Thanks. (I had forgotten that I posted 8 years ago, but I remember trying eMule then, with a different computer, different router, different apartment, etc., and also hitting roadblocks. I had hoped that I had become smarter since then. It seems not.)

I must say, as a plug-and-play computer user, this is all very confusing. I do have three questions, if somebody can help a newbie.

1) My VPN provider (ExpressVPN) explicitly says "forwarded ports are not protected by the VPN." Ummm, what? What's the point of a VPN then?

2) In the June 2022 update ...

As a newbie hoping to get involved with this site, I must say this is all extraordinarily complicated. Not a complaint, exactly -- I understand that e-mule has major advantages. But man, I've never encountered technology so complicated.

I did every step of that detailed step-by-step (thanks), which ...