Author Topic: All of primary connection working except searches (Read 3623 times)

Sulfras · « **on:** April 26, 2006, 01:17:55 am »

I got a cable internet connection today.

Prior to this, I was using dial-up, and therefore using a secondary connection.

I'd like to use a primary connection now, but I'm having some trouble.

I can connect to the network just fine. Uploads and downloads work great. Queuing files is fine.

But I can't get search results for the life of me. Even popular searches aren't coming back with more than 30 or so hits.

WinMX version = 3.53
Firewall = ZoneAlarm (free edition)
Operating system = Windows XP (WinXP firewall disabled)
Add-ons = MXMonitor
Modem = Motorola SB4200 SURFboard

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Sulfras · « **Reply #1 on:** April 26, 2006, 01:20:47 am »

I should add this:

Primaries = 7 or 8, on average
Secondaries = 15-20, on average
Searches per minute = around 12000

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #2 on:** April 26, 2006, 04:50:16 am »

Well the primary & secondary count look good.. you may be one of the unfortunate users for whom ZoneAlarm refuses to play nicely with winmx.. if all works with it breifly shut down (not just set to allow all, unloaded) then the cure is a different firewall Sygate is good & i've not heard complaints about Kerio either..

If you have Norton AV it's also worth checking the "Internet Worm Protection" is set to specifiucally allow winmx, it pops up once with the default choice as block...

Sulfras · « **Reply #3 on:** April 26, 2006, 11:33:02 am »

I've shut down Zone Alarm and installed Sygate, following the set-up instructions here.

This improved searches, but killed downloads and uploads entirely. Every download either failed to connect, or disconnected before any data transferred. And no one was queued to download off of me. While that could just mean the files have were unattractive to the people I was able to connect with, past experience tells me it's far more likely that they were unable to queue up - there's usually quite a few waiting, even when I had dial-up. Also, there were no secondaries, and my searches per minute dropped down to under 1000.

As a result of the above, I've shut down Sygate as well. The upside is that WinMX is running beautifully (P=12, S=18, SPM=14782 with little to no fluctuation). The downside is that I'm now running no firewall. I trust my antivirus programs, but I don't like them being my first line of defense.

KM · « **Reply #4 on:** April 26, 2006, 12:57:55 pm »

i haven't used a firewall since... well, actually since i started using the internet all those years ago - all a firewall does is block connections to programs already running on your computer, if it isn't running it won't accept any connections, if it is running then it means you ran it - and if you ran it you probably want it to be able to use the internet

Sulfras · « **Reply #5 on:** April 26, 2006, 01:40:45 pm »

One reason that I need a firewall is that there are a number of programs running on my computer that can't be trusted without one. They tend to attempt to connect to the internet when absolutely nothing about them has anything to do with accessing the internet.

The other reason is that my brother occassionally "borrows" my computer when I'm not home in order to chat with people online. He tends to make people very angry very quickly, which is how is computer died - someone sent him a virus over chat that destroyed several components.

Because of this, I'm very uncomfortable with not having a firewall running.

Neutron · « **Reply #6 on:** April 26, 2006, 01:44:12 pm »

When you search or load the roomlist on primary, the results you receive back come as loads of UDP packets from different IPs, and some firewalls may detect this as an attack, and block any UDP packets coming to you. You may get a few results before the firewall kicks in and defines it as an attack. If you take a look through your firewall's log files, see if it has any warnings about this.
Also you can try changing the ports you use for UDP packets, as some ISPs mess up the default ports of p2p applications to stop the use of p2p.
That's all I can think of.

Sulfras · « **Reply #7 on:** April 26, 2006, 01:54:54 pm »

I don't think that changing the UDP ports will help, because it's demonstrably not the ISP causing it - when not running a firewall, everything works fine.

ZoneAlarm's log did show UDP packets being blocked.

Does anyone know if there's a setting somewhere in either ZoneAlarm or Sygate (or another firewall, if you know of a good free one) that would allow UDP packets so that WinMX can function correctly?

Bearded Blunder · « **Reply #8 on:** April 26, 2006, 08:48:04 pm »

you can make an advanced rule in sygate to allow winmx to connect to/from all ip addresses on all ports & protocols (simplest rule to set up to fix this), that should get you running, or you could just use XP's built in firewall instructins for the xp firewall also link from the firewalls tutorial page.

Sulfras · « **Reply #9 on:** April 27, 2006, 02:19:07 am »

Quote from: Bearded Blunder on April 26, 2006, 08:48:04 pm

you can make an advanced rule in sygate to allow winmx to connect to/from all ip addresses on all ports & protocols (simplest rule to set up to fix this)

Thanks much! That works great - all downloads/uploads are running, searches are running, and secondaries are connecting just fine.