i`M UNDER A firewall and a have control of the firewall, what could i do?

My firewall is Wingate.

How do you find out what type of firewall you are behind? How do I know the name of it and how can I circumvent it once I find that out?

If you can't or don't know how to change firewall settings, LimeWire can circumvent it. Go to Tools > Options. On the Advanced tab, there is a section called Force Local IP. Check the Force IP checkbox. Manually enter in your IP address and force to port 6346 or whatever port you normally would want to use.

To obtain your IP, go to one of these sites. Alternatively, you can click Start > Run, type winipcfg and hit enter in Win 98 or download a small internet utility such as StayAlive Pro.

http://www.lawrencegoetz.com/programs/ipinfo/

http://www.aws.com/support/faq/software/ip.asp

I use Norton. Do firewalls make a difference in down and uploading? What I mean is will one have more successful searches and such with or without one? How should I set the Norton up to let me, as well as others, continue to fileshare.

I have an RCA cable modem from AT&T @home and have limewire up and going. I have tried forcing my computers ip address and have also unchecked the force ip adress box but still have the same problem. No matter what I do, users downloading from me get "transfer interrupted" errors over and over and over again. As a result, it seems like it takes users way longer than it should to download files from me. Is this just something I have to live with or is there anything else I can do to make it so downloads don't have to stop and start all the time?

On the average, downloads are more successful when the host is not behind a firewall. I don't use the Norton Firewall program, but I would imagine that there is an area where you can tell it what programs to access the internet and what port or ports it can use. Remember that LimeWire (as well as any recent version) is "javaw.exe." On Windows 98, this file is located in C:\WINDOWS by default.

If you are behind a firewall, you might try to add javaw.exe to the list of permissable internet programs. But if you are not behind a firewall, your Cable provider may be implementing a copyright protection scheme that might try to block the transfer or copyrighted material. But it sounds more like you have a dynamic IP address. Are your downloads starting over and over again? How often do your errors occur? Are they sporaidic or do they occur at specific intervals?

I have a static IP address and don't think there is any firewalling being done by my RCA cable modem. Uploads get the "transfer interrupted" error every couple of seconds but it's not like it's every 5 or 10 seconds. The really annoying thing is that I have set a small upload limit so that the person getting the file from me has more bandwidth to work with but because the upload gets interruped so often, other users jump into the queue and I end up with more downloads happening than I have allowed spots for so the poor people have to wait for the other person to get booted so they can resume their download until they get booted again. Is there any way to stop the madness?

I haven't come across anything as bizarre as this. It sounds like this has to do with your cable provider. Try calling them and ask them if they implement any kind of filters that inhibit your internet activity. They might have given in to pressure from the the RIAA and MPAA. :-(

I don't think the ISP is doing anything since some users can get all the way to 100% without being interrupted. It's rare but it happens. Most users restart their uploads every couple of seconds. Why do they get interrupted so often? What causes the interruptions? Once they're connected and downloading, shouldn't they be able to maintain the connection? I'm curious to know why users sometimes have to restart their download every few seconds while others get all the way to 50% before it happens.