Clarification needed (patches and peer caches)

[Cobra]

I am not new to using WinMX, but since a recent discovery I am confused. I do not always tinker well. I just like for things to work. I am also not entirely sure about terminology, so sorry if I am confusing.

During the resurrection last year which I read on a news page, I think the link there sent me to this site. I downloaded a file to get WinMX working again. This site seems familiar because I remember thinking the Cache Status page was cool. Months later I was not able to connect for a day or two so I thought I might need a new patch but did not know where I had gone originally. My first idea was to go back to winmx.com and the link there led me to mxpie.info where I got a new patch and WinMX was running again. I thought I was visiting the same site as before and it had been redesigned. (I did not know there were two.) I am using version 3.31. If there are any great benefits to upgrading as answers to my questions below, then I may consider getting a newer version.

This leads to my questions.

1. Are the two sites in competition with each other?
2. Does each site/patch use a different set of servers?
3. Does this mean if I switch back over to your patch again I lose anyone I currently keep in contact with for downloads unless they switch too? I do not use the chat rooms if that matters.
4. What is/are good reasons why I should change back to this patch (real reasons, not just "We are better" haha)?
5. I have always manually added the hosts files so I will know exactly what I am changing. Your site seems to do all updates with installers now. What if I wanted to switch back to the other site again? How would I remove what I have done patch-wise here?
6. I read somewhere recently about a WinMX search accelerator. Can anyone tell me about this?
7. What do the different errors mean? ("file mismatch", "Incomplete file bytes already downloaded", etc)
8. Can WinMX be used to search for usernames possibly allowing wildcards?
9. Why, sometimes, do I click on someone with "__ of __ available" and they come up as "Busy" throwing me high into a queue?
10. What exactly are peer caches?

I am sorry if not all of these were meant to be asked here. Asking them all at once seemed like a good idea. I am also not here to sling mud about one site or the other so please do not take it as that. Thank you for all of your help.

[SamSeeSam]

1. Are the two sites in competition with each other?
2. Does each site/patch use a different set of servers?
3. Does this mean if I switch back over to your patch again I lose anyone I currently keep in contact with for downloads unless they switch too? I do not use the chat rooms if that matters.
4. What is/are good reasons why I should change back to this patch (real reasons, not just "We are better" haha)?
5. I have always manually added the hosts files so I will know exactly what I am changing. Your site seems to do all updates with installers now. What if I wanted to switch back to the other site again? How would I remove what I have done patch-wise here?
6. I read somewhere recently about a WinMX search accelerator. Can anyone tell me about this?
7. What do the different errors mean? ("file mismatch", "Incomplete file bytes already downloaded", etc)
8. Can WinMX be used to search for usernames possibly allowing wildcards?
9. Why, sometimes, do I click on someone with "__ of __ available" and they come up as "Busy" throwing me high into a queue?
10. What exactly are peer caches?

You can ask anything and you wil get answers.
One by one:
Vladd44 and winmxworld are not friends.WHY?
Read theswe links and it will tell you why:
https://forum.winmxworld.com/index.php?topic=3630.0.html
https://forum.winmxworld.com/index.php?topic=3397.0.html
https://forum.winmxworld.com/index.php?topic=3513.0.html
https://forum.winmxworld.com/index.php?topic=3215.0.html

Vladd has lied to users
Kept them away from a good patch
Constantly accused winmxworld of doing things that we have not...

2.> The pie patch uses one peercache.
Winmxworld has 8 of them What this means is that if one cache goes offline suddenly, then you will not experience any problems connecting
https://forum.winmxworld.com/index.php?topic=3580.0.html
^^^^^^ The pie cache failed. A thread related to that

3.> Never, you can still connect to anyone and go anywhere in winmx. Even now, you can still conected to winmx only, there is only one winmx network and there will be only one.

4.>
OUr patch is better
Why?
Please visit this link. It has listed all the benefits and advantages:
https://forum.winmxworld.com/index.php?topic=3598.msg21680#msg21680

5.>The Ip's of the flooders keep changing dynamicially. Hence it is not possible to keep updating the Ip's from the site every five minutes. The dll downloads the list of the flooder Ip's which are filtered and thus blocks them. The dl updates every five minutes and thus makes sure that you don't see a single flooder.

6.> This accelerator, Quickmx is very harmful for winmx. It will keep sending out many searches and thus crash the primaries it is connected to due to excessive bandwidth cosumption. Pleaserefrain from using it and dissuade other from using it as well.

7.>Visit this link:
https://forum.winmxworld.com/index.php?topic=37.0.html

8.> No, winmx cannot search for usernames.

9.> Some people use a hack to misreport the status of their queue and create problems for others...The solution?
Ignore them

10.> Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinMX

Sorry my post is littered with links, the things you have asked are satisfactorily explained there. Any problems and you can ask here.

Cheers

[Cobra]

Thank you for the reply. I did not mind all of the link-pointing and reading. I like long answers that give all of the details I may need over short ones that still leave me confused.

For #1: I know you keep up with this a lot more than I, but looking on the other site just now I saw this link just in case it has not been noticed yet, true or not, in case you want to spread the log around: http://cranialsoup.blogspot.com/2006/11/sad-end-of-era.html (chatlog at the bottom)

For #3: The answer shows just how little I understand. Since reading and assuming this was a battle between two groups, I assumed each patch acted like two different chatrooms using the same software. Use one patch and it is like entering a chatroom for this site, use the other and you enter a different chatroom for the other site, each with its own separate users that share files. But I was wrong. This same answer basically answer #5, I believe, in a way I was not expecting.

For #5: Flooder? Those are the fake files, right?

For #6: Fine with me. Since I have been fine so far not using it, there is no harm continuing to not use it. I had no idea what it was and was curious.

For #9: A funny thing about that, it does not usually work for me. It MAY block them from showing up as results of a search, but I don't think it blocks them when finding sources for a file sitting in my Transfers. Maybe I am wrong though.

Again, thank you for answering my tedious questions.

[SamSeeSam]

I will say:
Use the winmxworld patch. It's the best patch currently avaiable.
If you don't like, you can always uninstall the patch.
For the best results, I'll recommend that you use winmx 3.54 beta 4.

If you are on primary, then it is all the more important, as the secondaries connected to you will also be affected. You also allow RIAA flooders to connect to you and harm still more users and other primaries.

Cheers

[Me Here]

Hi Cobra,

Hope no one minds if I jump in here and offer my thoughts..

As for #1, well frankly I don't know.. and don't care.  No matter what Vladd does or doesn't do in respect to leaving MX or not, will have no effect on MX itself.  He has nether programmed or written anything useful in helping MX, he doesn't actually run any caches to allow folks to connect and doesn't even host his own rooms so that is pretty much only going to effect anyone that is still friends with him.  If anything he has harmed this network with his poor decsions and his intent on creating a divide with the two groups over old matters he has with KM.

Point #3, Here's the deal in a nutshell.  There are two connection methods and thus two groups promoting said methods.  Our method has evolved into something more and theirs is still a simple hosts file that has some issues we feel pretty strongly about here.  The idea however, is that both will connect you to the same WinMX Peer Network and so as far as two groups, two worlds .. that's not exactly the case.

point #5 Flooders are not just a problem for you.  Its easy enough to think they are just some fake files.. that is not where the damage lies and I would ask that you read one more link for me if you get a chance or two:
https://www.winmxworld.com/tutorials/fake_file_info.html
and if you get time
https://www.winmxworld.com/tutorials/filtering_fakes.html

That said I think Sam has given you our general opinion here about the patch, and why, IF you really cant bring yourself to use the WinMX Group patch then I would suggest you do two things.  Because we are still in a fight for the life of this Network and folks that don't take this 'fake file flooding' seriously are helping them to do so.  So

First this is since your familiar with your hosts file.. add in some WinMX Group Cache IPs, this process is not that hard to do, except for the fact that for protection and stability often those caches change IP address so keep an eye on this page:
https://www.winmxgroup.com/check2.php        <<<<     add these when needed to ensure if the Single cache listed in the hosts file fails you can still connect.
Second is to use Peerguardian at all times when your using WinMx as a primary, Peerguardian have added all the WinMX Peer Caches to their blocklists and this is a whole nother story but in short (essensually, this would block everyone from connecting without adding the Allow list mentioned below, and thats only if you use thier default lists).  In order to ensure your protecting yourself and others follow the instructions here to add the Block List and the Allow List: (many people use only the Block list here and that's ok too)
https://www.winmxworld.com/tutorials/peerguardian.html
https://www.winmxworld.com/tutorials/block_the_riaa.html

I wont touch the QuickMX issue as I feel Sam has summed that up well..

Point #9, Our Patch does in fact block from the transfers screen in the finding sources aspect, however, the point I want to make here is that the files we are talking about are not just mislabeled files or files that are not working for some fairly innocent reason.  You will see when you read the first two links I posted to you that these files are 'fake' in the truest sense of the word.  Because they will never download and never find real sources having them in your incompletes lined up to 'find sources' can cause many problems with your WinMX including but not limited to, unexplained crashes of the system and error messages.  So the idea, is to block them before you find them to avoid this problem.

One thing you will find Here Cobra, I hope, is that we are willing to answer any questions you have to the best of our ability, anything mentioned that is not completely clear to you just say so.  We deal with long time users and new users here and educating you on the use of WinMX is our primary goal so ask anything you like.

[Cobra]

I decided to sign up instead of continuing to send Guest messages, even if this one ends up being my last. Is that enough proof that the two of you have convinced me?

I just realized that the link in the answer to my 7th question contained many of the errors, but did not contain the one I was looking for. Thanks anyway for the attempt.

My main concern always was losing the people I regularly download from thinking that by using a different patch it would be sending me to a different place. Thank you both for clearing that up. Knowing that, I installed the patch only version and the first and most obvious thing that I noticed was I connected in two seconds instead of two minutes. With a bit of searching and my weak attempt at testing it is obvious this is a much better patch.

I am using a secondary connection because my Internet crawls along slower than a snail in mud. People hate downloading from me! Haha. I did not want to lose the people I download from regularly because they know who I am and some of them have files I do not see anywhere else when doing even an Alternates search. I have to resume large files many times over days to complete a download.

I guess that my next step is to read through many of the tutorials that have been created here. If they are as helpful as you two have been, I will discover things I never expected to learn about this program.

Thanks again.

[Me Here]

Thats excellant news Cobra, as always if you need anything do just post and we will do our best to help you out.. and thanks for being a concerned WinMX community member 

[SamSeeSam]

I just realized that the link in the answer to my 7th question contained many of the errors, but did not contain the one I was looking for. Thanks anyway for the attempt.

What error number is it?
If it's a new one then it can be included for future reference by others.

Cheers

[Cobra]

Sam, I'm using 3.31, so it cannot be that new! The error is "Incomplete file bytes already downloaded" or very similar.

I think it only happens when trying to resume a download. I assume it means the person I am downloading from has an incomplete file and I have more of the file than that person. (If I have more, then they have nothing I can download.) But I thought someone else would know for sure. I have done searches in the past with no answer.

[Me Here]

Cobra you are correct.  That is exactly what that error means

Simply you have exceeded the among of bytes the source has and it can no long get any more from them.

I'll be sure to add it to the section tho as its not something you normally see much of so an answer may help someone else.. thanks

[SamSeeSam]

Best then keep searching until you find a source with the full file.
Someone will come by.... sometime

Cheers