Extremely Slow Download Speeds
 

I started experiencing extremely slow music downloads (0 - 2 KB/s) a few weeks ago. The downloads are so slow and the connection quality so poor that it renders LW practically useless. I upgraded to Pro to see if that would help, which it didn't. I have tried everything I can possibly think of. I have upgraded LW, Java, QuickTime, and my OS. I have tried to e-mail support and they just said to re-install LW, which I did three times. I have poured through the forum looking for help. I tried the suggestions on this thread http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...5&pagenumber=1 and on this thread http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=27036. Anyways, nothing seems to work. I used to be able to download a song in a matter of minutes, now it takes hours, if I'm able to get any files at all. Does anyone have any further suggestions on increasing download speed or on what might be wrong with my LW or LW settings? Any help would be much appreciated.

Did you see this thread: http://www.gnutellaforums.com/showth...threadid=30561

How many incomplete files do you have? Do you ever resume files? If you use the Resume button of a large no. of files it will cause your files to be queued for much, much greater periods of time & can also affect lw's connectivity quality.

Also not using bowsers & especially other heavy bandwidth apps such as other p2p apps or chat apps. which use up both bandwidth & processing power.

How much ram do you have? OS 10.3.6 is full of bugs. Did you notice the change before or after updating to 10.3.6? Do you think it might be related?

What modem & router do you use? Do this test: Bug Report instructions & sample image Is it True/False? I don't suppose you go thru Comcast?
Go to this site & tell me what it says underneath the red box & inside the grey box: what does it say about NAT?: http://www.u.arizona.edu/~trw/games/nat_or_not.php

Hi Lord ... yeah, I saw the other thread on slow downloads. I thought that user was having fast downloads compared to me. I will try to answer your questions and, in doing so, probably show how little I know ... but here it goes:

I have about 50 to 60 incomplete files in my Library (some are in red text). Yes, I do click on the resume button when I need to, but usually only on one file at a time. I am not using other P2P or chat apps while using LW. I usually have only LW and iTunes open while dowloading, unless I also have a browser open to the forum trying to figure out what the heck is wrong. How much RAM do I have? Ummm, when I click on About This Mac it says I have 512 MB SDRAM, but I don't know how to check on how much of it is currently being used.

I only upgraded to OS X 10.3.6 a few days ago and this problem started long before that, so I don't think the slowness is related to the OS upgrade. I don't think I have a router (I'm just a single home computer), and the only brand name I can find on my DSL modem is "Elastic Networks." No, I don't have Comcast, my ISP is wyoming.com, a local company, but on a sticker on the modem it says, "Broadband powered by Contact Communications." I don't know who that is.

On the bug report, on the line you indicated, it said "True."

On the other Web site you told me to go to about NAT And this is what it said in the gray box:

It would appear that your machine does use NAT.

It is like LW just decided to stop working one day.

Based on this information, any further help or information you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Your IP shouldn't be posted on the forum. Not wise.

What has fixed some people's problems is re-installing Java. However by using the Standalone Java solution

I have already tried that *sigh*! ... However, I did notice that in Applications/Utilities/Java folder I both the Java 1.3.1 Plugin Settings and the Java 1.4.2 Plugin Settings. Perhaps I did the install wrong? I did not delete anything before installing the 1.4.2 update. (I'm pretty sure I used the Standalone version you pointed me to because I saw the link in another thread.)

Well it's got me stumped too. Since you already checked your connection speed as you hinted earlier from that link in the other thread. It must be fine right.

Only other things I can think of are installing the 4.2.4 version of LW. And doing a complete system check. I mean a SAFE start & repairing permissions & repairing the HDD using Disk Utility.

By the way, to check how much ram all your processes are using open up Activity Monitor found in your Utilities folder.

Oh I don't suppose you use a USB modem. Some have optional USB/Ethernet mode for connection.

Perhaps you should ask Stief on the forum.

Yes, my connection speed is fine. I checked out the Activity Monitor ... and it says I have used approx. 497 MB of space, with only about 15 MB left available. Could I be running out of space to store things? I will try LW 4.2.4 and see if that helps ... Thanks for your replies

If you've almost used all your ram up then that could be an issue. I don't know how it'd affect your dwnld speed though. VM is also an issue. Virtual Memory uses your HDD space up. LW 4.2 is supposed to improve upon this with less ram & vm use. In my experience that's been true.

The reason I was asking about USB connection is b/c my isp strongly advised mac users not to use them. Some also power from the comp & some also utilise the comp's processor. Some macs have slow USB cards.

LOTR, Mystic,...

The SAME exact thing has been happening to me for a while now. Ever since I got back from Thanksgiving break, I believe. Over the break while I was at home, I configured my laptop to dial in to the net through the school's system. Not sure what it did exactly, but that's the only real thing that's changed. It's probably not much help.

But yeah, 2-4KB download speeds, shitty connections, same exact thing.

I thought it was just me....

Does ANYONE know how in the hell to fix this? This place is really deserted for a forum on a file-sharing program that's one of the more popular ones out there.

Come on. I've never met the topic starter and we're having the EXACT same problem. Anything else I do on the internet is just as fast as normal...but Limewire is completely useless as of a few weeks ago. This doesn't strike anyone else as sort of odd?