Downloading

Failed Downloads

Since Gnutella is a peer to peer network, you may frequently find that hosts do not respond to your download requests. There are a number of reasons for this. The remote host might have exited their application, they may have disconnected from the Internet, or they may have decided they no longer want to share the file. When this happens, try to locate the file from another server.

Firewalls

A firewall is a combination of hardware and software that is placed in between a computer and their connection to the Internet. The impact of firewalls on Gnutella is that some hosts may not be able to accept your incoming download connection requests. In these cases, the Gnutella protocol specifies a 'Push' mechanism, where the remost host is asked to connect to you instead. Due to the bandwidth barrier and poor implementations of some client software, push requests can get lost in the network. As a result, the success rate for push downloads may be lower than the success rate for regular downloads.

Busy Servers

Servers may impose a limit on the total number of active downloads. When BearShare detects that a server is busy, it will try again at certain intervals until it can get the file or the number of tries is too large.

Tips

Try finding a different location to get your file if the primary location is busy or unavailable. Also note that the faster hosts usually tend to be more responsive to download requests. You can sort the search results list by speed, and choose from the fastest of available servers to download your files.