4.0.5 and SLOOOOOW downloads
 

Sorry in advance for a long post, but I want to provide as much information as possible.

I've been a Limewire Pro user for a couple of years now, always upgrading to the latest version when available. I currently running 4.0.5 Pro on a G3 (G4 processor upgraded) 500 mhz Pismo with 512 mb RAM. Up to this point, I've had no problems with download speeds.

I recently installed an AirPort card and put a wireless router into my home network. This I did, unfortunately, at the same time as I upgraded to 4.0.5.

But, after tons of testing, both wired and wireless and also bypassing the router and connecting directly to my ADSL "modem" as I was doing previously, I've come to the conclusion that 4.0.5 just seems slow.

For example: I find a file I want, which has perhaps 50 users sharing, and start my download. Things go well at first with me getting a decent download rate and a decent number of hosts (with my earlier version of LimeWire I'd get maybe 5-8 hosts and between 30-80 KB/s). I will get this sort of connection to begin with, but as the download progresses, the number of hosts drops and the download rate will drop to about 1 KB/s. Sometimes the number of hosts will increase, but the download rate will stay very low. I've been amazed to see that I'm downloading from as many as 5 hosts and still only getting 1-2 KB/s.

I'm using the same settings I used on the earlier version of LimeWire and after testing I know it's not my connection.

Advice please, or someone do tell me where I can download an older (earlier than 3.9) version of LimeWire...

Thanks in advance!

Hi Techwomyn
(cool nic--and the details do help). Which OSX version, btw? http://www9.limewire.com:82/download/ has the oldest free ones I know of, but there are old jum versions available elsewhere--even though I doubt an older version will help.

I'd hoped the Airport problems would be fewer since Apple's release this week of another software upgrade for Airport, but I guess not in your case.

A few more questions: (sorry-- :( wish I could refer you to an easy answer)

Does your ADSL have any software controls, and can it connect via ethernet or USB?

Are you able to accept incoming connections? That's the easiest check for any possible connection blocks (network settings, firewall, router, etc). See the LW Preferences, bug reports and look for "received incoming this session=true"

cheers

Thanks for the reply. I'm using OS X 10.3.4 with all the latest patches and updates.

Now that I've had a chance to test Limewire on the office networK, I'm more convinced than ever that this new version is just slow - either that or no good shares are happening anymore.

With my previous version I would average AT LEAST 30 kbps on virtually all downloads. Now I'm lucky if I can maintain 10! And this is using my home network (ADSL both wired and wireless) and my T1 connection at the office.

I want my old Limewire version back - stupid me didn't keep a backup...

:(

Try using 4.0.6, released yesterday. We discovered and fixed a problem where LimeWire would incorrectly discard all partial sources. Much thanks goes to Gregorio Roper for pointing the bug out to us.

Thanks! I just downloaded 4.0.6 and will let you know if it helps matters.

ETA: Nope, no luck. I've eliminated everything else that could possibly be the problem (reverted back to my original ADSL settings and even did a speed test) and I'm still getting lousy download speeds.

One file I tried was hosted by 33 people. I got a connection to 8 hosts (one at least of which was a T1) and was still only managing 14 kbps. This, by the way, was with a "TurboCharged" connection to at least 6 Ultrapeers.

Please oh please tell me where I might download the older version of LimeWire!

Am also having problems
 

For the first two days I received excellet download rates via my cable connection - up to 350 kg/s. For the last several tries at using LimeWire Pro, I am lucky to get 5 kb/s and am finding absolutely no othr sources to aid in downloading. People attempting to doiwnload from me are experincing the same problems, very slow upload speeds.

I too have a G3, 500 speed, 500 mg ram, etc, etc.

I've tried everything suggested and nothing seems to work for me.

Anyone have suggestions?

You may both need to reconfigure your LWs. I recently upgraded to 10.3.4 myself and redld LW. If I had kept it's original settings then my dld speeds would be just about the same, so go to the Preferences and check the settings according to a thread in these here forums entitled :"need for speed".

Same problem... something's wrong
 

No. Something is going on here. I have the same problem. Had speeds up to 45K. Now, rarely get 5K even with 80 sources. I tried with 4.0.5, with 4.0.6 and even back to the version from last February... still same result.
I've tried tweaking every setting in the preferences, setting all slots to 1, etc.
The only clue I have is I used to be considered an ultra peer, but now it looks like I'm not (ie. I get the little message when I enable monitoring incoming searches saying I won't see much.).
Please someone who knows something, report this problem to someone who knows how to do something about it.

G4, 10.3.4, Cable connection 512/128

Tolman, tweaking the settings is good, but you haveta know what and how to tweak it: by setting every slot to 1 (I figure this goes the same for Max number of simultaneous dlds) will have you: -dlding from only 1 peer at a time= slow dlds
-uploading to 1 peer at a time= less connections= slow dlds
Revert all settings to default.
Set the Upload bandwidth meter under Uploads->Basic to about -5 of your max upload speed as specified by your connection.
Set a decent upload slots number.
Under Downloads, slowly increase the number of simultaneous dlds by one or two at a time while at the same time you download files to see the result of settings: you increase by one or two, click apply, dld something (preferably something with many sources), see the results and then change accordingly the settings again.
Important : do not increase the number of simultaneous dlds too high or it will slow down your dlds as LW will try to connect to more and more hosts and will end up using unnecessary bandwidth.
Now, test the results of the new settings and post back if they were positive.

Also, remember that 1KBps (which LW displays) equals 1Kbps (as the ISP sell the connections), so if you have a 1000Kbps cable connection, your max dld speed is about 125KBps.

I've tried everything! Just cannot seem to get above about 10k no matter what I do.

Contacted LW support and they say that the newest version works the same as the old so nothing should change vis-a-vis download speeds. If this is true, then I guess everyone is just setting their upload bandwidth limits really slow.

Who knows...

ETA: for example, I am now downloading a file shared by 54 hosts, connected to 8 hosts and I'm getting a whopping 14k!

Not sure what -5 means; my UL speed is advertised 128 kb/s, and the lowest I can set the bandwidth is 10.94 KB/s. This doesn't change anything, having it set to low, or hi. The UL speed that others get from me does seem to fluctuate with this setting.

I've tried all kinds of DL slot numbers, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 20... still only get 1-5K DL speeds. Individual DL's seemed to be capped at 6K apiece.
Any other suggestions?

Ok now answer the post made by Stief: is received incoming this session=true or false? If false a firewall or router in interfering with LW and hence the slow speeds. Normally a host for a song dl = a mean of 10 KB/s: if dling from 6 hosts I get over 60KB/s easily on my machine. Frequently I max my bandwidth at 120KB/s.

Bonne chance

I'm not sure I'm looking in the right place, I had tried to check this before (as per stief and the "need for speed" topic). If I got to preferences:Bug Reports, and I push the "View Example" button, the generated report includes this line:
Received incoming this session: true

Is this correct?

I originally thought Firewall was the problem. I DID have Panther's built in Firewall activated from the Sharing preferences, but I have since disabled this.

. . . and you can quickly check your dl speeds against a file from http://www.magnetmix.com/ (see example).

[salut et voilà]

Thanks. I'm getting 1-3K DL speed with your sample file. Folks Uploading from me are getting the full bandwidth, it seems. They are DLing at about 8KB/s... my advertised UL speed is 128 kb/s.

Hmm go in options (preferences in os x) and press the restore defaults button. apply and restart LW. Redo the magnetmix test. What is your max dl speed? Can you do the test there http://www.broadbandreports.com/stest to see your max speed up and down in Kb/s? To convert to KB/s (what LW uses divide the Kb/s per 8).

Ciao

(Salut Stief :D)

Speed report is as it should be for my 512k/128k:

2004-06-19 14:29:47 EST: 462 / 113
Your download speed : 473611 bps, or 462 kbps.
A 57.8 KB/sec transfer rate.
Your upload speed : 116140 bps, or 113 kbps.

I restored defaults and am doing your LW dl test, and getting 3 hosts at 3KB/s... see what I mean?

The Firewall in OS X preferences: Sharing is not running.
This seems like a clue to me: when I go to the Monitor panel in LW and select "Enable" to see incoming Searches, I get the popup saying
"Leaf node shielded by an UltraPeer..."
This should not be the case, should it? It didn't used to be the case. By default, I do not have "Function as UltraPeer" disabled.
I know that when I was getting expected DL speeds, I was also functioning as an UltraPeer. I am unable to find what has ruined my DL speed... some combination of:
Upgrading to LW 4.0.5
Upgrading to OS X 10.3.4
Turning on Apple's builtin Firewall
Turning off Apple's builltin Firewall

Very weird. Can you try Acquisition (find it on macupdate.com) it uses the LW code with another gui. Maybe some settings are broken.

What is your ISP? Maybe they use sandvine or something to throttle P2P speeds. Call them about it. Also change the default port for LW from 6346 to anything you want, this may help. I really think this is an ISP issue.

Désolé :(

I changed my port and it had no effect.
I DL'd Acquisition and I get the same results with that program... up to 5.6kb/s speed.

I don't see how my Cebridge Cable connection could be the problem, since it initially gave me DL speeds that used the full bandwidth (close to 512kb/s). Something has changed though. I'm trying to figure out if enabling Apple's built-in Firewall has done something, even though I have had it disabled for a week.

Ok sorry, you didn't understand. This is a how a tool like sandvine at the ISP level work: they have packets sniffers (packets get exchanged between you and other Gnutella connections) that search for specific P2P packets like Gnutella ones. Once they recognized them, they limit the traffic coming in and out to say 6 KB/s (this is configurable by your ISP). However, the internet packets to surf the web for exemple are not throttled by the system that's why you get 50KB/s on internet downloads. That way your ISP thinks they're cutting costs because routing bandwidth between different ISP of different countries is expensive (P2P constitutes 60% of all internet traffic).

Call your ISP about P2P blocking and especially about gnutella. If they can't react correctly change ISP. Loosing customers will force them to not use those P2P killers.

Ciao

Well, I might have a problem since my

Received incoming this session = false

But I haven't changed anything since the earlier version - still have the same ADSL "modem," same ISP, firewall in Mac is off. I never checked the true/false thing before, so I have no idea if that is different. How in the hell am I supposed to change this? I'm forcing my IP and I've tried changing the ports. Also, btw, I'm sharing about 700 files, so it's not a leech issue.

I cannot imagine my ISP choking P2P, since it is a Dutch ISP that has gone to court to protect the identities of thier users in the past, on a number of issues. The ONLY flexibility they have is in cooperating with authorities on the possibility of kiddie porn. In addition, they link to LimeWire from their homepage, so I doubt they're the problem.

I'm d/l Acquisition now and am curious to see how it works.

Thanks for the replies and I'll let you know what (if anything) I discover.

Jeebus, I want my 3.8 version back!

Techwomyn: if you have a router you have to play with port forwarding (on the web interface of the router ie from your browser). Also the incomimg test has to be performed a few minutes after LW is running so LW has time to test your connection. Redo the test now.

I was getting great DL the first couple weeks of me getting my cable connection, but then it has stopped (I thought it was on account of me turning on the firewall for a bit. Maybe not.)
Are you suggesting that my ISP just started throttling p2p a week ago? Well, thanks for the info. I'll try and call their tech support and find out.
I'm rural and they are the only game in town.

Tech... I reinstalled 3.8 (had to do it on a different volume) and still got the same results.

Tolman, unless what et voilà says about ISP choking P2p and such is true (for you), then try the following: as your upload speed is 128kbps, set the meter between 10,48 and 12KBps, put (for starters) 10 upload slots and increase the number of simultaneous dlds to 25. Now, look for a file that is popular enough and dld it: stop any other dlds and dld just that one file. Give it some time to connect to the other peers.
I hope that this makes a change.

btw, I had no idea that OSX 10.3.4 has a built-in firewall (like XP)... Well, well, we learn something new everyday...

Techwomyn

Airport documents/fixes dominate Apple's tech articles recently
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75185
Maybe some of these will apply to your situation.

You are still asking for an older version???? I posted a link in my earlier post :confused:

Tolman--
incoming=true is correct, and eliminates any upstream blocks like the firewall as the problem.
To eliminate user pref problems
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=151701
shows how to create a new Admin user. This will virtually isolate all your former prefs, so if you install a fresh LW in this new account and see the same problem, then you know the problem is outside of your Home folder.
You are using the ethernet port, right? Some ADSL equipment uses the USB port, which is inadequate on OSX for the number of connections needed for p2p apps.

btw--good luck getting an accurate answer from tech support. At my ISP, even the head of the help desk didn't know for months that the internet guys were experimenting with p2p traffic controls.
(CISCO router's NBAR features, and a trial of Sandvine software). No malice was involved--hell, they were ready to dig up and replace my cable--the helpers were just unaware. jum, et voilà, trap_jaw and the LW devs helped me get the data I needed to reliably show the problem.

Murasame--the upload bandwidth controls don't affect the download speeds, and the Tip of the Day in the LW Help menu has all the details on the OSX firewall. ;)

Aaaaah yes. And I thought something was missing. Stupid me had it disabled before updating (I had seen all of the tips anyway) and forgot to reset them after updating my version. I guess I figured they didn't bother to change the tips.

Oh, and for the upload bandwidth, I know that it won't affect dld speed: that's the reason why ISP advertise connections with both dld and upload bandwidths. I just told Tolman to put it to a decent place (according to his connection) so that other peers won't suffer.

As a side note, I heard that the number of peers you upload to does (in a more indirect manner though) affect your speed, since connecting to them may also mean connecting to the peers that they are connected to and so on.

False.:p In the case that uploads take all available bandwidth, dls will be slower. Http connections need confirmation that packets are being received, thus some upload bandwidth has to be left to continue dl full speed. Do a test: upload full speed then browse the internet: it will be really slow. Cut the bandwidth by 3-4 KB/s and everything will be fast again.

Ciao

Sorry stief, I should have responded earlier. I did go to the link you provided, but unfortunately there are no LW 3.8.x downloads for OSX. Earliest I could find was 3.9. Tried that but no luck.

I'll check out the Airport info as well. Thanks!

btw--the old free installers for all platforms are stuffed into one large archive (~70mb). http://www9.limewire.com:82/download/ has the 3.8.10 and .11 installers.

Thank you stief!

You are a scholar and a gentleperson. I am d/l now and I do so much appreciate this. I'll update on the results of the comparison.

BTW - I did see the 70mb archive, but I wasn't certain it was what I needed so I didn't d/l it. Thanks for the access to the much smaller d/l.


ETA: finished the download. Thanks.

Update with 3.8.10
 

Well, I can't explain it, but suddenly I'm back where I was.

Getting minimum 30k and peaking at over 100k on the same downloads I tried using 4.0.x Pro. According to Limewire there should be no difference, but for me there certainly is. I connect to more Ultrapeers - and connect faster - and seem to be able to d/l from more hosts.

It will be interesting to see if I become an Ultrapeer again, as I was before the 4.x "upgrade."

Thanks stief and everyone else for the suggestions, help and support.

very odd--and interesting! If you can spare the time, could you try to figure out where the difference lies? The example bug report (without the sample java crash) usually contains all the key info.

Which installer did you use, and does this one allow incoming connections?

Thanks for keeping us posted.

Observations so far - 3.8.10
 

Bug report still says "false" on the received incoming sessions, but I have no idea what it reported before, as I never thought to check (or even realized it might be an issue).

What I can say about the "downgrade" back to 3.8.10 is this:

I can connect to far more Ultrapeers than with 4.x (sometimes as many as 10, while with 4.x I had a maximum of 6)

My ability to connect to these Ultrapeers is much faster

I can usually start a download at - at least - 30k and it will sometimes peak to 100k and usually steady down to about 60-80k. I love to get the 100k+ speeds, but I'm content with 60+.

I'm seeing MANY more results, even with my search filters at 4 stars - Cable/DSL or higher. I'm seeing files that I didn't see using 4.x and the same settings.

Also, I've set my preferences the same as I did in 4.x (which I will be happy to list if anyone is interested).

ETA: I'm now d/l a 200mb file and have settled into a speed of about 80k. Woooohoooo!

Cool. I hope you've found a bug, with 4.0.6.

Would you be so kind as to try a little check?
If you quit LW, and quickly run the 4.06 installer (it will continue all your existing dl's and prefs), you'll have a fair comparison. See if 4.0.6 is now just as good (should be better!!!).

Thanks

[oops--forgot to also ask to save the bug report from the 3.8.10 first--command-A, command-C, and paste into a textedit doc]

4.0.6 should increase the speed again. Downloading from incomplete sources was fragged up, so you couldn't connect to most sources.

Here's the bug-report they had in the Manager at LimeWire: http://www.limewire.org/jira/browse/CORE-1

Should be fixed now.

I've tried old versions, and no luck there. I'm still really frustrated. I haven't gotten ahold of my ISP to ask about any throttle they may have on p2p DL's, but folks are uploading from me at capacity.
Also, it started using me as an Ultra peer again... not sure what changed it. About 3 days back, one DL got up to 18K and I have no idea why.
Whether I'm DLing 1 or multiple files, each one seems to cap at 5K. Here I kept stacking on files that each found between 50 and 150 sources:

http://home.classicnet.net/Weaks/LWSample.jpg

I haven't made any changes or restarted since the last post, but this morning, a single DL seems to be able to reach 7K, but still is capped there. Each additional DL I add gets up to that speed.

http://home.classicnet.net/weaks/LWSample1.jpg

Why won't a single DL get a higher speed?!?! Ugh.

Hi Tolman
Those numbers don't make sense over repeated trials--surely something is amiss. If it isn't the ISP, then . . . here's some other thoughts:
Do you have the Dual Processor? There's been a fair bit discussion about a bug with Java and DP macs over on http://www.macintouch.com/index.shtml (search for "Azureus Kernel Panics" ). Someone elsewhere fixed the problem by reinstalling Java.

Reinstalling Java is quick and easy http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120309.

If something is messed in your preferences folder, then an install into a new User Account (make it an Admin) should reassure you that it's not in your Home Folder set-up.

You could also try the CVS build of LW (thanks to Jens-Uwe Mager) http://www.mager.org/LimeWire/LimeWire.html. It also has a "suspend uploads" button which will eliminate that variable.

That's all I can think of for now
[link edit: thanks arne--I forgot to doublecheck those
byw--Gregorio has submitted a magnet patch! http://www.limewire.org/pipermail/co...ne/000457.html]

@stief: Please remove the dot at the end of the link. Then it works.

Else, I also don't know more, sadly. Didn't yet have the problem.