A Caution and What eMule Client Do You Like

[Phuzzy4242]

I had a PITA time this evening that others may want to watch out for in whichever flavor of eMule they use. While DreaMule was hashing some files, I started previewing an incoming .avi and DreaMule crashed - it happens sometimes if video files don't have enough info for the decoder to figure out exactly what kind of file it's looking at.

Anyway, the file hash tables got screwed up because they were in the process of being calculated/written to when the crash happened, and afterwards DreaMule locked up every time I restarted it. The easiest way to fix it was to rename the folders that were shared - I just put an underscore in front of the name, e.g. "_Movies" instead of "Movies", restarted DreaMule, then copied the files from _Movies to the newly-created Movies folder. DreaMule saw them as new files so it rehashed them and everything took off again.

The moral of this is to let hashing finish before doing anything that might cause a crash. I have several downloads that have been going for more than two months and wasn't looking forward to starting them over from scratch. DreaMule has crashed on me before when previewing, and also when marking files in Search as spam (the program doesn't appear to be very robust) so I should have known better. I was using Plus before and it crashed on me like that too.

How about the eMule flavor you use - does it crash on you, and if so, how often and what caused it? I'll switch programs in a heartbeat to get one that I can rely on but don't want to have to try every eMule client there is. What do you like/dislike about your eMule client? The only other thing I specifically dislike with DreaMule is the web page it sends you to each time you start it (www.dreamule.org) that has "news" on it. I don't know what other info is being sent too and I don't put up with that kind of crap, so that entire domain is now in my HOSTS file redirected to 127.0.0.1. I haven't seen a comparison between eMule clients, so tell me what's good about yours - please don't let this degenerate into a "My program is better than yours".

[emuler]

Hmm.. does Dreamule have an internal preview function? None of the ones I that have tried do that. They just launch the media player specified in the settings, usually VLC or MPC, and pass the associated .part file to it.

...unless you have checked the option to 'create backup for preview'. Then it will try to extract useful data from the .part file. Maybe the crash is because of that. I never use that feature because I very rarely have that much free space and time.

Oh, and check 'player supports small blocks'. Most players used for previewing do.

[FLL]

From what I could tell when Dreamule was first mentioned here, it's a great solution if you have LowIDs, but if that's not a problem for you than I don't see the attraction. Their webpage claimed to have fixed a lot of problems in eMule, but that list was dated and the base eMule has already fixed most of those listed, which tells me Dreamule forked off a while back and may not have gotten the latest improvements in eMule. And they could well have introduced new bugs.

I use MorphXT which for me is a great mod and does almost everything I want. The only other mod I have a definite opinion on is fireball, which I consider to be a total piece of shit which is a scourge on the Internets, and life would be better without it, though I admit some here like it.

[Phuzzy4242]

Hmm.. does Dreamule have an internal preview function? None of the ones I that have tried do that. They just launch the media player specified in the settings, usually VLC or MPC, and pass the associated .part file to it.

...unless you have checked the option to 'create backup for preview'. Then it will try to extract useful data from the .part file. Maybe the crash is because of that. I never use that feature because I very rarely have that much free space and time.

Oh, and check 'player supports small blocks'. Most players used for previewing do.

DreaMule does have an internal viewer which works quite well, though it won't display Matroska. I use KMP for normal viewing (highly recommend it). I also have small blocks on and create backup for preview turned on. I used to just copy the .part file to a temp folder and add .avi, .mkv, .rar, etc. to the end of it then run it in whatever program was needed, but that's a hassle if the program does it for me. I have HighID, so that's not a problem. DreaMule may have split off awhile ago - there's not much useful info on the web page.

[emuler]

In other emule clients, if you turn off 'create backup for preview', then it is just like telling VLC, MPC, KMP or whatever you have specified in options to open that .part file.

I like MPC. Does almost everything I want. It does have some issues with multichannel audio, I think.

[Phuzzy4242]

I don't like manipulating a file directly while another process may be writing to it (as in eMule downloading) because of potential problems with file locking, sharing violations - or program crashes - it's better to copy a file and work on the copy. I use KMP for all media files. It's stable and has tons of features. Works well with multiple audio and subtitle streams, can advance by single frames, plays darn near anything you throw at it without additional codecs, and it's free. www.kmplayer.com if you're interested.

[emuler]

VLC and MPC are designed to work with files that are in use by another process, i.e. eMule. Don't try doing this with WMP, for instance; it insists on getting sole access to the file.

I like what you are saying, only I'm too lazy to do it. Find out the part file number, open the temp folder, copy the part file, paste it somewhere else, wait for the copying to complete, then try to preview it. Repeat for next file. I just right click and preview. If it works, fine. If it doesn't, well, I'm prepared to wait until the file completes.

The preview feature is critical when you are downloading untrusted links. When you get links from good sites like this, you know what you are downloading. In these cases there is no need to preview at all.

[emuler]

There are a lot of other players around. I've used kmplayer; not bad, but has some issues with multiple monitors and aspect ratios. Again, I'm lazy. I know where the settings are in MPC, and don't want to spend the time looking for the corresponding settings in KMP.

There are other good players too. Zoom, Gom, and most recently for me, Kantaris. I try them out when I have to. IrfanView, a good image viewer, is not known for its media playing capabilities, but in one case it was the only thing that worked on a broken mpg file.

[Phuzzy4242]

I looked at Kantaris but it looks alot like WMP's display and I like a compact interface - I have too many things going on on the screen to waste real estate on crap I won't use. Gom looks like it uses the WMP engine as its foundation, sort of like all those browsers that use the IE engine - to me, they're just prettified IE with all its weaknesses. Same with media players that use the WMP engine - they're still WMP.

I use both KMP and VLC but like KMP more because of easy keyboard controls, frame-by-frame stepping, bumping 5/30/60 seconds forward or back, display size, video/audio/subtitle "adjusting", etc. Like any other program, there's a little learning curve, but the controls actually make alot of sense, and can be changed to your preferences. It can also be portable (VLC too).

I don't want to get into a "my program is better than yours" debate - whatever works best for you is my motto - and I definitely like to hear people's opinions because I might be missing out on something good.

[emuler]

I don't want to get into a "my program is better than yours" debate - whatever works best for you is my motto - and I definitely like to hear people's opinions because I might be missing out on something good.

Couldn't have said it better myself. That's one of the best ways to keep abreast of new developments.