Routers

[Crazy Diamond]

This one has to do with soulseek and me not being able to browse 90% of peoples files because I'm behind a router.

I've tried the soulseek forums, but they arent very useful to someone who doesnt know their way around a computer and they give links but oddly none of them work.

I'm suppose to change the router to port 2234 but have no idea how to do this.

Is this going to screw anything up on the other computer?

[Umma]

Sorry Crazy Diamond... I have no idea about routers either.... but I'm sure some of the techie gurus will be able to help. :)

[method77]

taken from the soulseek FAQ:

Q: Why can't I browse some people's file list?

A: Again, the nature of peer-to-peer. Not every person can browse every other person. Everything from routing problems to firewalls (usually firewalls) can stop two users from creating a connection over which to transfer data. Not being able to browse other users is extremely common (and unavoidable). This is much more true if you are yourself firewalled or behind a router.

[Wolfie]

Lot of routers have online guides for such stuff. Do a google search on your router brand, model number and port forwarding. Btw, what kind of router do you have? I might seen a guide for somewhere since I use routers all the time.

[Crazy Diamond]

Method: I seen that page and its pretty misleading. Because it IS avoidable. I even went into the forums (which are a lot more useful than the FAQ page), at one point I found the page that gave you instructions on how to fix this problem, but the page isn’t up any more.

Wolfie - I know nothing about routers. Or how to use them. My room mate is just getting into all this kind of stuff so he doesn’t know either. And I don’t want to screw up anything on his computer. Opening certain ports wont cause any problems will it?

It’s a DL - 604

[Ken]

http://support.dlink.com/faq/view.asp?prod_id=1519

If you need any clarification, don't be afraid to ask.

All this is basicly saying is you need a piece of information first, something known as your internal IP address that your router assigns to your specific computer (the one you have souolseek installed on, and the one you want to use).

For a D-Link model, it'll be 192.168.0.X - where X is usually 100, or 101, or 102, etc depending upon how many computers are behind your router.

You can find this out in WinXP or 2000 by opening a command prompt and typing ipconfig

In XP, go to Start>Programs?Accesories>Command Prompt.

For 2000, it should be similar.

After you know your internal IP address, you'll enter that in the feilds on the configuration page that the D-Link FAQ helped you get to. This and specifying the port(s) and Protocol (TCP/UDP) is what's important.

As a side note, if selecting Both as the protocol type doesn't work, try making two entries instead, with the exact same information, only make one just TCP and the other just UDP.

[Umma]

The Unofficial FAQ for soulseek is probably more helpful than the official one... for most things.

http://slskfaq.d2g.com/

[Ken]

Thread moved to File Sharing Help.

I forgot to include a link in the initial section this was posted in.

I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to people who have this thread bookmarked.

[Crazy Diamond]

Thanks for all your help everyone. I’ll try the first link you posted Ken, that looked pretty straight forward. And Umma, that link you posted was actually the site I visited before but was down when I tried again. It seems to be working fine now.

If I have any more questions I’ll be sure to post.

[ASUmusicMAN]

Also look into how those people port forward with DC...now that i've done that and used it on other file sharing apps it speeds stuff up...

[Crazy Diamond]

DC?

[Crazy Diamond]

One last question...well really old question asked again.

Will opening these two ports that I need cause any problems for either computer?

[Wolfie]

Unless some other software also uses the exact same ports (I forget what port soulseek uses) and is running at the same time, there should not be any problems.

Btw, DC=Direct Connect. :bigsmile:

[Ken]

No, it wont.

It wont let you open the same port number for another computer behind your router.

No problems whatsoever.

I wouldn't, however, use another P2P program on that same computer, through the same port(s) that you opened, AT THE SAME TIME.

What I mean is, you could use another P2P program besides Slsk using the same forwarded port(s), as long as you're not using Slsk at the same time, and/or as long as nothing else is using the port(s) at that time.

[Crazy Diamond]

Okay I finally got around to doing this and it's not working.

I follow the instructions on the D-Link Tech Support that Ken posted, and when I enter the IP address of the router into the web browser I get the pop up asking for admin name and passwork. The site says to enter in the admin name and leave the password empty. Which I did but the problem is I dont get the screen I am suppose to, I get a blank white screen saying 401 unauthorized.

Now what do I do?

I know what the admins username is and there isnt a password for it.

[ASUmusicMAN]

for my router both the username and password are "admin"

it's a linksys, but it's worth a shot

[Ken]

Once you get into the configuration page, you can set your own custom username and password.

From what I remember, the first time you start up (or the default for the D-Link), you should type "admin" in the UN field and leave the pass field blank. Then you can use the "wizard" in the config page to set the pass.

Usually when you first start the config page, you can use the set up wizard to do a few things like set the UN and PASS, clone a mac address (if needed), set time zone, and enable/disable encryption (for wireless connections).

I don't own a D-Link any longer, so I can't visually give you specific instructions for the interface.

[Ken]

If you're stuck on something, another good piece of advice would be to post a screen shot of where you are and what you're doing.

use the "print screen" key (Prt scrn) and paste into windows paint (or a program of your choice). Save it as a JPEG (.jpg, .jpeg) and use the File Attachments options when you post and browse to the picture, select it, and it will post (if it's not too big. If it's too big, crop it in your program and get rid of any white/empty or non-important space; only what you need should remain).

[Crazy Diamond]

you should type "admin" in the UN field and leave the pass field blank

yeah that worked...im an idiot.

At first I was still getting the same error message constantly so I went back in to the router configuration and looked around. As it turns out I had typed in the wrong IP address. Total Genous, I'm on a roll with this computer stuff.

Plus the forums/faq arent up to date. I learned later on that you only need one port open. Soulseek doesnt use 5534 anymore. So I took that out and everything is working great.

I also d/l the test version, which i think i great. it has a lot of perks compared to 152.

[Crazy Diamond]

oh, and thanks for everyones help. i was getting sick of listening to the same stuff since i moved.

:relaxin:

[Ken]

Glad to see you're off and running!

Good luck!

:frog:

[Crazy Diamond]

:reallymad: I HATE COMPUTERS :reallymad:

As it turns out, that didnt work. I have no firewalls, I opened the appropriate ports, only to find out that the test version doesnt use them. So I opened different ones (I've asked on the soulseek board as well).

When I do that test thingy, It says that those ports are closed, but as far as i can tell i did everything correctly.

What the hell?

[Wolfie]

Did you try rebooting the router after you changed and saved the port settings?

[Ken]

You shouldn't need to reboot the router, and please, don't reset the router, whatever you do, or you're back to square 1 again. All you should do is wait and after the settings are entered and pages are done loading and/or redirecting, just go to File->Close/Exit in your browser, or just click the close button in Windows (the X). Now, if that's not the issue.............

Did you enter the correct "internal" ip address into the corresponding feild (like 192.168.0.100 or 192.168.0.101 or 192.168.0.102 or 192.168.0.103 or whatever your system was assigned)?

You can find out your internal IP address by opening a (dos) command prompt and typing "ipconfig" without the quotes. A shortcut to that can be reached by going to Start->Programs->Accessories>Command Prompt (in Win XP/2000 and most likely 98, and 95 as well). (Sorry if I repeated myself there. It seems I already had that info in another reply. I forget what I type sometimes).

Also, make sure you specify the protocol (TCP or UDP). I don't recommend using the "both" setting as it never seemed to work for me. If you need to foreward a TCP and UDP port of the same number, just create two separate entries; one TCP and one UDP. Also, make sure the radio button in one of the feilds is set to "enabled". By default, it's set to disabled. There is also a feild where you choose between a set schedule for the opening of the port and an "always" option or something like that. Make sure it's on the always type option (always should be the default, however).

If all else fails, it's probably a client issue. Make sure you got the correct settings in SoulSeek's program settings.

That's about all I can say without having first hand visual knowledge of the situation.

[Crazy Diamond]

At first I didn't enter the right IP address, I noticed that when I went back to see if there was anything I did wrong. So I fixed that and got the same thing when I ran the test.

As it turns out, 154test3j uses random ports, that can be found under options, which I looked for, and tried opening the port myself, no luck. So I switched it back to 2234, no luck. and i made the changes you suggested but again no luck. the test still says the ports are closed.

I've posted my problems on the soulseek forum, and have searched there too, but havent found it all that helpfull. Basically telling me stuff i already know.

weird thing is, even though the ports are closed, i've been able to browse files again, but now there are problems with d/l speed and my dls freezing then going back to remotley queued.