[docbill]

Note: I just edited this message to idicate I have figured out this is NOT an EMULE BUG.
... Original Message Follows ...

I have been watching my uploads and downloads on my XP box very carefully and I notice a strange behavior.

It seems e-mule will drop all active uploading/downloading connections fairly regularly. If I am watching uploads, all the uploads will go to 0 bps at the same time and disappear. If I watch downloads, the downloads go to 0 bps and then disappear. If I look at the statistics window I will see what looks like an upside down spike in the upload rates, and a drop to zero in downloads. Most pending downloads on the queue remain on the queue. The uploads resume as quickly as they stopped, but it takes a good 10-30 minutes before I start seeing downloads again.

At first I thought the problem was my DSL modem was cycling. I did some experiments and I found indeed recycling my DSL appeared almost the same as these sudden connection drops. The main difference is the outage lasts abit longer when I cycle the modem.

I decided to find out definitively if these connection losses were due to loss of network connectivity, so I established a few ssh connections to different remote hosts and issued the commad:

while [ 1 -eq 1 ] ; do sleep 10;date; done

None of the ssh connections have dropped since I started this test, but I the emule connection loss.

Obviously, this test is not conclusive, since it could be something is happening to UDP packets that causes this effect.

Is there any other tests I can run to help isolate this problem?

This post has been edited by docbill: 06 January 2006 - 09:06 PM

[Stoepsel]

Please provide all the information listed here.

Sounds to me like your router can't handle the stress that a p2p application like eMule places on it.

As a first measure, do the following:

In Options > Connection, reduce Max Connections to 100.
In Options > Connection, disable Kad.
In Options > Extended, reduce Max new connections / 5 sec to 10.

[docbill]

Stoepsel, on Jan 3 2006, 09:07 PM, said:

In Options > Connection, reduce Max Connections to 100.

These have been my standard settings for quite some time. Rarely do my total number of connections get above 20, and I never have seen it that high at the time of one of the connection drops.

Stoepsel, on Jan 3 2006, 09:07 PM, said:

In Options > Extended, reduce Max new connections / 5 sec to 10.
In Options > Connection, disable Kad.

Just tried that today. Same problem. But I only disconnected KAD, I didn't deselect the network. Should I try that as well?
I am trying the reverse. KAD only, no E2DK server. So far rock solid, but I am only 20 minutes into the test.


The information you requested:

Pc Configuration

OS: Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 2, running on an AMD64 processor
Internet connection: 2512/512 DSL Sympatico.ca
Modem: SpeedStream (the only type supported by Sympatico.ca)
Router: Lynksys RT31P2 (the only type supported by Babytel.ca - VOIP)
Proxy: None
Firewall: Norton Personal Firewall 2005
(The Windows Firewall always gave me a low ID)
Antivirus: Norton Antivirus 2005
Spyware detector: Spybot - Search & Destroy (not in use at the same time as emule)
Emule Version: 0.46c

Dl/Ul capacity: 150/22 (also tried 75/12)
Dl/Ul limits: 150/24
Hard limit: 400
Max Connection: 100
Activate network: Both
Max. new connection/5 secs.* : 20
Max half open connection.**: 9
Ports Tcp/Udp: 4673/4683 (also tried 4673/4673 and 4683/4683)

High ID/LowID: High ID
Download files: 474
Shared files: 457
Which server did you connect to?: Many. Each time there is a connection drop it changes server. My preferred servers are Razorback * and Donkey Server *.
Found sources: 225

[docbill]

Results so far:

Both networks connected:
Problem:
Sudden disconnects every 0-90 minutes.
After disconnect:
New uploads resume within 30 seconds. New downloads within 15 minutes.

Only E2DK connected:
Problem:
Sudden disconnects every 0-90 minutes.
After disconnect:
New uploads within 30 seconds. New downloads within 15 minutes.

Only KAD connected:
Problem:
Sudden disconnects every 0-90 minutes.
After disconnect:
New uploads within 30 seconds. New downloads within 15 minutes.

KAD completely disabled:
Sudden disconnect after 0-90 minutes.
After disconnect:
New uploads in about 15 minutes. New downloads in about 15 minutes.

E2DK completely disabled:
Seems rock solid. But I have only tested for 90 minutes so far.

So it looks like the problem is caused by e2dk. For now I can leave e2dk disabled, but it would be nice to know how to fix it.

Bill

[niclights]

What is the difference between 'only Kad connected' and 'edk2 completely disabled'? You are either connected to them or not. There is no middle-ground. The settings in Options merely determine what connects automatically when Emule starts. (The same applies to 'ed2k connected/kad completely disabled')

Why is UL Limit higher than capacity? I assume this is a typo, but bandwidth management is vital. Make sure that (when all is working ok) you get a straight line on UL Graph. If it is spikey then reduce UL Limit.

I would also reduce your Max New Connections/5sec value to 5. This often is more important than the Max Connections setting.

I do wonder if ISP is playing any part in this. It seems unlikely seeing your description, but IIRC Sympatico are known to throttle Emule connections.

[docbill]

niclights, on Jan 5 2006, 02:06 AM, said:

What is the difference between 'only Kad connected' and 'edk2 completely disabled'?  You are either connected to them or not.  There is no middle-ground.  The settings in Options merely determine what connects automatically when Emule starts.  (The same applies to 'ed2k connected/kad completely disabled')

Only KAD connected means I haven't disabled E2DK at startup, I just pressed the disconnect button for servers. I notice queued downloads will continue to use E2DK and KAD, so this is really just a test on extra traffic sent to the server.

Only E2DK connected means I haven't disabled KAD at startup, I just pressed the KAD disconnect button. Ditto above.

KAD completely disabled means the network was disabled at startup.

E2DK completely disabled means the network was disabled at startup.

niclights, on Jan 5 2006, 02:06 AM, said:

Why is UL Limit higher than capacity?  I assume this is a typo, but bandwidth management is vital.  Make sure that (when all is working ok) you get a straight line on UL Graph.  If it is spikey then reduce UL Limit.

Opps. It looks like I swapped limits and capacity. I can see it both ways. My network has a fixed capacity and I want to limit that, making the limit the smaller number. Or I want to assign capacity to eMule up to the limit of what my network supports, making capacity the smaller number...

niclights, on Jan 5 2006, 02:06 AM, said:

I would also reduce your Max New Connections/5sec value to 5.  This often is more important than the Max Connections setting.

Can try. But I really think connections is a red herring. The number of connections is so low it is neglishable. I open more connections with Mozilla Thunderbird reading e-mail than I do with e-mule. If I do a netstat I have to really hunt for the few connections that are from e-mule. For the most part e-mule seems to use UDP packets, which are connectionless.

niclights, on Jan 5 2006, 02:06 AM, said:

I do wonder if ISP is playing any part in this.  It seems unlikely seeing your description, but IIRC Sympatico are known to throttle Emule connections.

It is possible. I've also wondered if it was some sort of denial of service attack. If I were working for the RIAA I would right a program to spray occassional packet bursts.

Oh. After some more time running without E2DK, I see the connection drops still happen, but the time period is more like 0-180 minutes. So I do better without using E2DK but it doesn't solve the problem.

My router has the ability to set QOS priority for different data sources, so I have been considering trying that. I also have about 6 other routers available and I have been considering, trying one of those on the weekend when I don't need the VOIP phone for bussiness and see what happens.

Bill

This post has been edited by docbill: 05 January 2006 - 04:54 AM

[coluche]

Quote

Opps. It looks like I swapped limits and capacity. I can see it both ways.

better don't see it the other somewhat strange way. make sure your limits are not exceeding your capacity.
Which btw. should be 320/64. (or 316/64 who cares)

Quote

when I don't need the VOIP phone for bussiness and see what happens.

aha, VOIP, so - any coincidence between VOIP-calls and connection losses? With smaller capacities, VOIP doesn't leave any bandwidth for the mule, with your 512kb/s upstream, I would expect that p2p and VOIP can go together without killing each other, but who knows (well, I don't)

Quote

Download files: 474
Shared files: 457

that's a lot. and how does it fit with

Quote

Found sources: 225

nothing wrong with those numbers?

so far, me offline now

[docbill]

coluche, on Jan 5 2006, 06:01 AM, said:

better don't see it the other somewhat strange way. make sure your limits are not exceeding your capacity.
Which btw. should be 320/64. (or 316/64 who cares)

The program wouldn't let me swap which is which, as the lower number is set with a slider. So the only way I could get it wrong would be to start editing the configuration files by hand.

I don't use 320/64 because the larger numbers just seem to effect the scale on statistics graphs, and I prefere to actually be able to see the curves at a meaningfull scale.

coluche, on Jan 5 2006, 06:01 AM, said:

aha, VOIP, so - any coincidence between VOIP-calls and connection losses? With smaller capacities, VOIP doesn't leave any bandwidth for the mule, with your 512kb/s upstream, I would expect that p2p and VOIP can go together without killing each other, but who knows (well, I don't)

None that I can tell. Most of the time I forward the VOIP line to my mobile phone. I only tend to use the line when my phone is charging or I want to use the speaker phone. I have had the occassional dropped call, but I haven't notice an coincidence with emule.

coluche, on Jan 5 2006, 06:01 AM, said:

Quote

Download files: 474
Shared files: 457

that's a lot. and how does it fit with

Quote

Found sources: 225

nothing wrong with those numbers?

Nope. Perfectly consistent. Many of the files I have listed for download haven't been started yet. I just queued a large number of files while I was at a website with the links. Typically I collect enough to burn a data DVD and then I start the next batch. I have about 80 GB of disk space that is reserved for a project I haven't started yet, so for now I am just copying the burned file to that disk so I can continue sharing them.

[coluche]

Quote

Nope. Perfectly consistent. Many of the files I have listed for download haven't been started yet. I just queued a large number of files

same here, but mostly after "search sessions". I hope you already discovered the categories to handle so many "files" more comfortable.

with your problem, it's not me then that can help you
but there are really wise people around here,
good luck (hope it's not the ISP)

edit: itmay help if you could covince some moderator to move this to support forum, there are more cool folks seeing it.

This post has been edited by coluche: 05 January 2006 - 04:24 PM

[docbill]

I resolved this problem by placing a D-Link DI-514 router inbetween my LinkSys and my DSL modem.

Now I nolonger see any sudden connection drops in e-mule. To me it looks like what was happening is the LinkSys was regularly deciding my PPPoE connection needed a new login and was giving too long of a network timeout for emule on the E2DK network. One thing that would have helped would have been to be able to tune these timeout settings.

I don't know if the problem resides with the LinkSys or the DSL modem. But it is definitely a problem when the two are connected directly to eachother...