Shareaza

I did a G2 search for images with a particular query and promptly got five hits for partially-downloaded files I already have. Previewing the partials shows them to be legit (not spam/flooding).

The hits were all on the same source, which showed as Shareaza 2.5.3.0 and with three green checks.

The files did not promptly start downloading. In fact, using filter->all sources and manually right clicking and "access"ing produced a long period of "Connecting" followed by a countdown timer before retry that was unreasonably huge (over 1400 minutes?! That's more than half a day).

What we have here is a source that is non-busy, non-firewalled, and didn't only just come online, which claims to have the file and responded very promptly to a query matching the file, and which times out on trying to connect.

Something's wrong with this picture.

Either the self-reported status of the host is wrong,in which case Shareaza 2.5.3.0 is to blame (unless it's outright lying about being Shareaza 2.5.3.0, but since the file isn't spam that's highly unlikely), or something is wrong at my end, which is also running Shareaza 2.5.3.0. The behavior is consistent and the search itself worked, and other things are downloading, so it's not a problem with my internet connection or operating system. If it's a problem with the remote source's, how come I can consistently get it to return query hits for this file but it consistently times out when actually contacted to request a chunk? How come it doesn't show as "unstable"?

I don't see any interpretation of this case that doesn't involve a bug in 2.5.3.0 somewhere, in either G2 uploads, G2 status reporting with query hits, or G2 downloads.

Quite sure. I've got one like that right now; I grabbed a set of PDFs the other week and all but four of them downloaded. For whatever reason those four have been languishing ever since though they all had the same source in common. I just checked one of them and saw:

1401:13
1401:12
1401:11

etc. at one-second intervals.

It really really doesn't like to keep trying sources that time out, for some reason (though it's worse with push sources, which it forgets if they time out even with downloads.neverdrop true!) The problem is, that covers most sources, because most (unlike me) seem to be online only intermittently.

Ah, if you have neverdrop = true, that might be the reason: each time Shareaza fails to access a source, the waiting time doubles until that source is tried again. If it reaches a certain length, the source starves, which means Shareaza drops it because it is apparently unreachable. This is not the case however, if you have set the neverdrop option. So your waiting times will get bigger and bigger if a source does not respond.

No, it's only logical from the point of view of the network implementation.

It makes sense waiting longer and longer: if someone hasn't been online after a certain amount of time, it's more probable that he will be online after the double amount of time than after the same amount of time. (Has to do something with statistical analysis of the online behaviour of computers on the network; very complicated. ) Note that we're talking about statistical averages here: what is good for the entire network might not be the best solution for your special case, that's a fact we can't change, nor we do deny it.

BTW, the neverdrop option has never been intended to be used as a default. It has been intended to be used in rare occasions for people who have a very unstable internet connection and very low online time per day.

This would have been true if the other computer didn't have a 6 and a 3 hours interval previously. Also, normally a source is dropped when the interval becomes longer than a certain amount of time, which means searches at regular intervals would have been done for your computer in the meantime, enabling the other party to find back your PC again.

Pending (1 source) changes to Searching (1 source) after a while anyway.

...which is only a cosmetic GUI change anyway.

Are you claiming it's lying?

No, I am not. I'm only telling you that while being in that status (Pending/Searching; this in one status, you will see Shareaza switch between both at a fixed interval), it doesn't search all the time it displays searching.

I know. I meant if it was just Pending before, it will change to Pending/Searching eventually. (It seems to take a few hours, and to depend on how many sources it already knows.)