wierd connection -- how WinMX works ?

[John Lin]

Hi, I am new to WinMX. There is one wierd connection status I saw today. At the beginning the connection is in good shape. Files I want to download que in order. With trade to peers on net I manage to download 8 files together. The network seemed very active. Ques stacked by source find automatically. Suddenly the connection halted (no more transfer). I checked connection by WWW, web pages worked fine. Therefore I exit WinMX and reopen it with no change of settings. This time connection worked. However I could never find anyone of my peer in the following 3 hours even I search " for alternative", none people on the net did I recognize. The net was very sloppy(slow in download). Why is that? Thanks all for any insight !!

[Passer]

Are you connected as a Secondary? If so, and your Primary goes offline, I think it goes very quiet while your client software looks for another Primary. If you don't get one soon, your DLs can time out. If you reconnect at this point, after the timeouts, you will come back into the network at a different location (easiest way to descibe it), and the Primary to which you link may not have routing to the part of the network in which you were earlier. The same if you exit and reopen. This can make it virtually impossible to relocate users and files which were accessible before.
If it happens again, and I seem to recall it happening to me fairly often when I connected as Secondary, I found the easiest way to retain links to other users was to Hotlist them, and relocate them and their files using the Whois.
I have some regular DL'ers who get timed out by their ISP every couple of hours. When they drop out, I lose the ability to contact them through the Whois, though they, through their reconnected session, retain a link to me. This is because my username remains unchanged, and still in their Hotlist, while their name is changed, through a new appended number-set. So the onus is on them to reestablish with me, and my files. Once they reconnect to me, or recontact me, the link is two way again. Sounds a bit confusing, but you get the hang of it! Oh, and don't forget that if you exit the program, you clear the Hotlist.

[John Lin]

Originally posted by Passer
Are you connected as a Secondary? If so, and your Primary goes offline, I think it goes very quiet while your client software looks for another Primary. If you don't get one soon, your DLs can time out. If you reconnect at this point, after the timeouts, you will come back into the network at a different location ......Once they reconnect to me, or recontact me, the link is two way again. Sounds a bit confusing, but you get the hang of it! Oh, and don't forget that if you exit the program, you clear the Hotlist.
Thanks Passer.
I am a Secondary user. Your post explains how impossible one reconnect the prior peer group once his/her PC is reboot. If only WinMX makes Hotlist permanent (at lease to the next launch of WinMX) or adds "peer search" function, the reconnection would become much easier, isn't it. BTW, one can set different area to have the "cache" locate by setting "peer network. What is the difference if I set "North America" from "Asia". Will I end up with meeting 2 peer groups repectively? Or just a matter of dl/ul speed?

[Passer]

Hi John -
I don't think that Frontcode will ever provide a Permanent Hotlist, as your userID changes each time you log in, due to the added numbers at the end. This protects Frontcode from being accused by anyone, such as the RIAA, of providing the functionality to establish a managed or manageable network. The Hotlist link only remains while at least one of the parties is online. This also means that a "peer search" function is unlikely.

As regards which location you choose, I'm not really sure. There's certainly no chance of you meeting 2 peer groups, as there is only one! I find that if I connect to Europe, I get a higher percentage of non-English users than if I connect to North America. However, as I can choose to connect wherever I want, I guess that so can everyone else! I presume that initially you get into the network through a server that is comparatively "local" to your physical location, and that as your links go up and down, there is some sort of programmed bias towards your selected peer cache, but I'm not really sure, as I said. Perhaps one of the more knowledgable forum members could help out here.

For general information, you might like to visit :
http:\winmxinfo.cjb.net
where there is a very informative section on the network, though it is sadly unfinished (are you out there, Mr Buchanan?).

[Galileo]

In WINMX, Opennap users are permanent on the HOTLIST.

It's only the WPN users that are temporary.

In addition, opennap users on the hotlist turn green when they are ONLINE, and turn red when they sign off, so you can tell when someone is online or offline.