WinMXGroup Beta Patch

[KM]

This has been posted in the hosts section but now after they've found a major bug and it's apparently fixed, time for public beta i think

The main feature is that it should now be able to automatically forward ports in many common routers without it needing to be done manually, unfortunately it doesn't work for all routers but any upnp compatible router (about 80% or so of users by best guesstimates) it should work. Only small flaw with upnp is that it is slow - blame microsoft for that (a protocol designed by microsoft... would hardly expect it to be fast) so can take up to about 10 seconds for the port forwarding to work depending on the router. I don't see that would be too much of a problem though, better than all those users who don't have ports forwarded correctly causing problems with file transfers... also take a lot of the work away from the help rooms where 90% of the users are there to get help forwarding ports

It also has an additional feature of faster channel listing on secondary by downloading the list from both your primary, and also from the winmxgroupserver at the same time (and combining the lists), however this one is disabled by default (I'm sure dialup users wouldn't be too happy with the default settings being to download the channel list twice...) and can be enabled in...

The final change is mainly to accommodate the upnp and the fast channel listing, both of those features it is essential that there be an on/off option (upnp needs some way to be disabled in case you want to do it manually and upnp gets in the way for example, and fast list is better off for dialup users) - in Settings there is a new page added labeled "Advanced Settings" - I wasn't sure what else to call it to make it fit in better (suggestions?), the aim is to try and keep it fitting in with the existing interface and not looking out of place.

Any bugs feel free to post here about them, if it doesn't do your router configuration for you then it's not a bug btw as not all routers support it, although it could perhaps be useful if the upnp works with another program but not with the patch (as it may point out a bug in my upnp implementation)

The biggest priority with it is of course that it not break anything at all, a new feature or improvement not being available for a small number of users isn't a major problem, but causing a load of users to be unable to use it because it breaks things would be major.

It also fixes a few small bugs (like the bug with opening media players from within winmx under windows 98 for example) - nothing major though

Also for the settings window you can make the following additions to the language.txt file:

02190Advanced Settings
20000uPnP allows WinMX to automatically configure compatible routers
20001Enable uPnP
20002uPnP allows WinMX to automatically forward ports in compatible NAT Routers, This makes initial setup significantly simpler as it avoids manual configuration.
20003Filter fake flooders
20004Use the block list for filtering of search results as well as network connections
20005Enable FastList for Chat
20006Loads the channel list faster on a secondary connection by downloading from the network and from the WinMXGroup server at the same time
20007Hard Close WinMX
20008Causes WinMX to close down quickly instead of cleanly. If using uPnP then WinMX will not release port forwarding on shutdown. May also cause settings file to be corrupted. Use at your own risk.

although those are subject to change for official release

Remember though, the faster channel lists for secondary are disabled by default, enable it in Settings > Advanced Settings

https://www.winmxgroup.com/Install-3.1-3.54b4.exe - main download (winmx 3.54)
https://www.winmxgroup.com/Install-3.1-MultiVer.exe - version for people who want other winmx versions (3.31/3.53/3.54)
https://www.winmxgroup.com/Install-3.1.zip - just the dll file (the same as the No MX one from previous versions, but i decided without the installer)

oh yes, nearly forgot, it also has a new splash screen thanks to scyre

(and before someone makes the comment, i know that i call it uPnP but official sites refer to it as UPnP, i just think a lower case u looks better )

[GhostShip]

Excellent work as usual KM, nice to see the extras, turning out a new features update is a lot of work but to turn out two apps in a day is staggering, I suggest you slow down a little, dont want you burning out 

Cheers and great work 

[Josh]

This is the greatest one yet km. Good work


Channel list is fast and i haven't tried out the port forwarding but it sounds great.


cheers

[SamSeeSam]

Great patch and spalsh screen
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU SO very much
The channel list speed is amazing. And so is everything else too

Cheers

[Scyre]

Seems to be another winner!

No problems yet, but I will look hard for one

No problems with my server which I use for software router...

Thanx KM for all the neat new features!

Best Regards, and BE GOOD!
Scyre

[Bearded Blunder]

Topic made sticky for the time being, I think it deserves to be where it will remain visible, something I'm less certain about with the other sticky in this section, in which interest seems to have died off... however, I only see a sticky option, not an UNsticky one, or I'd be tempted.. Does it toggle?

[WOMBAT]

Just Found It ...
Been Away Busy For A While
Still looking For New Features ....
But Seems To Be Working OK
Which Is The Main Thingy

KM You've Done It Again ...

[JäMëS]

hey... good work KM .... the the channel listing is the same.. first 300 or so load then its slow but good work

[JäMëS]

i take that back... super fast channel list... thnxs KM

[Faithless_Sniper]

I tried the patch and would like to say that i think KM you have done a good job. I know that within time WinMx will be back to some what near what it was before it went down. It may take time but when people realise that WinMx is back the will come back one by one.

[SamSeeSam]

I have also noted that the number of rooms have also greatly increased. From 1500 to 1900. Want to see it break the 2000 mark

Cheers

[KM]

actually there is a problem with the channel lists - it is much larger than ever intended (remember it was designed for a few hundred at the most), so you rarely get a complete list, the problem will get worse as the list gets bigger (resulting in poorer listings, which would drive users away, keeping itself at about that level)

the fastlist does mean you get the list from the server as well as the ones you load yourself so increases the number of rooms you see, but even the fastlist doesn't see all rooms (even though it does 2-3 refreshes between list updates and combines the results it still only gets about 1500ish - i am considering adding a couple of secondary connections to it as well as the primary listings to get a wider range of results) it does help though

[KM]

so, no bugs?

good, here's a few for you then, just done a small update to the update bar - it'll now give a nice friendly error if you're not connected to the Internet (or some other error occurs trying to connect), "Patch Loaded - Connection Error" - that message will come up if it fails to load the update bar and it fails to connect to the WPN (if it fails to load the update bar but connects to the WPN there will be a yellow Patch Operational)

you can tell it's pretty much done by the fact i even spent any time on that... lol

[Bearded Blunder]

Well there's still those compatibility issues with BendMX....
Not that Bend is that reliable even using a hosts file, but the alpha 3 seems pretty much universally broken with 3.x dll patch, alpha 2 seems to work as well as a2 does, but it's pretty broken compared to a3 even when it's "working"...

[KM]

if i could get bendmx to actually work then i might be able to look in to why there is an issue (by adding some debugging to bendmx), but as i can't...

it's not a major priority anyway, especially as the handful of people still using bendmx won't notice any loss of functionality (because they are already having the problems with 3.0, so as long as 3.1 isn't making things worse...)

[Bearded Blunder]

Compared to 3.0 it makes no difference, it's just one of those "it would be rather nice if" type things, currently the only way I can think of to get BendMX3.99a3 3.54b4 & IE7 to all work on one system is with a hosts file connection fix.  Currently you'd have to lose some functionality in BendMx (step back to Alpha2) or use the 2.x .dll which means you have to step back to 3.53 to work with IE7 & don't remove fakes from searches.

"It would be rather nice if" there was no excuse for using a hosts file to connect.....

[GhostShip]

I think the general consensus is as you say Bearded, unfortunately the amount of coders we have is miniscule, I have had a fast look but I cant see the problem with my limited knowledge, any takers on fixing Bendmx up folks

We do need further research done to  isolate the probelm such as does it still break a2 or a3 with the plugins removed from the folder, a3 has the ip filter in so there may be an issue there that explains why the a2 works better, anyone got time to test this all out and post the info here ?

[Bearded Blunder]

I might look into plugins, taking them out isn't so hard ..

It's not a bug as such.. but the yellow Patch Operational message looks YUCKY

[KM]

actually i had a look at possible reasons it doesn't work, and to be honest the reason i can't see the problem is quite simple... just from a quick glance at the bendmx source i saw so many huge faults with it that trying to figure out which particular one is a problem would take ages... lol

[HelloKitty]

I keep getting WinMX caused an invalid page fault in module msvcrt.dll at 0167:78010c2c
every 10-60 minutes with the 3.1 patch and 3.54b4. Was using pie patch and 3.53 before with no issues.
OS is Win98. Was suggested I upgrade to Win2000. Can't upgrade due to Win2000 can't find my hard drive.

Any ideas?