SO, is UPnP an alternative scheme to TCP/UDP port forwarding?

If/when Dave will cooperate, or if I find a willing tinkerer with SBC DSL+2Wire DSL modem...[list=1][*] Reset DSL modem/firewall to factory defaults, also switch to UPnP in LimeWire, do same for both ends.[*] Test LimeWire Direct Connect Downloads... [*] IF nogo, then on side A: setup manual port forwarding,
also setup 2Wire DSL box for TCP/UDP port forwarding,
then test.[*] IF still nogo, do same for side B, test.[*] Report all results for each step.[/list=1] OK?

Is it ok to use port 6346 (it works AOK for me with others...) or do we need to switch to another port like 6969? Why does the port number matter? ISP throttling maybe? Does not seem to matter for me <> fabion... it's working fine between us... exept the private IP number stuff and chat icon stuff noted already (LW bug).

Thanks for your help, sberlin. Let us know when we can test a beta.

THE oddest thing here is it worked one time. Then immediately after that, it failed... (Dave<>Geo DC DL)

Dave is getting frustrated, wants to try Shareaza... but we already have a lot of time invested in LimeWire... I want to keep trying, as long as we can get some expert support to tell us what to try... otherwise we are just shooting in the dark...

__________________
Geo here... <small>antique computer enthusiast
Mac Powerbook G3/500MHz=<i>Pismo</i> :: 384MB ram; 80GB hdd; <b>MacOS 9.2.2</b>
Compaq Presario 5360 :: 450MHz AMD Athlon, 192MB ram; 120GB hdd; <b>Win2k PRO SP4</b>
ISP :: <u><b>SBC</b>-Yahoo!-DSL</u>; 164KB/sec DL; 50KB/sec UL; <u><b>2Wire</b> <i>DSL modem / Wi-Fi / NAT firewall</i></u>
PtoP :: LimeWire 4.8.1 <b>PRO</b> || Shareaza 2.1 <i>for BitTorrents, mostly</i> || but not concurrently! <i>
This is an INTEL-free, pre-Y2K CPU, recycled-computer environment! </i>