[makapa]

as always i return each 3 months to see if emule has finally got the kad to work and connect, but sadly nope it hasnt, will return in another 3 months. started trying emule in the late late 90s and still havent got kad to connect and still emule doesnt connect or download anything.

perhaps one day emule will make it simple and just have a CONNECT button which actually connects and runs emule.

doesnt anyone realise that the customer base would probably quadruple if only people could connect and run emule simply.

judging by the number of people writing in saying their kad doesnt connect it all seems pretty hopeless, seems a strange way to run a program where it isnt simple and nothing works.

well will come back in another 3 months and try again but if the last 11 or so years is anything to go by then i wont be holding my breath.

why oh why not make it simple to use, be interesting to know why emule wont make it easy., not holding my breath for a sensible reply, looking at the hundreds of others who cannot connect and they havent had a solution yet.
maka

[Link64]

makapa, on 30 Juli 2011 - 12:06 , said:

as always i return each 3 months to see if emule has finally got the kad to work and connect, but sadly nope it hasnt, will return in another 3 months. started trying emule in the late late 90s and still havent got kad to connect and still emule doesnt connect or download anything.

I don't know what you have try in the late 90s, but eMule it was not.

And in all this years, have you ever try to ? <-- you can click on that

And when you are done and eMule still does not work as you expect it to, than start a thread in the right subforum following the information in the stickies, this one in particular, otherwise nobody can help you.

[Stulle]

late 90's is now the early 2000's! and thus words receive new meaning!

Edit: Cancel your porn accounts, tonight you get free entertainment! I got word from our new friend... and took my time to reply!

Quote

in 1999 late 90s, emule 2000 came out. thought i better mention it .

ever wondered why the next Norton is due out in September this year and is going to be called Norton 2012, even though it will still be 2011, perhaps the big company's dont know what there doing either.

Perhaps you better write to them to and give the proffesionals some of your dumb sarcasm.

Failing that, you could possibly help all the people who are stuck with a non working emule client because "kad" will not connect.
But then you have had the opportunity and just like the rest of the emule users that have it working, no one including yourself offers any suggestions as to how to get it working or what is possibly wrong.

Just goes to show.

The moral is when asked a question either try to answer and help or keep quiet.

We have noted that absolutely no help or solution of any kind has been offered by you.

Yours
maka

Quote

Get your facts straight before you try and educate people. eDonkey2000 might have been released in '99 - I don't care to check up on this - but its eDonkey2000 protocol was not reverse engineered for the purpose of creating eMule until the early 2000's (2002 to be exact).

So instead of calling me dumb, Mr. Numbnut, actually provide something that does not make you look like a total tool.

Besides, there are hundreds of web pages and forum entries plastered all over the web sites dedicated to eMule, getting KAD to work is not rocket science. Getting it to HighID might prove a little more tricky but there is just as much content on that as on "how to bootstrap to KAD". BTW, there are currently at least four different ways to bootstrap to KAD... just saying.

Also, I have never said I was going to offer solutions for dumb folks like you. Quite the opposite, if you cared to read all of my posts on this very forum. So don't try and blame your ignorance on me.

Lastly, I am all against "the miracle occurs"-functions in software. Actually, this kind of function is not even suggested from an ergonomics point of view because the user will just make assumptions and will probably not use the piece of software because he does not understand it. This is where education enters the room... and if it does not we are stuck with a "makapa" who is incapable of performing even the simplest of tasks on the internet: READ! So it happens that you are incapable of reading the following: My signature, manuals, forum entries, forum rules, netiquettes, and probably a bunch of other interesting stuff that would have spared us the misery that is you.

Good bye,
Stulle

This post has been edited by Stulle: 30 July 2011 - 06:08 PM

[Nissenice]

makapa, on 30 July 2011 - 12:06 PM, said:

perhaps one day emule will make it simple and just have a CONNECT button which actually connects and runs emule.

My wife always click on the Connect-button in Kad page after restarting her computer and I've never heard her complain...

[Stulle]

Well, you should be complaining. Connecting eMule won't get you a chilled beer and a sandwich, will it now?

[tHeWiZaRdOfDoS]

It's kinda interesting that all of you know what the OP means but noone really & properly answers him. Maybe all of us are using eMule for too long and/or we got accustomed to reading a dozen of docs prior to use a new program but IMHO he has a point: eMule is *NOT* user-friendly... at least not anymore.
That's not necessarily the fault of eMule but the users nowadays don't want to spend time in configuration/documentation/customization of a new program and if eMule wants to stay attractive for new users then it's time to jump on the train and make everything easier...
We could start with adjusting the options in a more sensible way (e.g. enable networks/UPnP/obfuscation/etc. by default), removing unnecessary options (e.g. SUI usage, full chunk transfers) and finally by improving the UPnP system and adding automatic nodes.dat/server.met downloads, when needed.

[Stulle]

well, we could... but then we could also do a lot of other things. i personally don't think we should.

what do we need to connect to KAD? we need a nodes.dat and we need internet access. connecting to kad is enabled by default. if it does not connect we might want to google. quick test: emule kad connect. we find this and although the links for nodes.dat downloads are not up to date anymore, we learn we need to download a nodes.dat. googling for nodes.dat is not far off from here. all in all a process of no more than two minutes if we actually care to read what's there.

now, we could obviously add a node.dat to every emule download but i also agree with SS on this. he argued that we would put a lot of stress on a few single clients and this would not benefit a good distributed network. besides, given the slow update cycles we would also be stuck with the same node.dat for long periods of times. using google to just find a download for node.dat does not need a miracle worker. providing predefined addresses for node.dat downloads is likely to put a lot of stress to a few node again. and, IIRC, eMule also bootstraps from known clients we acquired via servers, so we might also rely on servers to get the first few sources and bootstrap from there.

on the topic of UPnP, i think the last changes in that field did a lot of good. i wanted to sort of combine the official approach with the UPnP approach from eMuleSpana but it's a lot of work and i got little time, so not a lot done in that regard, yet. however, if you think there is room for improvement in the official UPnP implementation - and right now it seems to work for a majority of users for all I know - go ahead and provide some code. you know how it works, simply talking about it does not initiate change. acting does.

This post has been edited by Stulle: 31 July 2011 - 09:03 AM

[tHeWiZaRdOfDoS]

Stulle, on 31 July 2011 - 11:00 AM, said:

well, we could... but then we could also do a lot of other things. i personally don't think we should.

Why!? Why on earth would someone keep a "bad" solution if he could achieve a better one!?

Quote

now, we could obviously add a node.dat to every emule download but i also agree with SS on this. he argued that we would put a lot of stress on a few single clients and this would not benefit a good distributed network. besides, given the slow update cycles we would also be stuck with the same node.dat for long periods of times. using google to just find a download for node.dat does not need a miracle worker. providing predefined addresses for node.dat downloads is likely to put a lot of stress to a few node again. and, IIRC, eMule also bootstraps from known clients we acquired via servers, so we might also rely on servers to get the first few sources and bootstrap from there.

Uploading a nodes.dat once in a while and writing a script that randomly selects (10?) nodes our of it and supplies them in a new .dat file for automatic download purposes shouldn't be that hard. After all, there IS an option to bootstrap via URL - so why don't we use it?

Quote

on the topic of UPnP, i think the last changes in that field did a lot of good. i wanted to sort of combine the official approach with the UPnP approach from eMuleSpana but it's a lot of work and i got little time, so not a lot done in that regard, yet. however, if you think there is room for improvement in the official UPnP implementation - and right now it seems to work for a majority of users for all I know - go ahead and provide some code. you know how it works, simply talking about it does not initiate change. acting does.

IMHO the main issue is that that feature isn't enabled by default and manual portforwarding seems to be too hard for a lot of users to achieve...
Mixing implementations sounds good at first glance but ONE proper solution should be better... btw: miniupnp updated to 1.6 recently... I just updated my libs, maybe it will be more efficient.

[fox88]

The way this FR is written should have place in Support or General discussion, because otherwise it's just another 'make it better/faster' type.
For example, if someone has UDP blocked, then lurking every 3-6 months here and hoping the protocol gets magically enabled would not be smart at all.

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 July 2011 - 02:58 PM, said:

Why on earth would someone keep a "bad" solution if he could achieve a better one!?

Of course there is no need to stick to bad solutions.
However, even when I had no clue about KAD and could not have High ID, I always got first time connection without problems. Pressed big Connect button, added downloads I needed and after a while KAD connected - as simple as that.
Even now: for a test I unpacked binaries with a year+ old nodes.dat, pressed Connect at KAD tab - and got connected in a minute or two.
What I was doing wrong?

Quote

After all, there IS an option to bootstrap via URL - so why don't we use it?

That implies responsibility for the supplied URLs.
Compare to server.met sites - many of them deliver total rubbish, which is not acceptable when you want to make such links (more or less) official.

[Stulle]

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 July 2011 - 11:58 AM, said:

Why!? Why on earth would someone keep a "bad" solution if he could achieve a better one!?

because i think it's better that the user educates himself instead of reducing the programs capability by reducing the influence the user can take. this is one of the major advantages of eMule, for all i care and thus i would not change this.

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 July 2011 - 11:58 AM, said:

Uploading a nodes.dat once in a while and writing a script that randomly selects (10?) nodes our of it and supplies them in a new .dat file for automatic download purposes shouldn't be that hard. After all, there IS an option to bootstrap via URL - so why don't we use it?

it means creating a central point of failure. it means putting additional (ongoing!) need for maintenance on the emule-project.net infrastructure. it means satisfying potentially millions of request each and every month. it means opening the infrastructure and network to another attack scenario. it also means making the user care less and careless users are about the worst thing in the network. like i pointed out, it's really easy already and everyone with just a little intelligence can do it if he cares to educate himself. educating oneself is something i expect of eMule users. you might disagree but being ignorant to new information is not a quality i expect from people entering the web.

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 July 2011 - 11:58 AM, said:

IMHO the main issue is that that feature isn't enabled by default and manual portforwarding seems to be too hard for a lot of users to achieve...
Mixing implementations sounds good at first glance but ONE proper solution should be better... btw: miniupnp updated to 1.6 recently... I just updated my libs, maybe it will be more efficient.

agreed, enabling UPnP by default wouldn't harm. anyway, the approach to merge several implementations might bloat things a considerable bit but sadly enough, it's the only way to support more users. for some reasons hardware vendors seem to think that using a real UPnP standard would be too mainstream so they have a habit of breaking compatibility with various implementations. obviously you get some hardware that works well with different implementations but some might only work with one specific implementation. so, yeah, it's not perfect but it's probably the best we can do.

edit: yeah, fox pretty much summed it up. providing an URL or even hardcoding it increases stress on that server and implies the vendor of eMule (emule-project.net) makes sure the URL works. making the user google for nodes.dat at least provides some diversity in search results and more importantly, up to date information.

This post has been edited by Stulle: 31 July 2011 - 11:43 AM

[Link64]

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 Juli 2011 - 08:40 , said:

It's kinda interesting that all of you know what the OP means but noone really & properly answers him.

I have answer him here in short and more detailed about what we need to know in a PM (Stulle was not the only one who has get one). That seems to be the result and that's about the point, where I stop spending my time on that.

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 Juli 2011 - 08:40 , said:

That's not necessarily the fault of eMule but the users nowadays don't want to spend time in configuration/documentation/customization of a new program

Nowadays? Mapaka is doing the same crap since 11 years and did untill now not bother to follow the docs or at least post a propper support request with at least the minimum of information needed to help him. 11 years? Hallo? If it's working since years for millions out there and not for me, I might come to the conclusion, that the fault is not necessarily in the program, for that no one needs to be a computer expert. And when someone is using the internet since 11 or more years, I think is not too much to expect, that someone knows how to use google.

I agree with you, that eMule's stock configuration is not optimal and can and should be improved, but I doubt that a program like eMule can ever have a "one fits all" confinguration, not even something close to that, specially with all the crappy routers people get from their ISPs.

[tHeWiZaRdOfDoS]

fox88, on 31 July 2011 - 01:34 PM, said:

However, even when I had no clue about KAD and could not have High ID, I always got first time connection without problems. Pressed big Connect button, added downloads I needed and after a while KAD connected - as simple as that.

You already had a server connection... without it: no Kad connection. And now imagine you're lacking both networks connection files and you're somehow blocked (router, ISP, whatever) - no eMule.

Quote

That implies responsibility for the supplied URLs.
Compare to server.met sites - many of them deliver total rubbish, which is not acceptable when you want to make such links (more or less) official.

Right. That's why it *should* be hosted by the official devs (which would also allow resource distribution in case there are really too many requests). Of course you would be responsible and that *may* be a bad thing... but at least we could add loglines or popups indicating the problem, e.g.
"You cannot connect because you are lacking a server.met and/or nodes.dat file.
You can find those files via internet search - do you want to do that now?

OK (close eMule) - Cancel (continue anyways) - Help!? (open help page)"

Stulle, on 31 July 2011 - 01:39 PM, said:

because i think it's better that the user educates himself instead of reducing the programs capability by reducing the influence the user can take. this is one of the major advantages of eMule, for all i care and thus i would not change this.
...
like i pointed out, it's really easy already and everyone with just a little intelligence can do it if he cares to educate himself. educating oneself is something i expect of eMule users. you might disagree but being ignorant to new information is not a quality i expect from people entering the web.

What would be the benefit of that education? I'm always open to learning new things but unnecessary things? Agreed, you may need knowledge about portforwarding in the future but most ppl won't... they just want to use eMule straight away like so many other P2P tools and they don't want to have to read quite some docs prior to finally starting.

Quote

it means creating a central point of failure. it means putting additional (ongoing!) need for maintenance on the emule-project.net infrastructure. it means satisfying potentially millions of request each and every month. it means opening the infrastructure and network to another attack scenario. it also means making the user care less and careless users are about the worst thing in the network.

Maybe... but see above.


EDiT: @Link64: one thing:

Quote

If it's working since years for millions out there and not for me, I might come to the conclusion, that the fault is not necessarily in the program, for that no one needs to be a computer expert.

Here's a dangerous statement... eMule may "work" but with a lowID. That may not sound like such a big issue but numbers are drastically increasing and once they reach a certain percentage, eMule won't be usable anymore - thus we should help the users as much as we can with the default config and additional "howto's", etc.

This post has been edited by tHeWiZaRdOfDoS: 31 July 2011 - 11:55 AM

[Link64]

fox88, on 31 Juli 2011 - 01:34 , said:

Quote

After all, there IS an option to bootstrap via URL - so why don't we use it?

That implies responsibility for the supplied URLs.
Compare to server.met sites - many of them deliver total rubbish, which is not acceptable when you want to make such links (more or less) official.

That could be done by fetching an actual list of URLs from emule-project.net, however I'm not sure the project has the resources to maintain such a list.

[fox88]

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 July 2011 - 03:52 PM, said:

You already had a server connection... without it: no Kad connection.

Have you missed the second case, where there was no server connection and even no files in downloads or shares?
The point is: I always could get connected with just one click on Connect button.

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 July 2011 - 03:52 PM, said:

And now imagine you're lacking both networks connection files and you're somehow blocked (router, ISP, whatever) - no eMule.

It's is next best thing to damaged executable or disconnected wires. Why should you mention this at all?

Link64, on 31 July 2011 - 03:52 PM, said:

That could be done by fetching an actual list of URLs from emule-project.net, however I'm not sure the project has the resources to maintain such a list.

Are you prepared to monitor all the links 24/7 and test every nodes.dat file when a change is detected?
If not, then you should not make the list officially approved for automatic connection. Unofficial links you can find already in the forum or in google.

[Stulle]

Wiz, I do not know how familiar you are with the concept of quality management and product liability issues but I had the great opportunity to read up on it lately... a lot...! My point is that is the vendors responsibility to provide documentation for its products and a set of intended usage scenarios will have to be defined. The vendor should further provide information on non-intended usage as to prevent it.

Getting back to eMule, all this information is there. Probably not satisfying all the laws and standards out there but they are there. So all the user has to do is the exact same thing as for any "professional" product he acquires: read the docs. If the user does not want to read the docs and still has a problem he will have to cope with possessing a non-functional piece of software or he will eventually have to read the docs or put a proper support request. The vendor has provided all the necessary functionality and information that he can maintain in a reasonable fashion.

We don't have to pamper the users. If a user is incapable of downloading a nodes.dat, chances are that he will be a shitty user of the network. One that only cares about his download. One that reduces the upload to the bare minimum. One that unshares files immediately upon completion. I would rather have those lurk around the docs and learn before does all that crap to the network. At least the odds improve if he gets properly in touch with experienced users if he has to put a support request. Otherwise he will just be an ass to the network who never had any reason to get in touch with those experienced users.

Lastly, although one-click-everything-works software might be nice for the user it also makes the user lazy and reason for failures. Sometimes it's better to disgruntle a few - likely worthless - users than handing them a potentially harmful tool without consideration. You could also let employees work with a new product data management system without any docs or training but chances are they will use it like the file system they used before and that is not just helping nobody but also drives the whole idea of such a system ad absurdum while increasing costs.

This post has been edited by Stulle: 31 July 2011 - 12:44 PM

[Link64]

tHeWiZaRdOfDoS, on 31 Juli 2011 - 01:52 , said:

EDiT: @Link64: one thing:

Quote

If it's working since years for millions out there and not for me, I might come to the conclusion, that the fault is not necessarily in the program, for that no one needs to be a computer expert.

Here's a dangerous statement... eMule may "work" but with a lowID. That may not sound like such a big issue but numbers are drastically increasing and once they reach a certain percentage, eMule won't be usable anymore - thus we should help the users as much as we can with the default config and additional "howto's", etc.

Well, as I said, the default config should be changed, it might have been OK like this few years ago, but now it is way off from optimal, I know that. eMule also "works" with a LowID, not optimal and of course the default settings should be adjusted with each version if a new way is found to get rid of few LowIDs, but I doubt that such a complex software like eMule will ever run perfectly in all cases out of the box without any config adjustments by the user... anyway, my point was, that someone like mapaka, if he sees that eMule is working for millions out there, than he must realize, that the problem might not be inside eMule but somewhere else. I mean, not getting any connection to the network since 11 years (!), that's not normal and in this case he should simply start a support request in the propper subforum so that someone can help him. That's what anybody will do with any software, that is not working for him as expected. And software, that is not running properly in all environments without any tweeking, is not that uncommon.

I completely agree here with Stulle, the user gets the software and documantation, if he can't figure out by himself how to get it to run in his environment, he has to contact the support and not just ask the developers to invent a magic button that fixes everything.

fox88, on 31 Juli 2011 - 02:41 , said:

Are you prepared to monitor all the links 24/7 and test every nodes.dat file when a change is detected?
If not, then you should not make the list officially approved for automatic connection. Unofficial links you can find already in the forum or in google.

I don't think, that it's necessary to monitor all the links 24/7. It's also not necessary that the access to that list of URLs is something that the user can trigger anytime he has nothing better to do, it could be limited to cases, when eMule can't connect at all and than self gets the URLs to server.met or nodes.dat and tries them one by one.

[Stulle]

Link, you are right, if one were to enable "auto-bootstrap" within the software based on a download it will only be necessary if we lack a nodes.dat. Anyway, I think the point fox88 was trying to make - and I tried to make it earlier myself - is that if you implement it, it is your responsibility to make it work. Just judging from the current release cycles and the eMule summer of no code from 2009 (IIRC) it is safe to assume that no one is going to manually maintain the links which would be a necessary requirement. You could obviously implement one fallback after the other but that is not exactly useful either. It would need a reliable service implemented and maintained by the vendor in order to actually satisfy the initial aim: "auto-bootstrap". And that, in turn, would then create a single point of failure again.

Anyway, following my earlier arguments, it might prove useful to just send the user to a website that links to a Google search for nodes.dat and explains what has to be done and why it should be done. You could further educate the user on why HighID is better. Either way, this would just be a shortcut to gain this information. Nagging dialogs and other stuff like that will just violate smooth usability and might actually be worse than just making a semi-silent warning. Such a case might be when the user successfully connected to a server but has KAD on connect, too, but for whatever reason no nodes.dat and no clients to bootstrap from.

This post has been edited by Stulle: 31 July 2011 - 05:43 PM

[tHeWiZaRdOfDoS]

Naaah, you don't get what I was pointing at.
Sure, being unable to read the docs is somehow annoying, especially if it takes 11 years
Still, what I wanted to say is: he has a point.
eMule definately IS NOT easy to use which is a big MINUS when being compared to other P2P software and to increase the user base, it'd be nice to make it easier... maybe starting with the default config settings mentioned abve, removing unnecessary settings (or at least hiding them), etc.

[Stulle]

I grant you that it might be confusing at times. But making eMule run is very simple and if you don't bother with all the options you won't have any problem at all.

Still, leuk_he wrote a simplify feature for Morph at one point which I improved a couple of months (or was it years) ago. I think something like that is the best way to go if somebody was to simplify eMule. It's another option but it also does not decrease the users possible choices.

[makapa]

Hi All

Makapa's problems with not being able to connect to the Kad Network have all been solved.

Have downloaded and run AMULE which connected immediately and when asked to connect to the Kad/ed2k network did so instantly.

Now i fully realise that amule is a significantly smaller p2p service than Emule is, BUT, when you think of the numbers of people using it you may begin to realise that this is exactly the number of people who have given up with emule because of the lack of understanding and the total lack of help from the king of sarcasm Stulle, who has proved beyond any doubt that he has no intention of assisting those with connection problems and is just citing his own views which appear to be "i'm alright jack".

All those members so the consensus says are vastly in the majority of being ex users of emule as they could not connect. Therefore their uploads which could have gone straight to all the emule users have now been lost to emule due solely to people such as Stulle who will never help.

therefore it would be reasonable to state that if emule gets rid of those such as Stulle who will not help new users then emule traffic would increase.

Just goes to show that when enough people get fed up with zero help from the likes of Stulle they leave and find a program which connects simply and easily and also offers assistance to those who wish for it.

never did i realise what a fuss this would make by asking for simple help with a connection problem, but of course true to form no help came, sadly my request was noticed by Stulle, as was suggested by many others, still the solution has been found.

remember Stulle for each new member of Amule that joins is one less for emule due mainly to your kind who laugh at newbies and refuse to help them. this could be construed as your loss, or how to shoot yourself in the foot, i will let you decide.

Great idea Emule probably a great service for those who understand the intricacies but until you lose people such as Stulle whose sole purpose is not to help then new prospective users are going to migrate to other programs.

I wish you all well except of course the great Stulle who knows everything and refuses to help anybody lol

yours

maka