suddenly, lots of "waiting..."

[Arney]

Hi, folks. I've read through the forums for a while and, while I see a few subjects that are similar, I haven't seen this exact problem.
I've been using LimeWire for a few years now, with few problems. Any problems I've had were due to logical reasons that didn't require me to come here with them. I've been able to download audio & video files with no problems, even though it may have been a bit slow before I upgraded system & connection speed. That's changed now. A bit of background: I'm running Windows XP (home) on a machine that has 2G of RAM & hundreds of G of storage, DSL (5M), running LW version 4.8.1.
Here's the problem: endless "waiting" messages, whether "waiting for busy hosts" or "Waiting in line, position N" or "awaiting sources" or others. I've had "waiting" messages before, when my bandwidth wasn't as wide, or my RAM was smaller or other similar hardware issues, but they always proceeded as outlined, LW rechecking every minute or so & eventually breaking through. Before DSL I used to download between 1kb/s to 5 kb/s, occasionally reaching 7 or 8. After DSL it jumped to 10 kb/s to 35 kb/s, sometimes reaching close to 50.
Suddenly, in the past month or so, I haven't been able to download anything completely, from 2-minute songs to 90-minute movies. Although I usually see the successful search results in the window, indicating that I'm downloading the files, I either get "waiting" messages or short bursts of downloading, then back to "waiting".
In the past, I've gotten "waiting in line, position N" where N has run from 1 to 10 at most. Now N begins at 700 or so! Are there suddenly that many new users? Also, most of the time when I get to position 1 or even "position 0" I get sent back to "waiting for busy hosts" or "awaiting sources" even though I "repeat search" while I'm searching and see that the file is still active & online.
Is there some setting to fix this? I haven't been able to complete a file for weeks - some even a month or two. I may get an occasional minute of 45 kb/s, but then it drops to 1 kb/s. Either that or occasional blocks of 1 kb/s for 5 - 15 minutes. It's very frustrating to watch "waiting in line, position 700" drop all the way to "position 1", then still not download at all...even (especially) for a file that's 99% done!
I'm about to give up on LimeWire although I'd rather not, but it's been a frustrating waste of time for a long time now. Thanks for any help any of you can give me.

[Arney]

Please! Don't all clamor to inundate me with help all at once! All right; maybe I can take one more helpful response.
By the way, a few additional pieces of background info that may help: I recently changed ISPs, from AOL to SBC/Yahoo for the DSL service. On AOL I had no problems that couldn't be explained logically & functionally. They were fixed by upgrading my RAM & bandwidth. The SBC DSL service includes dynamic (rather than static) IP addressing. That may affect the situation I described.
Also, I read in another string that some ISPs block LimeWire & others. Is that true? How? How can I test for that & possibly make sure that isn't happening?
If you need additional info, please ask. I'd really like to hear from you guys that are experienced with this problem, since I've enjoyed using LimeWire for a while now...hint, hint, LOTR!
Thanks for reading.

[chelseagirl]

hello i notice ur also still waiting 4 a reply !! was wondering if you ad managed to sort the prob as this has just since last night started to happen to me .
a film i been d/loaden since 3pm yesterday got to 20% and has been either waiting in line of waiting for sources. right now im waiting in position 1 and it been like that for the last hour. any tipsplease?

[birdy]

Arney's posts are from almost a year ago

You might have more luck by just searching for the movie again! Rather than waiting for the original source to have a free upload slot or to come back online. Try varying your search terms & using the All Types search eg movie title - avi (or whatever format you like). Don't forget to look up a movie before download with Bitzi
How to use Bitzi