[Mldonkey-users] FAQ, Patches, Stalled-Forever Downloads, Slowness, Settings

[Stephane Goulet]

Hi, i'll help you with what i know.. shurely others will fill my gaps after
;)


> that MLDonkey is treated like some kind of second-class citizen...
> by "official" eDonkey people, by eMule folks, and by Windoze people
> generally.

Yeah, it is, i'm only happy the witchhunting has stopped on edonkey forums,
has it?

> and the "suggestions" pages I've seen seem to be written by people
> who have political views insisting we should upload more than we
> download
> so I don't trust the advice because it seems to be skewed against the
> user.

I don't like either those suggestion pages, a straightforward, impartial
eplanation of the settings and their results woud be very appreciated, and
it would not be much more work for those wich make those "suggestions", just
to admit they don't know the effect of some settings..

[cut MacOS X]

Can't help you with this, i don't have the change to own a nice motorola
based system ;)

> SPEED ISSUES
>
> I have a 1.5mb/128kb DSL connection...
> (I hate ISPs for restricting our uploads - it's a scam they're pushing
> on us!)

As most isp.. pay more and more, get less and less... now here all the isp
are enforcing a cap on the total bytes you download per month.. and they do
charge you a big bill when you pass it.. i know ;)

> (even worse is PPPoE, which ITEF rejected as a standard because it's
> annoying)

Who likes PPPoE besides isps? ;)

> Originally I tried max_hard_upload of 12 and max_hard_download of 192...
> but I discovered max_hard_upload over 9 disconnects my PPPoE connection
> and max_hard_upload over 7 kills my download speed.

You'll have to try here.. with cable i can set up to like 14 without problem
(max is 15kB=128kb, without PPPoE)

[Cut uploading]

As ppl say, Sum of uploads = Sum of downloads...
But if you do get nothing back, try, somehow, to find edonkey clients,
overnet clients.. they work great.., i won't talk again of our uploads and
emules...

> I read somewhere to divide our speeds by 8 to get our max_hard speeds
> is this wrong? Kb/kb is confusing...

Yeah, 8 bits (b) = 1 byte (B)
Thus  80kb = 10kB
Using bits instead of bytes is another marketing trick to get big numbers..
and say "oh you download a 120k (kB), we offer 512k (kb) service.."

[ STUFF HANGS AT THE END]

Can't tell you much here... recalculate all chuncks can help.. this is an
annoying bug, happens mostly with largely availible files..

[ HOW TO UPGRADE DISTRIBS]

Personally, i do not delete a single file besides a normal occasional clean
up of logs files, etc.. for my needs, i only copy the new "mldonkey"
executable i just compiled over the older one (keeping a backup of the old
one can be a good idea too..)
When you run the new version, it will add the lines of "new configurations"
in the .ini files the first time you run mldonkey.

For the credits you have with the eMules clients, well, if they do keep
credit for non eMules clients in account, you keep them as long as you still
use the same client_md4 (this is stored in downloads.ini)

[ PATCHES]

I don't test patches personally, but they are very appreciated by the
community, they introduce nice functionnalities, solve problems, and they
now get soon incorporated in the developpement tree as developpement has
restarted.

Someone else can help you stay on the edge ;)


> OTHER SETTINGS THAT MAKE ME WONDER

I wonder in face of some settings too ;)

> initial_score -- is this the credit scheme? am I earning credit?

This has something to do with the way servers and other things are ranked if
i remember well... i have no idea of the effects of changing this setting

> max_name_len  -- is this why the names are truncated in the GTK-GUI???

This is for the web interface, as it says, it's the max name length that
will be displayed (as we dont like to allways scroll left and right)

> use_file_history = false   -- is "true" here really a memory hog?
> save_file_history = false     I find MLDonkey is a memory hog anyway

As i use jigle to search, i leave those to false..
Generally it's a good idea to keep them false unless you search often for
the same subjects using mldonkey, then you can save bandwith and server
load...
Jigle/fildedonkey stays the best solution to save on this.. exept if you
search for rare stuff on overnet

> max_opened_connections -- what kind of connections? UDP?

It's the maximum file descriptors mldonkey will have open this includes tcp
and udp connections i think.. if you wish to know how many your user running
mldonkey is allowed, type ulimit -n. Do no go above this value, stay lower..

> compute_md4_delay = 0.500000 - another setting I changed on
> questionable advice

Mumm, mine was 10, i raised it to 20.. Dunno if this has bad consequences,
but at least mldonkey is not continously scratching my hd when not
downloading.

> minor_heap_size = 32 - in kB? no way with this memory hog...

I have *no* idea of what this is, i'd like to know! ;)

> max_sources_per_file = 600  - too many?
> min_left_sources = 200      - left? right? good? I don't know

Seems quite standard.. i'v raised min_left_sources a bit as i often have
lots of dead sources clogging my list
max_sources is obvious.. min_left_sources, mldonkey stops looking for
sources when this number of sources is reached.

> enable_server = true - if that's valid then explain this:

DISABLE THIS ASAP!!!!
There is enought small useless servers waisting bandwitch connecting to them
on the ed2k network.
You do not have enough bandwith to keep a server/client on your dsl
connection.
Create a server when you know what you are doing
Besides this floods you with udp and tcp, won't help your transfers ;)

> filter_search = false  -- searching sucks with more than one keyword

If you search, and overnet is enabled, set this true, it will filter all
those junk replies you get not related to your search

> tcpip_packet_size = 40  -- I'm forced to use the stupid PPPoE... so
> adjust it?

Setting this right will lower fragmentation and get you better speeds unless
your router or os already takes care of resizing packets.
Anyway, allways a good idea to set this right


> THE WEB INTERFACE
>
> could somebody explain it...
> I understand the GTK-GUI but the web interface isn't obvious

I find the webinterface quite straighforward personally i like it..
( but those php web interfaces do look sooooo nice ;) )

> in the downloads section there's a heading of P/R/C over two checkboxes

Pause/Resume/Cancel (three checkboxes, one grayed out, probably resume ;) )

Before you ask, the age (X:Y) means
X = Number of days since you added the file
Y = Number of days since the file has been seen complete

> RESHARE FILES
>
> MLDonkey has trouble letting go...

Give it a minute or so, it's not instantaneous, but does work


Hope this helps a bit, more experienced ppl on the list can fill the gaps,
hope i saved them some time ;)

-Stéphane