I like the trim fast traits of Mactella, and the Search always works well, but when I go to download, I get nothing, not even a partial. It opens a "Download One" window and the progress bar goes from zero to totality in no time, yet nothing has happened, and no file, not even a PARTIAL has been received. Nor does Mactella ever indicate, except by that full progress bar that anything has been received. The Status messages continue, saying mostly "Opening c..." with a few short occasions of "Sending p..." appearing as well, but I never get my file, not even a short 1MB file succeeds, not after waiting seemingly forever. LimeWire, f'instance ALWAYS gives me at least a partial file (playable, if Audio) and LimeWire's Progress Bar CAN be trusted to be meaningful.

Of course, my connection is not great: 33.6k baud; but it always works Ok in the other client. Why can't I get a Download to receive, and why aren't the Status & Progress messages meaningful?

Yes, I agree there's something strange about Mactella's progress bars. They seem to show random sizes, especially after a download or upload is done.

When I recieve files by push request, looking at the progressbar they never seem to finish loading but often when I look into my download folder the whole file is there anyway! Be sure to look there from time to time.

But you seem to be very unlucky, never to be able to download. Maybe it's because of your slow connection.

-- Tor

Whoa! I got a partial, finally. I got 59 seconds of the Zappa tune "Trouble Every Day" in 1.5MB. Suddenly, there it was. What chaos, though. 'Wrong filename, wrong file, but a partial (I had clicked on "Zappa...Pygmy Twylyte") 'Couldn't 2bl-click it or use QT Player but got it to play in SoundApp.

When I tried to download another, it created a file in the Public Folder, as I viewed (wrong song/name again), and just as quickly deleted it! 'Never got another partial.

But then, when I queued up some Neil Young, hours later, Mactella overwrote and ruined that 1.5MB Zappa file, with a (GASP!) DIFFERENT song name "Zappa...!ny Vegetables" and increased the file size to 6.7MB and it can NOT be read by SoundApp... and it presumably contains Neil Young in it, uh, right?

Not enough space for long names and too the confusion multiplies.

"Search" always finds TONS of things I want in Mactella, problem is - I can't download any of them. Nope, not a one! I get the same thing - opening connection/ connected to (IP address)/ sending push request - then it sits there for literally hours. and hours. until I finally give up and go to sleep.

Not to mention what's with the new popup window for every single d/l attempt? my desktop is a mess whenever I use this program

Progress bar in Mactella is useless, it has no relation to reality. Too bad it's not more accurate like Limewire is. Lime's progress bar seems quite accurate to me.

I have a cable ISP and I still am unable to complete d/l's in Mactella, so I doubt the prob is your connection. I've been attempting to use Mactella over a month now. Limewire works just fine, and I get completed d/l's from lime regularly. Reading the board I see it's a fairly regular problem that's not addressed in the FAQ - hopefully someone has some answers to solve this?

Gnutella search and find hundred of files, but u mostly can't download any of them.
Limewire has max 6000 computers connected, so u can hardly get everything u want, but if u find what u search, u can download it very well.

We need a mix of those 2 softs !!

VOTE GNUTEL-WIRE

I so totally agree with you!

Most of the time I get d/l's OK in Limewire. but finding what you want is a lot harder - either the file's not available at all, or sometimes you have to settle for a text version, not a pdf document; or a lower bitrate of a song then you would have wanted.

I find most all I ever wanted to look for in Mactella, but to date I've only had 2 successful d/l's in a month. pretty crappy success rate - I mean, why even bother if you're just "teasing yourself" with finding great files you can't ever get d/l'ed?

I wish there was a better option for the Mac as well. *sighs*

I suggest you use Sputnix for downloading music. Sputnix is the accessory to the Audiogalaxy site, and works quite well when downloading, almost as good as Napster.

Thanks for the tip but, please make your replies a bit more detailed and helpful in the future.

1) it would have been nice if you included a link insted of assuming everyone knows where the "Sputnix" site is, and

2) "Download Sputnix 0.7B [requires Mac OS X 10.1]"
well, not everyone uses OSX, including me. so it's useless to me unless I upgrade my OS, and considering the hell by hubby has on his mac with X I'm never putting that crummy OS on my mac until it crashes a LOT less.
plus 80% of what I download is pdf or text, rarely music.

I say you should take his tip, wether it helps you or not, [edit]

oh, and OSX is quite awesome

Thanks for your "helpful" opinion, "Unregistered". LOL
FYI, My opinion is that OS X is a piece of junk and will be the death of Macs.