@Lord of the Rings

First, thank you for your immediate and helpful response.

I have been using WireShare since version 5.6.3.1 (which was released on 2014-04-19) and for almost 5 years I have not had problems with connection. I usually start WireShare after I start my PC so it is always running. Some weeks ago I noticed that it failed to connect. I waited for some time to see whether the problem would disappear but it didn't. Before I posted this I had browsed through this forum and downloaded some LimeWire fixer- it turned out that it just extracted gnutella.net file to AppData. Last night I put that file to WireShare folder (AppData) but it did not help. So I followed your advice and downloaded a fresh copy of gnutella.net, copied it the WireShare folder in AppData but WireShare still cannot connect. Meanwhile I tested Shareaza and gtk-gnutella- they both were able to connect but after some time Shareaza lost Gnutella1 connection being connected only to Gnutella2. Is there anything else I should do to solve connectivity problems with WireShare? Any idea how to force Shareaza to connect to Gnutella1? All the time I see connecting status for Gnutella1.

It turned out that connection to Gnutella1 in Shareaza is shaky, sometimes it is lost, then the connection is restored.

Edit
I disabled all Windows updates about a year ago. I also disabled my Antivirus and then started WireShare bit it failed to connect again.

Off-topic 1
do you know whether WireShare and Shareaza have been abandoned for good just like Cabos, Gnucleus and Phex?

Off-topic 2
For me the most solid and robust file sharing program I have ever used is eMule- for more than 9 years version 0.50a has been performing flawlessly- not a single crash, settings never lost, no connection problems. It is a pity that eMule has been abandoned.

Off-topic
Both yesterday and today I had problems posting here, screen:

https://i.postimg.cc/Gt6WHvFF/Gnutel...-04-22-002.png

Is this supposed to happen?

Would you be willing to try WireShare 5.6.6? This version seeks more than just a single GWebCache site for hosts. It also has updatable hostiles file. Some bug fixes. Different set of GUI icons.
See if that improves things.

I suspect your WireShare (WSHR) has very good average uptime. There is no reason why WSHR should struggle to connect.

You could delete the WSHR settings file but this would mean you will lose all record of previous average uptime and any port forwarding rule you might have set. If you had port forwarded for WSHR then you would need to re-add that in the program settings next time you started WSHR. (Settings > Advanced > Listening Port.)

If you decide to try deleting the WSHR settings folder, WSHR must be closed at that time. Likewise if you add any host file (gnutella.net). Delete the entire WSHR settings folder. Then start WSHR and re-do any necessary settings within the program like you previously had. Any improvement?

Do you normally port forward your p2p sharing programs? If not, it might be worthy of a considering. But each program will need a different port of operation.

I run WireShare (WSHR) 24/7 as an ultrapeer. Only thing I’ve noticed over the past couple of years is at times WSHR goes through periods of struggling to reach the minimum 27 peers (dropping down to 22 or so.) A lowering of average uptimes required in the code might help in this scenario when I notice hosts ignored due to low uptimes. WireShare has identical connection requirements as LimeWire did, however the network population is a small fraction of the size it was in those days and should not be quite so demanding.

Neither WireShare or Shareaza have been abandoned. Bigjx simply has not released a WSHR update for a year or two. I believe his objective was simply to get the program working as it should be. Whereas my objective had been to improve the program and both re-add tools from LW 4 and new tools. However bigjx was not interested in this.

I’ve noticed an off-shoot Shareaza version. I suspected this was by one of the previous Shareaza devs. It uses a program id of RAZI instead of RAZA to represent Ivan’s version. It’s last code work was late 2018. But like various programs, unless there’s a major change or lots of little code changes over a period of time, a new release is often delayed until it’s deemed worthy of bothering people with the update. You should keep in mind Shareaza has not updated its G1 code in 15 or more years and is extremely elementary and notably outdated. Due to Shareaza relying upon TCP for searching and some other communications, it causes the network a lot of extra traffic and bandwidth overhead. The more modern programs only allow a percentage of such outdated programs to connect to them. Thus Shareaza hosts are heavily competing for available G1 connections.

There have been having some issues with working on the Phex project, it has a totally different compiling system to the Lime code programs. But compiling Phex is not the problem. Cabos is complicated in the sense it uses a different GUI compiling system and requires a specific independent software to compile the GUI. I’m also a member of the WSHR team in theory. I worked directly with bigjx between 2014-15 on WSHR but only worked upon peripheral things since, such as updating the hostiles. I’m more of a concept coordinator member in the projects, my coding skills are quite basic and weak. I could definitely do with some help. I definitely need help! I know the bugs, weaknesses and improvements needed for these programs. I’m almost embarrassed to say I’m members of projects where either nothing has been publicly released or little has been done so far. I'm all ears for anybody who knows Java coding. I either set all out to get something achieved or fall into procrastination if I get stuck. :o

No, definitely not. But has been a periodic problem with the forum for some years. It can be highly annoying when the forum is misbehaving like that. Mainly when replying to a post and potentially finding my reply was totally lost and I need to try to remember what I wrote. I sometimes copy what I wrote before pressing the reply button.
I can only apologise to affected people.

To me it seems like there is a problem with WireShare and Windows 10, the most recent updates. It worked fine for me (WireShare and others) until I the most recent W10 builds. I tried every suggestion and every possible solution that came to my head.
Keep in mind, WITHOUT ANY FIREWALL or ANTIVIRUS, it still does not connect or it partially connects like I said before - this only supports my theory that it has something to do with the most recent Windows Updates related to security.

well , yes there may be a chronic problem affecting the relationship between wireshare and windows 10 .

in the past , when there were problems connecting to limewire or lemonwire or any p2p app , the bottom left of the page would always show some activity ; the bars would change colour for a short time and then a note would appear saying something like , attempting to connect ;

but for the last 5 months those bars have been totally and completely unchanged ; just grey bars and the word connecting ; there has not been even one partial connection .

MY MODEM APPEARS TO BE A TELSTRA MODEL TG797nV3 ;

WHAT TYPE OF ROUTER OR MODEM ARE YOU USING .??

Simply as a test you could try using an alternative computer account, perhaps temporarily setting one up and run WireShare to see if you have the same problems. You can of course delete a test account at any time.

Do you port forward for those apps? This might be something to try. A google or portforward.com for your model would easily find instructions I'm sure. I found https://crowdsupport.telstra.com.au/...ing/td-p/84698 upon a quick search. But there's probably better descriptions out there. First you need to set up a static LAN address.

Why is it that universal plug and play does not seem to work so well as it did in the past .

No reason why UPnP should not work unless something in system, router or program settings has changed. However port forwarding done properly is ever reliable. Each program however needs to use a unique port. If two or more use the same port then it causes problems and fails.

@Lord of the Rings

In fact I was using WireShare version 5.6.6.0 since it was released and it had been working just fine before a while ago it stopped connecting.

I did all I could think of. First I created a back-up of my profile folder. Then deleted the profile folder and started the program- no effect. I uninstalled the program, cleared all its data and installed it anew- no effect.

However I found error.log file and kept it. Shall this file throw some light upon the cause of the problem? If needed I can upload it.

My version of Java was not the latest one, in fact it was an old version- Java JRE 8 Update 151, I updated it to version Java JRE 8 Update 211, installing both x32 and x64 versions- no effect. I have other Java programs (for example the latest version of BiglyBT - 1.9.0.0 and it works just fine). So I cannot find a way to make WireShare connect.

No.

Does this mean that WireShare and Shareaza are developed by one and the same person?

Gnutella 1 code that Shareaza uses might be archaic but at least it works:

https://i.postimg.cc/FR3yZR85/snipas...-05-004937.png

Shareaza connects almost immediately. While WireShare, which might be using more modern Gnutella 1 code, just fails to connect. gtk-gnutella manages to connect also almost immediately. When all my file sharing programs connect just fine (Shareaza, gtk-gnutella, SoulseekQt, AirDC++, eMule, Ares, Fopnu, etc) I am inclined to suppose that the problem is not withing my system. Is there anything that I can try using Advanced Tools - Add a Connection? I am far from being an expert but I think that Shareaza is far more flexible in diagnosing and resolving connection problems.

Both Cabos and Phex are abandoned for good, right?

I would appreciate if someone creates a portable program for Gnutella- a portable version would have significant advantages- one could run and test it with different profiles. Most torrent clients can run in portable mode or offer fully portable versions (Tixati, Halite, BitComet, etc) but unfortunately this is not the case with Gnutella clients- they are either abandoned or the development is extremely slow. I am not aware of a single Gnutella client that supports portability and since the general public has almost entirely lost interest in Gnutella I suppose that a portable Gnutella client will never come to existence.

If you are still in contact with the developer of WireShare please advise him to release a new version which would resolve the connectivity problems- I see that I am not the only one plagued by failed connections.

Off-topic questions- do you know why Ares is no longer hosted on SourceForge? It is no longer open source? Is there a way to disable check for updates and automatic downloads of the latest version of Ares? Can Cabos, Gnucleus and Phex still work on modern OS? Have you ever tried Fopnu (https://www.fopnu.com/) and if you have- what do you think?

I could not respond earlier- I was very busy. I finally found time to come back to WireShare but I could not make it connect. Anyway, thank you for all the detailed information you have provided, I do appreciate your willingness to help.

I published a long post but it is not visible- what is this?! What kind of moderation is this? I have never posted any spam.

Well , yes it was invisible at first , but now it has become visible ; perhaps the managers were checking it first before posting it .

Please remember that patience is a virtue

@Lord of the Rings

I uninstalled version 5.6.6.0, deleted the profile data, installed version 5.6.5.0 and WireShare miraculously connected almost immediately:

https://i.postimg.cc/0ycGVjfh/snipas...-05-030535.png

and was working fine:

https://i.postimg.cc/DZbqfgTK/snipas...-05-030816.png

Then I installed version 5.6.6.0 again and WireShare again failed to connect. I cannot understand this. So (I hope- temporarily) I reverted back to version 5.6.5.0. I have no idea whatsoever why version 5.6.5.0 can connect while version 5.6.6.0 cannot.

As a result of deleting the profile data WireShare is hashing 17 000+ files and this is slow.

In short- downgrade from version 5.6.6.0 to version 5.6.5.0 resolved my connection problem (at least for now).

Sorry about the visibility of your post. There are some keywords that cause a filter to hide posts for moderation. The url triggered this.

I like your efforts to get WireShare connecting.

Even though WireShare (WSHR) should connect fine with UPnP, if it's not connecting then perhaps UPnP has somehow become disabled via an Windows update. Do strongly consider trying port forwarding. I know it might sound like a lot of work but after you've done it once you will realise it was not such a huge deal to achieve. It's easier on some routers than others.

Did you try reading the log to see if there are any issues? It should be possible to upload the file when posting. However you first might want to check to remove any personal information such as account name which you could simply replace with word user/account.

Minor java versions should not make any particular difference. The changes are generally for security reasons if using for browsers, however afaik WireShare does not use that portion of java.

No, totally independent teams. And it appears now Shareaza's development has shifted into two teams or one team and one independent developer. Just because there's no updates for a year or two does not mean development has finished permanently.
No. Well I hope not. Unlike Acqlite, Cabos for OSX was never upgraded to universal 32/64 bit and so does not run on the later MacOSX's.

There were a portables created for FrostWire (created by File_Girl) and LimeWire back in 2010 and 2011. I'm not sure if this is what you are referring to in regards to 'portable'.

I can contact the WSHR dev but he is not always responsive. Generally because he is super busy with work.

I don't think I ever tried Ares or if I did it was only to very quickly check it out many years ago. The source code might have shifted to a different open source repository. Last year Sourceforge went through some dramatic changes breaking the site into two operational groups/categories behind the scenes.

As mentioned Cabos won't work on 64-bit but that probably won't affect Windows. I just installed Cabos and it opens ok on Win 10. Gnucleus I don't know, haven't tried it for a year or two. Phex has some issues on some systems. But I just opened up Win 10 and opened phex_3.4.2.163 (an alpha-beta) without any issues. After I replaced the host file it connected immediately (one or two seconds.) But Phex has no way of warning you if the program is firewalled and Phex can be incredibly difficult to connect with if firewalled. I just opened up WSHR 5.6.6 on Win 10 and it connected after a few seconds. Non-firewalled but port forwarded.

I've never tried or heard of Fopnu.

@Lord of the Rings

The error.log below (from 2019-04-09):

As I am typing these lines I have turbo-charged connection (as shown in the screen-shots uploaded above). I still cannot get why version 5.6.5.0 connects while version 5.6.6.0 does not connect (on my machine).

For the time being I have no time for port forwarding.

I have Windows 8 and I have disabled all updates long time ago so no update should have caused the problem.

As for Ares- I have read that the non-SourceForge versions are adware (bundled installers).

If I have anything new to say I will post here again.

Thank you for all your help.

These are errors handled by the UncaughtExceptionHandlerImpl section of the code which has existed since limewire. “This class serves as the error handler for both java threads as well as errors occurring in JNA callbacks.“ Error handler for uncaught exceptions originating from non-WireShare/limewire. The error is quite early in the WireShare startup procedure. Bigjx might be able to make sense of it.

566 wont work with plug and play ; it will only connect if you port forward ;

wireshare 5.6.5.0 connected within 5 minutes with that beautiful deep rich dark blue of the turbo charged connection ; search and downloading and uploading and sharing all working well .

@runt66

It seems that you are right- I installed version 5.6.6.0 over version 5.6.5.0 again and the latest version failed to connect again. I downgraded to version 5.6.5.0 and it connected immediately. The only nuisance is that I don't find a way to disable update check on program start- I browsed through options but I could not find such an option. Is there a way to disable update check?

@Lord of the Rings
For me the penultimate version (5.6.5.0) is better than the latest version (5.6.6.0) since it does not have problems connecting. If it is possible please notify the WireShare developer about these connection problems in version 5.6.6.0. I would appreciate a new version which would resolve these connectivity problems introduced in the latest version.

Can be random. I've always had port forwarding set for 5.6.6 - no connection issues & never showing as being behind a firewall.

Two days ago very slow to connect & showing as being behind a firewall once connected. Instead of resetting the router config I simply changed to UPnP within Options... instant turbo & not behind a firewall. Uploading fine.


Maybe UPnP success is a bit dependent on the router used? Who knows.

I've likewise had no issues connecting with 5.6.6 which runs long sessions. Whilst I have a suspicion what might cause some 5.6.6 connecting issues for some people I'm not definite.

Unable to Upload: Upload limit reached
 

(original image showed all songs by same artist)
As a moderator I was able to see your deleted post and took a snapshot excluding the file-names. Yes it was off-topic. Unfortunately, WireShare has built-in presets for uploads including queueing. I increased this 5 years ago to overcome some extreme buggy behavour (such as occasionally auto-banning hosts trying for their first file to download.) This is unlike LimeWire v.4 where you could change the upload slots per host and overall and unless I'm mistaken also change the queue size. To my understanding very long queues are not good for the ultrapeers which help manage a host's uploads to some degree (at least that's what a lime dev hinted to me last decade.)

There's not a lot you can do to fix the problem. Perhaps increase the overall upload slots but that's about it. There's still a built-in limit of slots per host that cannot be overcome in settings. I know, it's sad. LimeWire v.5 was obviously not designed with big file-sharers in mind. That was obvious from day one of the LW 5.0 alpha-beta release. That's one reason why I was never over keen about LW 5.

Edit: For a group of related files such album downloads, some exception should be made. A few years back I pencilled in techniques how this could be achieved as exceptions to standard slots per host.

Hi guys, I’m sorry I’ve not been available to help with this issue before now but let’s see if we can get a fix to this issue.

First, I don’t believe there were any changes to the connection code in v5.6.6 (a browse of the commits should confirm this) and the only change was the integration of the Security Level selection and the ability to auto-update the hostile hosts file (Thanks to LOTR for maintaining that feature and doing an outstanding job!:aweof:).

Next, since v5.6.5 does not have the security auto-update feature and the hostile hosts file is installed from static files within the installer at install time. The issue may be with one of the updated hostile host files. I have seen connection issues happen if the hostiles file had a typo in it or corrupted data. This would also explain why some have the issue and some don’t. To test this, with v5.6.6 installed, try selecting “None” in the Security Level selection and restart WireShare and see if it will connect. If it does connect then try each Security Level to see which one has the issue and post the results here so we can investigate it.

Other than that, I have no clue what could be the issue.

BigJx

Agreed. There might be a hostiles file problem (I recall one time the issue was a blank line.) It might also be a question of which hostiles you chose. I use Hostiles Light NJ without any connection issues.

Problem found. Hostiles NJ had a listing drop back onto the previous line and leaving a blank line. One or the other caused the problem where all connection attempts were failing. File fixed and uploaded ready for updating.

WireShare 5.6.6 will be updated with the fixed version including updates for all hostiles variations of files when you next start this program version.

Why the hostiles updates? Better protection yet more hosts to connect to! Removed many redundant listings where the original listings addresses have since changed purpose, whilst adding fresh hostiles. A list of reasons is provided here http://www.gnutellaforums.com/open-d...tml#post378098 even though it is the BearShare section, same principles apply.

Thanks LOTR for finding and fixing the error so quickly. I can’t say enough about how much I appreciate all that you do for WireShare and the Gnutella Forums community.

Again, good job!!

BigJx

:super: Thanks for all the work on this!

Now, Has the file been re-named? How can we tell/check what we have running?

The security files are maintained online and once WireShare 5.6.6 is restarted it will automatically update the file to the newest version based on your selected Security Level. The file that was causing the connection issue was associated with the "Strong Security." Security Level setting. That file has now been fixed as LOTR said and will be automatically updated once WireShare is restarted if you use that Security Level setting.

BigJx

Many thanks, sure enough that was the security level I was using.