I have a computer that died and I tried placing all the incomplete files from my old hard drive in the incompletes and in the shared folders in my new computer and limewire could not read them to finish downloading them!!!
Any suggestions???
Willie

The most important files in the incomplete folder are called download.dat & bak. These are your downld preferences. So without them your files are next to worthless. So if you still have access to that folder from the older machine then get those files.

what if you have all the files in the incomplete folder, but they just won't finish downloading. I had some limewire problems in the middle of their download and it cause them to no longer register in limewire, but they're all still in the folder just as they were before.

Sure you can delete those that don't have partners on the downld window. Else you could force resume them but they'd most likely start from 0%. OR You can open your incomplete folder up & arrange them by date to delete those older ones that aren't any use. Also see: Tip: Purge the Downloads Queue!

I want to resume them but I don't know how. LimeWire doesn't read the old ones as incomplete files, it just doesn't read them at all.

As I said earlier, temporarily take out your present download.dat & bak files & replace them with the old ones from the folder you rescued the incomplete files (probably best to do it whilst LW is closed.) Then research the original topics again & you should see icons in the search results with a ripped/torn thread of paper. Then just reselect them to downld. This is the safest way to do it. 2nd choice would be to search the topic & use the Resume button from the library window.

Without these older downld preferences then your older incomplete files are next to useless. The new downld prefs will not recognise them. You can try to force resume them but will most likely start from zero.

If your computer crashed whilst LW was running, then your older incomplete prefs might have become corrupted. This is usually when they will become corrupted. So if you often have computer problems, it might be wise to backup your downld.dat & .bak files reasonably often. This is not a difficult thing or time consuming thing to do.

I have a problem with the downloads not resuming too, but in my case it happens after LW shuts down (normally), I restart my computer, the "old downloads" are loaded, but suddenly they are zeroed in the "Incomplete" folder and the download begins from start.
Isn't it supposed to re-start from where it stopped???
Just lost over 300MB downloaded for one file and ~400MB for a second one - just because I had to restart my machine after some software update!
Am I missing some settings, or is it just crappy software? (I bought the "Pro" version!).

Another thing is, that if for some reason my computer crashes, usually what follows upon reboot is the "Old downloads can't be loaded" message, and I lose everything on my download list. Isn't the "downloads.bak" file supposed to provide enough info to recover every single file from the "Incomplete" folder after such crash, eventually losing only the portions downloaded between the state recorded in ".bak" and the one from (possibly garbled) ".dat"???

Thanks for any help.

I have the same problem. I copied *all* files to the "incomplete" folder (including download.bak and download.dat) and when I go to the "incomplete" section of the "library" tab, I see the incomplete files in red, and when I click resume it starts again from 0%! Is there anything I could do about that?

If LW is not shut down properly (& it can take a while sometimes), or your comp crashes, these are the occasions when your downld preferences can become corrupted.
MalKontent I'd suggest you Control-Alt-Delete & open the Task Manager to make sure LW is not active on the list before you shutdown. If you do this immediately after the LW window disappears then you'll see how long it takes for LW to totally close. Perhaps on some people's systems it takes longer than others. Sounds like your LW is not closing properly or fast enough. This shouldn't be happening.

Also go to LW's menu Tools>Options>Shutdown & select shutdown immediately & press Apply button.

Since I'm not a LW programmer I can't explain why downld.bak doesn't always backup properly. I guess it hasn't had enough time to record it's details.

If downld.dat has already become corrupted then of course it won't work. Even if you put it back into the incomplete folder. If it had been healthy & backed up before shutting down the previous day then it will work. But you can only add it to the incomplete folder whilst LW is closed. Otherwise LW might not recognise it.