Troubleshoot.CantConnect

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Introduction

You probably came here because you can't get Shareaza to connect to some or any of the networks, right? This guide will try to solve all common connection problems, please read and follow the instructions carefully.

If you have troubles following the instructions here, make sure you don't have any skins enabled. You can disable skins by opening the Tools menu and selecting Shareaza Settings, then on the left panel, select Skins and disable all the skins on the right side. Also, you might wish to switch to normal mode, which may cause less confusion. If you're not in normal mode you can switch your mode in the View menu, by selecting Normal Mode.

Which network is not connected?

Use the latest version of Shareaza

Please, use the latest version of Shareaza, which can always be downloaded on the Shareaza download page. At the time of this writing, the current version is 2.2.5.0. If you have any older version than this, download and install the newest one and try to connect again. Older versions might be missing features used in this guide. To know which version you have, click on About Shareaza... from the Help menu.

Installing over an existing version might preserve settings, unfinished downloads, and search windows etc. but some problems can be solved by uninstalling the old version first! Important: Unfinished downloads might become orphans in a different folder! So try the other methods further down first before you lose all pending downloads and customized settings (i.e. your shared folders, security settings etc.).

Using XP Service Pack 2 (or similar environment)

Windows XP Service Pack 2 (or similar environment) limits the number of concurrent half-open connections to a maximum of 10. This reduces the performances of Shareaza. You could use this patch to increase this number. Afterwards, you can change some settings in Shareaza to reflect that your computer can now initiate more connections at once. See XPSP2ProbsTweaks. Shareaza should still work okay without this change in your system settings though.

Enable the networks you wish to connect to

Shareaza has support for three different networks, which are Gnutella2, Gnutella and eDonkey2000. Shareaza also supports BitTorrent, which is not covered by this guide, as it does not have a permanent connection to a network, like the other three networks.

Open the Network menu and then open the Choose Networks submenu. There will be three entries named "Connect to Gnutella2", "Connect to eDonkey2000" and "Connect to Gnutella1". A tick near an entry means that this network is enabled; if the tick is missing, this network is disabled. Now make sure the networks you wish to connect to are enabled. You can enable/disable them by selecting the corresponding menu entry.

Check if Shareaza is connected

Now go to the Home tab, by clicking on the Home button located on the left of the navigation bar. (Note: If you messed with the navigation bar and now it is missing, you can select Home from the View menu or hit Ctrl+H.) The Home tab has a blue panel on the left side, which contains four boxes, the third one is called Connection. In this box, all the networks you have enabled are listed up, together with their connection status. (Note: If you can't see the connection status, then the box is probably collapsed. You can expand and collapse the four boxes by clicking on their title. Expand the Connection box.) This box looks something like this:

File:Connect Pic.jpg

This picture shows a user connected to all of Shareaza's P2P networks. If you see the word "Connected" beside all P2P networks that you wish to connect to, you are connected perfectly. If you see "2 Hubs" or "3 Hubs" beside Gnutella2 instead of "Connected", you are also fine. However, if you see "Disconnected" or "Connecting..." beside any of these, then you are not connected yet to that network. Read on.