Help with emule, complete novice.

[household]

Hi, today I installed emule, but had a number of problems. I did a test to connect tcp, but it didn't work and failed.........

I thought this might mean that I couldn't download anything, but when I conduct a search it still finds various files, so is it working after all? but at a slower rate?

Worryingly, I decided to get 5 or 6 files downloading to see at what speed I could donwload, but half an hourlater 0 bytes have been downloaded from them all.

However, a main concern is that I can't choose the folder where I want my downloads to be placed, I thought that If I went on general I would be able to find where my downloads are being saved to by default, click browse, and select a new place......

I only have 1gb space left, but do have an 40gb external hard drive. If I could select this I would obviously be able to download far more files at once.

Can anyone help

Apologies for my ignorance

and MERRY CHRISTMAS

[billanben]

Hi Household and welcome to our forum

Firstly, I would suggest you check out the other posts in this same forum since they cover most issues with setting up emule, and contain links to various other useful locations.

Easy one first - location of download files is set in Options\Directories then either Incoming Files (completed files), or temporary files (temp files created during download) - beware though cos each time you create a download, by default, it will reserve that space on your HD. You will need to change this option if you want to conserve space (the downside is no previews). You need to restart EM to get new locations recognised.

Now the difficullt part - connectivity. First thing I would suggest is that when you connect, the log shows the type of connectivity you have achieved - I suspect yours is Lowid - this will SEVERELY restrict your downlaoding and uploading ability (you MUST have something to upload or you will be marked very quickly Lowid). If you are Lowid, chances are that traffic is blocked. Try this, change the ports used from the default to something very close (I think defaults are 4662 TCP and 4672 UDP, so change these to 4668/4678 respectively. Now go to your router and set those ports to pass all traffic both ways. Finally, try connecting without any PC firewall active, if you get Highid now, you will need to play with the firewall settings to ensure you are protected but also have Highid. On mine, I set allow all in/out for emule P2P on all ports.

Hope this helps and allows you to become an active participant.

[emuler]

If tcp connect fails, you probably have LowID. Check your firewall settings to allow emule.exe to connect to and receive incoming connections from the internet. With LowID your emule will still work, but with reduced efficiency with longer waiting times, so use that most only if all steps to fix the issue fail.

If you connect to the internet using a router (many ADSL modems also have routers built-in), go to http://www.portforward.com for detailed instructions on how to set up for your client/ router combination.

Waiting is a part of ed2k (the protocol that emule clients use). When you search for a file, you can see how many sources it has, with the number of complete sources in brackets. Don't download files that are incomplete; don't download files that have very few sources, unless you are prepared to be patient. Many of the titles posted here are very rare, but you'll get them complete eventually because we'll keep them shared until you do. Ask nicely if you get stuck.

The folder that the file go to when completed is set in preferences. It is called the 'incoming' folder. All files in this folder will be shared, so don't select your Windows folder. Also, don't select an entire drive/ partition; instead, make a folder in the partition/ drive of your choice and share that. You can specify addition incoming/shared folders if you choose.

Incomplete files have a set of files associated with them until the file completes. These are stored in the temp folder. This too can be specified in preferences/ options.

Later on you can use categories to organize your downloads better.

Which emule client are you using? Most clients have a homepage/ support forum where you'll get client specific help. eMule has http://emule-project.net. eMule Plus has http://emuleplus.info.

[household]

Thanks for everyones help.

I've managed to sort out the the directories, so that it automatically now saves to my external hard drive. However, after I had done this I my downloads which I had been downloading are no longer under "transfers"

I'm sure I will figure it out though, and since I won't need to change directories again this shouldn't be a problem in future.

[emuler]

Either move the contents of your old emule\temp folder to the new temp folder or specify the old temp folder as an additional temp folder (after closing emule, of course).

[household]

Once again thanks for your help emuler.

I seem to have managed to resolve it now, and my speeds seem to have increased......

I switched off a firewall, and my waiting time seemed to be much less. However I thought it might be a little unsafe to leave my firewall off, and so decided I better turn it back on. At first I didn't notice much difference, but now all my downloads have stopped, and are "waiting" again.

I am undecided whether to just switch the firewall off, or suffer without it. What are the risks asscotiated with leaving it switched off? (virus etc?)

For now the firewall is back on, but I am tempted to switch it off as it certainly didn't do any harm, and seemed to cut down my waiting speeds (although it could just have been a coincidence)

[billanben]

Please read my earlier post - that is exactly what I said would happen. You have to change the ports you are using from the defaults, allow port forwarding both directions on the router for these new ports, then set a rule on your firewall to allow all emule application traffic on all ports both directions. Do that then test - you should now see Highid again - remember to check the emule log when you open the application (something I always do).

[household]

I just spent an hour going through it, the first part of forwarding ports, gaining a static ip address, entering the gateway settings ip etc in the relevant boxes, and it should have worked.........

However, I am still told that my id is low. My firewall is allowing exceptions, with emule box ticked, so I think this means it is pointless turning off my firewall, since the setting is already allowing it to acces the emule programme regardless.

I performed the tcp test again, and am still told the connection test failed. I did everything to the latter, stage by stage entering the information supplied which in turn gave me more information. The only thing I can think of is that I set my tcp and udp to 50,000 both on emule and when going through the final stage of port forwarding. The tutorial advised that any number between 10,000 -60,000 would do, but higher was normally better........

Thats the only thing I can think may have gone wrong, but I followed the instructions for my specific model router but it has failed.

I'm not sure if I need to change some settings on emule itself, but I forwarded my ports exactly as instructed to and applied the changes, but nothing has changed.

Have I done something wrong?

[emuler]

Try different ports for tcp and udp. Some firewalls might have issues with using the same port.

[FLL]

If you are using Windows XP, make sure that its firewall isn't the problem... even if your router is set up correctly for port forwarding XP's firewall (on by default) needs to be configured for the same ports or turned off.