What does pending mean?

[mrburns]

Hi,

Im very new to file sharing and have been recommended shareaza for downloading movies and music. Also, because it downloads bittorrents (which I told is a good thing ).

Yesterday when I was downloading it was flying but after I switched my machine off, then back on (a few hours later) and left it downloading through the night all the downloads that were flying earlier hadnt budged and they all just said 'pending'. I have tried leaving it running for a few hours today and its just the same.

Can anybody clarify what pending means (well, in relation to shareaza ) and why, once interupted, the downloads decide to stop? Cheers

Martyn

[jlh]

Usually, 'Pending' means that all sources you have for this download are unusable to Shareaza at this time (with exceptions). The following reasons are possible for a source to be unusable:

• The source can't be connected to, probably because that user has shut down his client.
• The source can be connected to, but doesn't have any parts of the file that you don't already have as well.
• The source has parts you could use, but is so busy that it can't even put you in a queue.
• There are too many source connections already (so not necessarily unuseable). If you want Shareaza to make more connections, adjust the settings in Internet > Downloads, but be sure your router will be ok with it.

Shareaza will automatically retry such sources after a while. As you might guess now, having only few sources makes it much more likely to get a 'Pending' status, while it's less likely with many sources. A reason for only having few sources might be that you are firewalled. Any router or firewall (including WinXP built-in firewall) must be configured for Shareaza.

Further informations about this and many other subjects can be obtained from the Shareaza Wiki. (If it doesn't load, try this link.) There are many useful sections there. If you can't find your (past, present or future) problems there, then you can try searching on the Shareaza Forums, which as answers to thousands of questions. (No registration required to read and search.) (Note that the forums are down at the time I write this, but are likely to be up again soon.)

And finally some links from the wiki that you might be interested in:

Make sure all the networks are connected - Connection Guide
Make sure your firewall/router is configured for Shareaza - FAQ: Firewall/Routers
Make the connection test to be sure the port configuration is ok - Test your Firewall/Router
Further tips - Optimize Downloads

[mrburns]

Hi,

Thanks alot for the help, thats a lot of info you've given me.

I made a start on the connection test and when I was I clicked connect to edonkey2000. As soon as I clicked that all my downloads started. This is great but how do I ensure that if Shareaza starts when windows start it automatically connects to edonkey2k? I have tried going in settings and checking 'automatically start with each session' but I still have to go in and manually connect. The reason I ask is not because I am ultra lazy but if someone else uses the computer, when shareaza starts automatically, it will connect and download properly.

Any ideas? Cheers

Martyn

[jlh]

These two options must be enabled:
Settings > General > General > Auto-connect on Shareaza startup
Settings > General > General > Start Shareaza at Windows startup

Usually this will do it. But for connecting to eDonkey2000, Shareaza needs to know the IP and port of a eDonkey2000 server. Usually there are such hosts in the host cache (F8 to open it), but in some case (for example after freshly installing Shareaza), this cache is empty. In this case, Shareaza queries the discovery services (F9 to view them). You might want to add a new discovery service for eDonkey2000: Just hit F9 to open that window, right click and select to add a service. Enter http://www.edonkey2000.com/server.met and select 'Server.met URL' as type of service. Hopefully this will help that it will always connect successfully every time. Once connected, Shareaza automatically fills the host cache, improving chances to get connected next time.