"Running the Gnutella Network"
 

When I start up Limewire (in Mac OSX 10.2.4, DSL connection), one of two things happens: the title bar reads "Limewire: Running the Gnutella Network," in which case I generally have a very good chance of finding what I'm looking for and d/ling it quickly.

On the other hand, about 50% of the time the title bar will read "Limewire: Running the Gnutella Network (x files/x.x GB available)." When this happens, it doesn't matter how many files Limewire tells me is available, I know I don't stand a snowball's chance in burning hell of downloading anything in any reasonable time. Just this morning I did a search for a file and among numerous results got a search result that claimed that 52 hosts had the same file. I clicked on it to download, and after about 45 seconds of waiting, I connected with ONE host and the file started coming across at the blazing speed of 1k per second. Gee, another hour and a half and I'll be done!

What exactly is the significance of the "(x files/x.x GB available)" showing up when it does and why does it always indicate impending failure?

Go to the LimeWire preferences->Speed and check the disable ultrapeer option.

Thanks!

The "stats" (which are not really accurate) are only generated when you are running in Ultrapeer mode, i.e., your computer is trying to act as one of the central nodes. If you're unable to download when acting as Ultrapeer, you probably don't have enough bandwidth to do both!

The default is to run Leaf or Ultrapeer but there is an option to Disable Ultrapeer (as trap_jaw pointed-out).

Next version (2.9.5) will reduce the bandwidth requirement for ultrapeers because it will drop all requeries/urn queries and packets from spam clients like Mutella automatically.