help for newbie with eMule

[Guest]

Using eMule, I always get a Low ID message, but am a newbie who knows diddly-squat (nothing!) about eMule and ports and port-forwarding and hashes and AICHes and seeds and KADS and sources, and so on!
I don't have a router, so I don't think I need to know anything about port forwarding, do I? That much I think I understood from research into this topic!
And, whatever server eventually connects I always get this message "You have a lowid. Please review your network config and/or your settings."
I'm using Emule Plus v1.2e: I did try a newer version but switched back to 1.2e as the newer one went even more slowly.
I am using a pc with Windows XP Pro v2002, with service packs 2 and 3. My CPU is an AMD Sempron, running at 1.67gHz, with 512meg of ram. My internet connection is from a local Internet Provider which is pretty good - torrent downloads sometimes go faster than 1meg but usually are around 500 to 700k.
I have no idea how to "review my network config and/or my settings" as suggested by the eMule message. I have done some research on the topics in various eMule blogs, as well as on FLM's eMule Help Section, but am still lost in a thick fog.
An action (as suggested by ptguardin recently) such as "simple as putting your tag plus FLM in your emule client" loses me completely. I also have no idea how to SAFELY share other movies on eMule... so that other people may download OT stuff that they may like and don't have.
If someone from FLM could take the time and trouble to throw me a few pointers or a do simple walk-through, it would be much appreciated.
I hope I posted this in the correct FLM Section - or should it have gone into the eMule Help Section? Thanks for your suggestion today, ptguardian... hopefully I will become a little but more familiar with the eMule world.

[Phuzzy4242]

What type of internet connection do you have - cable, DSL, dial-up, air card? In other words, how does the connection come into your house? In most cases, the connection comes into a box and your computer also connects to the box. The box itself may be the "router". For instance, I have a Zoom DSL modem, but it also acts as a router. We need to know the brand and model of this box.

All data traffic in and out of your computer goes through "ports". For instance, regular internet through your browser goes through port 80. The common ports are already allowed in and out of your internet connection but the ports eMule uses aren't "common", so they have to be specifically allowed. If they aren't, eMule can only connect to someone else via a server that acts as a middleman.

This doesn't affect transfer speed, it just makes it harder to find other people who have parts of the files you want - the more people who have parts, the faster the transfer happens because you have multiple people contributing parts. This is why port forwarding is important - if you get highid you connect directly to the other people and things go a lot faster.

Hashes and AICHes are part of the link you click to add a file to eMule to be downloaded. Hashes identify a file so that two eMule links with the exact same filename can be recognized as different or two identical files with different filenames can be recognized as being the same file. AICHes are a way for eMule to correct errors - they help it recognize if parts of the file you're downloading have arrived corrupted so the damaged parts can be re-downloaded.

Seeds are simply people who have made a file available for download. When we say something is well seeded, it means many people have the file available and eMule will download parts of the file from multiple people which makes it faster. If only one person is seeding the file, everybody who wants that file has to get in line (in the queue) on that one person's eMule so it takes a lot longer. KAD is a way to search for parts of the file you want and to advertise to other people what you have available. Obviously, using KAD speeds things up because it's easier to find the parts of the file.

When ptguardian says to put your tag plus FLM in your eMule client, he means to put YourNick [FLM] or something similar as your name in your eMule settings. This lets other FLM people know it's you who is downloading, and they can give you a "friend" slot. What this does is give you higher priority - it moves you closer to the head of the line in their download queue, and in many cases lets you download more than the approx. 9 MB chunk at a time that eMule normally limits you before letting another person in the queue have his turn.

Anything you put in your share folder is available to the eMule community - all of it, FLM or not. You can put only files that appear on FLM in your share folder but anyone else who is also looking for that file gets a turn too. I usually remove well-seeded files from share so my queue doesn't get too big (400 or so). After all, if the file is well-seeded, my one eMule can't contribute much and if a lot of people are waiting in queue to get the popular file, rarer files aren't being distributed as quickly.

Hopefully, this long explanation gives you some idea of what eMule is doing. Let us know how you get your internet, especially the make and model of any kind of box you might have so we can try to help figure out a way to get you highid.

[ptguardian]

looks like Phuzzy covered most of what you need to do. lets u know Guest if it works or if you need further info on how to do what Phuzzy wrote. such as how to connect to a server or what should you set your up and down speed at. you could be throttling yourself and not even know it. emule can be tweaked in a lot of ways. but since you are not very technically inclined i would suggest that once you get it working let it work and don't mess with it. you can always change it in the future when you understand it more.

once again let us know how it is working

[BizarreLoveTriangle]

AFAIK, lowID means you can connect other clients, but others cannot initiate connection to you.

Typically your PC is hidden behind the router. That means the IP address that is seen from outside is the IP address of your router, not your PC. The router has to be told to forward incoming connections to your PC. Nowadays many applications and routers configure port forwarding automatically (UPnP), otherwise you have to configure the router manually.

You may have to explicitly allow incoming connections to eMule ports in Windows Firewall.

I found this link that might be useful:

http://portforward.com/cportsnotes/emule/eMule.htm

[Guest]

I am muddled this morning, as you can see I hit the wrong button for the TY - it should have been a REPLY! Sorry for that.
This is the message I always get from eMule when connecting to a server (even when rebooting this morning)


WARNING Donkey Kingdom 2 (38.107.160.180:4661) - Your 13245 port is not reachable. Please review your network config.


So, I guess my research into which ports to use was flaky and uninformed. Any suggestions as to what ports I should use would be gratefully received. TY.

[BizarreLoveTriangle]

So, I guess my research into which ports to use was flaky and uninformed. Any suggestions as to what ports I should use would be gratefully received. TY.

It does not matter which ports you use, probably *all* ports are blocked. Use "ipconfig" to find out the IP address of your PC (Start > Run > type "ipconfig"). Now open http://checkip.dyndns.org/ that shows your IP that is seen by other nodes in the net. If these addresses differ, you *do* have a router.

A couple of things I can suggest:

* Make sure that eMule ports are allowed in the software firewall (antivirus) of your PC.

* Try a more sophisticated eMule client that supports UPnP (eMule Plus is AFAIK not a good client, because it does not support Kad either). Standard client 0.50a is probably OK.

* Configure port forwarding in the router manually...

BTW, if you use eMule at work, then inbound connections would be normally blocked by your corporate firewall and there is nothing you can do. Also some ISPs might block inbound connections.

[ptguardian]

i agree with BLT you should use Standard client 0.50a for your first experience with Emule. keep things simple. you can always try other programs later.

[Guest]

TY for the hints and info.

I have a Modem, my Internet Service comes in through a cable. The Modem is a Pirelli Broadband Solutions DRG A124G WiFi Router.

I tried ipconfig in a DOS command window (192.168.1.4) and then looked at the ip on http://checkip.dyndns.org/ (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx), and as they do differ I must have a router... (well, blow me down, I didn't know that was a router! just thought it was a silly old modem!)... shows you how tech-savvy I am not.

My eMule ports are not blocked by Avast firewall, and are also not blocked by Windows firewall - both of these I configured to allow incoming connections to eMule ports.

I do not understand the suggestion "Try a more sophisticated eMule client that supports UPnP ...Standard client 0.50a is probably OK." Does this mean I should try and find some P2P software called Standard Client 0.5a, download it, and then uninstall my current eMule and install Standard Client 0.5a?

I have no idea as to how to "Configure port forwarding in the router manually..." as suggested.

TY - again.

[Phuzzy4242]

I do not understand the suggestion "Try a more sophisticated eMule client that supports UPnP ...Standard client 0.50a is probably OK." Does this mean I should try and find some P2P software called Standard Client 0.5a, download it, and then uninstall my current eMule and install Standard Client 0.5a?

Some eMule clients (I believe standard eMule 0.5a does but am not sure) have the ability to use Universal Plug-n-Play (UPnP) that talks directly to the modem and sets up port forwarding for you. I haven't had a lot of luck with UPnP for port forwarding, but that may be because I'm old-school tech, my network is nowhere near "standard", and I like to set things up manually so I know they're right. To install a different eMule client, you basically just need to copy the eMule.exe file into the same directory as the version you're using now. That lets you keep all the settings and credits you've already accumulated.

Here's the web page for your router. Unfortunately, it doesn't give a lot of information.
http://broadband.adbglobal.com/web/prod ... a124g.page

Here are your router's default settings. If you haven't changed them yourself, they are most likely still these:
IP address 192.168.1.1
Login name admin
Password also admin

The router's setup manual is here:
http://bitblit.altervista.org/PirelliMO ... Manual.pdf

You log into the router by going to your browser (e.g. Internet Exploder) and typing 192.168.1.1 in the address bar. The router will give a user name and password prompt - use "admin" (without the quotes) for both. Look at Firewall | Access Control (page 68 of the manual) - I think that's what you're looking for here.

You'll need the port numbers you used for TCP and UDP in eMule. Set the modem up to allow those ports.

You might want to try a program called Simple Port Forwarding. It's an excellent program you install that will do all the programming for your router with a couple of clicks, and it does support your router. I've used it before and it's quite good (note: doesn't seem to work correctly on WinXP 64-bit).
http://www.simpleportforwarding.com/supported-routers

[Guest]

Thanks, Phuzzy, for your suggestions and advice.

I did download Simple Port Forwarding and ran it this morning. I had changed my eMule ports to 4662 and 4672, as suggested by eMule itself. The Simple Port Forwarding ran well: although it was a little confusing to me - but I managed to go through all the steps and didn't get any hideous error messages.

When I opened eMule (I had 9 part files going from the sessions closed) it connected to a server, but still came up with this message

WARNING Donkey Kingdom 2 (38.107.160.180:4661) - Your 4662 port is not reachable. Please review your network config.

I guess I will leave it alone for now, as it seems to be working ok, and I am firm believer in "if it ain't broke - don't fix it."!

Most of the stuff I get is xxxx data and FLM or other rare movies, which typically all have very low sources ... so I guess I shouldn't complain if the speed on a file with 2 sources is 6.5k - !

I am not tech savvy enough to be fiddling any more with what I have.... Thanks for FLM's help, though.