.

The fact is, these search returns *do* disable my Limewire, even without my attempting to download them. As far as I can tell, they just return lots of results -- I just did five searches and each got between 44 and 49 results of size 134.4 KB -- and at some point Limewire decides its disk space has been used up. From then on, whenever I do a search, two things happen: one, the "filter results" form no longer comes up to replace the search string form, and two, I no longer get ANY results for ANYTHING.

I've run into all sorts of problems with Limewire in the past, and I realize nobody ever does anything about the bugs. I was just curious, though, why nobody else talked about this problem. Obviously this sabotage must be reasonably successful, and must discourage some users, or "they" wouldn't keep doing it.

[RomanHans]

Double-checked the "morph" servers, so I'll clear up the details there. The "morph" servers send me the fake 134.4 KB files to try to disable my Limewire, but here's what kicks it over the top. I go to the "connections" page and remove them, and they START THEMSELVES UP AGAIN. Same host address, same vendor/version, same everything. I have to keep killing them and killing them until another server connects in the third place and Limewire shuts down the "morph" server's connection.

And like I say, frankly, I'm mystified that nobody else on this forum has mentioned this.

[Only A Hobo]

I certainly have never encountered what you have. Yes these fake search results do damage the numbers of real results but the only thing I have found that really seems too be related to your problem is from 2002 XXAA is watching, SPAMing the network, proof

Are you actually downloading these 134.4 files .. or are they downloading them selves? I would suspect a virus .. but on a mac????? I'm feeling a bit stumped right now I'm afraid.

[RomanHans]

> the only thing I have found that really seems too be related to
> your problem is from 2002

I think what I'm seeing is different. Funny: either people aren't seeing it, or they're not being targeted by it. Hard to believe somebody is doing all this work just to stop folks on Macs using OS 9.

> Are you actually downloading these 134.4 files .. or are they
> downloading them selves?

Nope to both. Somehow these search returns are enough, in quantity, to temporarily disable Limewire. But like I said, if I restart it, it comes back fine.

It's easy for me to get the IPC addresses of the servers sending bad data (like these "morph" things that keep reconnecting no matter how many times I disconnect them). Is there a way to find out who owns them?

[Lord of the Rings]

You need to learn how to use the junk filter. Once you see these results, select them & press the rubbish bin icon (junk filter). The 134 KB files are in fact very easy & quick to filter out. The Junk filter is a dynamic learning filter. You need to train it & it learns what is junk bit by bit.

Fake UP's has been mentioned before on the forum.

Edit: I just realised I misread your version & OS. You're using OS 8 or 9 right? That version of LW doesn't have the Junk filter. It was only released in the late LW 4.9.x versions.

I read back your earlier threads. Did you update your Java? If you're having problems with LW 4.0.10, I may have another 4.0.x version you might like to try. It might work better. Send me a pm if interested.

Did you ever try deleting your LW preferences folder? If you go to the preferences folder & view it in list mode, .limewire folder will be at the top of the list. Delete it whilst LW is closed. That may refresh LW's connection history & hopefully give you better results.

What I said about the 384 kbps mp3 might have been incorrect. It depends whether it was an mp3 or m4a file. Apple lossless also uses m4a & its bit rates are generally larger than 320 kbps. Also there is a mp3 program that can convert & play larger than 320 kbps but it's not much use as most players can not play such files & it is a very rare format.