Shareaza causes network misbehavior

[grey-hame]

When Shareaza is running I get odd networking-related symptoms from other apps. Firefox randomly won't load pages until a link or refresh is banged on three or four times, though usually loads normally. Firefox also sometimes spontaneously acts as if "work offline" had been selected from the file menu, even though it hadn't. Thunderbird randomly won't fetch mail or newsgroups, then works again after waiting a while. Youtube videos pause randomly and need some prodding to resume. And so forth.

Shareaza version is 2.4.0.4 r8219 20091004. Vista home premium, with half-open patch, 3 megabit DSL (768Kb up), Linksys BEFSR41 and Speedstream 4200 between machine and internet (latter in bridge mode). The setup works fine for everything else but Shareaza seems to cause some sort of problem. The weird thing is, it only does it some of the time; everything can work fine for hours but then for hours the networking can be spazzing out every few minutes, and when Shareaza's causing this it also won't download much or reliably and search results are poor.

It is not Shareaza using up all the bandwidth and leaving none for Firefox and other applications: when this happens I'll generally see Shareaza using only a few KB/s down or up, since Shareaza itself is affected by whatever this is.

I do notice that performing searches seems to trigger it or make it worse, and having a lot of pending downloads seems to make it more likely to happen spontaneously and to make it worse.

I assume the bug is therefore in Shareaza's search logic somewhere.

In the meantime your website has severe bugs of its own. Since it was moved it has had a problem where, intermittently, when a page is requested your HTTP server serves a blank page with the background image only (so with a whitish bar across the top but no content). Reloading always worked, and it mainly affected thread list pages. But lately, it has become much, MUCH worse. Loading any page has about a 3 in 4 chance of doing this now, and it doesn't matter if it's the second or later attempt either, so one is forced to click a link, then click refresh three or four times typically, to load each page. Worse, this includes thread pages, and if it serves a blank page instead of the correct page it DOES mark everything "read", so when you reload it you can't see what's new and what's not and have to re-read EVERYTHING. Between that and having to click refresh repeatedly to load everything, using the site is suddenly EXCRUCIATINGLY SLOW AND FRUSTRATING.

You will therefore fix this problem immediately, and permanently. I can understand not being bothered and having higher priorities when it was only one in 10 or fewer page loads that this bug affected, but suddenly it's 3 in 4 or more and completely unacceptable. Move this to the front burner and get it resolved.

If it is a deliberate behavior in response to load, because fobbing someone off with a blank page uses less bandwidth than sending a proper web page, be advised that it will backfire and has backfired. People respond to the blank page by clicking reload, not simply accepting it and forgetting about viewing the page they wanted to view. As a result, the server has to send BOTH a blank page AND the correct page. Upping the odds to 3 in 4 just results in the server serving THREE blank pages plus the correct page, on average. Which uses up MORE bandwidth, drives the load HIGHER, and makes the blank-page thing respond by raising the ratio even more, which just ends up driving a vicious cycle. So if the blank-page thing IS intentional and some sort of load-limiting thing, it is the most monumentally STUPID such thing that I have EVER seen; whoever thought it up ought to be fired post-haste for not thinking things through and for leaping to a user-hostile solution to a problem as their first choice.

If you want to reduce bandwidth load on your servers, do the following:

1. Get rid of the blank-page thing, whether it's intentional or just a bug. Whichever it is it has the effects described.

2. Get rid of whatever stupid Javascript forces the browser to reload every goddamn page every goddamn time it's viewed. I assume this was done to ensure users always see an up to date thread list and an up to date view of a thread, but the end result is to both annoy users and waste bandwidth re-serving unchanged pages. Users with slow or flaky connections are especially affected, but everyone is annoyed when the "back" button does not produce instant results. "Back" is supposed to be instant. Users here will generally be techy enough to know they can manually click refresh to make sure a view is up to date.

3. Consider getting rid of https except for login. There's really no need to encrypt every forum page-view and every post to public forums; the only sensitive data here are users' passwords. Using https bloats the network traffic, since the ciphertext tends to be bigger than the plaintext, and requires additional bandwidth for key exchange and similar bookkeeping, none of which is necessary except when the user submits their password at the login form. Only the page loaded BY the login form's submit button actually requires SSL.

[ocexyz]

You just use very old version. First of all get and use actual version of 2.4.0.4 which is to my knowledge r8257, and let us know if there is still this problem. Most probably this is solved already. I would recommend to check once a week if there is a newer version of debug build.

[grey-hame]

I am using 2.4.0.4.

[ocexyz]

[grey-hame]

No other network using app causes this, including other p2p apps (Limewire, for one) that should have similar patterns of network activity and should therefore stress the modem and router and OS similarly.

I can't update anything right now because I have a tens-of-gigabytes torrent downloading and apparently updating to a later 2.4.0.4 rsomething can lose all your download progress. I can't easily back up something that huge either.

[cyko_01]

regarding the blank pages and https, this is sourceforge's problem and we have no control over these things. It is a bug that they need to iron out and I can assure you that they would not do something like that intentionally.

the network problem could be due to shareaza overloading your router or consuming all your bandwidth. try throttling shareaza when you want to do web browsing using the traffic monitor (the little scrolling graph thing with the red arrow). it is also possible that your internet provider does not allow torrent and is disconnecting you (all the time or during peak usage times) by resetting your connection (which would cause pages to not load)

[ocexyz]

Sorry but red arrow or triangle on traffic monitor does not work (unmoveable), so you should do it by limiting bandwidth in settings>connection.
Update when you will want and be able. Now 2.4.0.4 is in r.8261, so I always suggest to check for updates at last once a week.

[grey-hame]

It isn't bittorrent that causes the network to spaz out, it's searching. Is it possible that one of the Gnutella2.Queryxxx settings will alleviate this, if it's too much search traffic or something that causes it?

As for the blank-page thing, I don't care whose fault it is; I just want it fixed immediately. Perhaps instead of pointing the finger of blame around, someone should simply investigate and fix it?

Immediately. This time it caused goddamn data loss. I had to write this f*@!ing post twice because of your site's stupid bug! The first time, I hit "submit" and it gave me the blank page treatment, and the post did not actually post. Worse, the form contents were not preserved when I hit "back". Firefox normally always remembers form contents, but this time it mysteriously failed to do so! Presumably you have a script on the post-form page that blanks the form oh-so-helpfully on page load. Get rid of it immediately so that other users bitten by your stupid blank-page bug will actually be able to hit back and then submit again to retry their post WITHOUT having to type the f*#!ing thing in again from scratch!!

I will not tolerate being subjected to data loss. If it happens again, I will delete my bookmark for your broken web-site and I will delete your broken software and I will go elsewhere, AND I will begin to recommend against both site and software to others. I hope I have made myself perfectly clear. The script that blanks the form on page load will be gone in 24 hours and the blank-page bug will be gone in 7 days or else.

[cyko_01]

[ocexyz]

[grey-hame]

Again, I don't particularly care whose fault it is; I simply want it fixed. If you people are internally divided into a group that posts here and a separate group that can fix the problem, rather than being unified, that's not my problem -- it's yours. The two groups should have some line of communication; I suggest you use it.

In the meantime I don't suppose anyone could tell me more about what the Gnutella2.Queryxxx settings do, in some detail? Google turns up very little, especially after excluding foreign-language pages.

[old_death]

For your second question, visit the #Shareaza-dev channel on P2PChat (IRC), ask your question and wait 2 or 3 hours. or simply check our Wiki

The reason for parts of your problem is certainly that you misconfigured your Shareaza.

Additionally, I must add that all malfunction on your internet when visiting SourceForge HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SHAREAZA, as the problems you are experiencing are problems on the SourceForge web server, which we (and none of our development team) can neither access nor influence or solve.

[grey-hame]

If a Google search drew a blank, I expect the wiki to be useless since presumably it's one of the places Google looked.

As for "misconfigured", it's as installed except for setting the up-speed (50KB), down-speed (300KB), and changing the port to a random number. Connection test passes (manual port forward) and my actual network connection has somewhat faster speeds than the ones I configured in Shareaza. So, as far as I am aware all should be in working order; if something is misconfigured it must be that that something's DEFAULT is a poor choice. If you have any specific information about something like that, I'd appreciate a less vague statement as to what it is.

On the topic of the forum's misbehaving, I hold the admin/moderators of a forum responsible for bugs in the forum's software. It is not my concern how they got the forum hosted or how much control they have over the hosting agency; that is their problem. How to fix problems with the forum is also their problem (i.e., it's your problem), whether by fixing it yourself, getting a better host, lighting a fire under your host's technical support's a$$, or whatever. I really couldn't care less as long as you get it fixed, and I really shouldn't have to care either. If your forum has bugs, then it's your responsibility to do something about it. Telling your end-users a bunch of irrelevant stuff about your relationship with the company hosting your forum's servers is pointless. Your end-users certainly can't do anything about it, other than complain to you that something's broken and wait for YOU to take action. And when the only action you take is to whine back at them that you can't/won't/don't know how to fix it, that does not reflect well on you, especially not when the forum in question IS THE TECHNICAL SUPPORT FORUM FOR SOME SOFTWARE YOU WROTE. If you can't even keep the support forum running smoothly, that does not engender much confidence that you can fix problems with the software itself!

[old_death]

[ocexyz]

[grey-hame]

1. I am not acting like a 5-year-old. I am simply pointing out that the operators of a forum are responsible for that forum's performance and stability. Whether they self-host or not, if not where they get hosting, and how much influence they have over the webhost are all irrelevant from an end-user's perspective. The forum either runs smoothly or it does not, and if it does not, the forum admin/moderators will get the complaints. How they act on those complaints will depend on the specifics of their hosting situation and on the technical details of the problem, but again, not the end-user's concern. However, if the host has a serious technical problem and refuses to fix it, finding better hosting is the standard remedy.

2. I don't have "random port" set; I have a fixed port set, but I put in a randomish number instead of leaving it as 6346, and copied that same number into the router settings. Connection test passes.

3. There's a 2.5.0.0? I didn't see any announcement. Link to release notes?

4. I am "behaving and being nice". I am not the one insinuating personal insults regarding other users of the forum here. You are.

[ocexyz]

[grey-hame]

I found a download link, but no release notes.

I did give detailed system specs in earlier posts.

[ocexyz]

[grey-hame]

Link is broken.

I have not upgraded to 2.5.0.0. That torrent hasn't finished yet (it's gonna take days still) and I'm not about to risk it getting screwed up by an update, as explained in an earlier post.

[ocexyz]

[old_death]

[grey-hame]

[old_death]

Because this has been posted in the mod team area. You can access the information on the following Wiki page:
https://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/ ... _changelog

[grey-hame]

The link was posted to this thread. Assuming the guy who posted it here wasn't a complete idiot, that would mean that typical people reading this thread should be able to view it. Which would in turn mean that I'd been singled out to be denied access, about which an indignant response is 100% justified.

In fact it's justified anyway. I do not appreciate asking a question, getting a response in the form of a link, and finding that the link is "booby-trapped" and delivers a virtual slap on the face when followed. That's either a deliberate insult, a poorly-thought-out prank, or the result of a hostile, unprovoked revocation of privilege, and all of those alternatives deserve censure.

Furthermore, what is this site doing restricting access to view (as opposed to post) some things??

And is there some reason why the main/download page does not link to a human-readable list of changes whenever there's a new version? People might like to know what they'd be getting before deciding whether to risk an upgrade or not.

[ocexyz]

[ocexyz]

[kevogod]

I will add a link to the changelogs on the main download page.

Please stay on topic as well.

[ocexyz]

[kevogod]