eMule: high/low ID problem
Text taken from the website http://www.emule-project.net/
ID is a value counted from the client's IP number. It is assigned by the server when eMule is connected to it. The ID aim is determining a proper communication between two clients.
After connecting the ID is visible in the Log:
You can find out the status of your ID by icons in bottom right corner of eMule window.
it indicates high ID in all networks
it indicates low ID in all networks
High ID means, that the port in Options -> Connection (default 4662) is open and directly available.
Low ID means, that this port is blocked and nobody outside can not connect to you. It can be caused by a firewall, router or proxy server.
Low ID does not mean, that file downloading or uploading is impossible, but has some disadvantages:
- The computer IP on which eMule is running is unknown and because of that all queries such as for queue or connection demand must be routed by the server to which the clients is connected. It causes big load of the server, limiting the number of such users that the server must handle. Lugdunum Servers limit the number of users with low ID or ban them totally (refuse connection).
- Two clients with low ID can not connect to each other because it is impossible to route queries between two different servers. It causes smaller number of sources where you can download data from.
- On overloaded servers may happen that the queries go missing and eMule loses important information about queue progression or download requests. This may lead to smaller number of credits and worse transfer.
Notes:
- The ID issue matters only by information exchange between clients. Data transfer runs normally from client to client.
- If it is impossible to get the high ID, it is better to connect to servers with smaller number of users, because they have more free resources to serve all those requests than the bigger ones, usually overloaded.
- You can also receive a low ID when the server to which you are connected is overloaded and can not response properly or just configured improperly. If you are sure that your settings are good and you should have a high ID, connect to another server. Run eMule and use that script (gratitudes for TheDonkeyNetwork) to check your configuration.
- If you have high ID, it is not important how high it is. Higher ID is not in any way better and does not bring any benefits.
- If you have low ID, it is not important how low it is. Low ID is a value below 16777216.
- To compare your IP number with high ID the method is as follows: for IP = A.B.C.D high ID = A + 256*B + 256*256*C + 256*256*256*D.
Important:
From version eMule 0.23a the resources with low ID are omitted by eMule to limit the server load. Only the resources with low ID connected to the server that your client is and resources with low ID that want to download a file from you are accepted. Also resources with low ID are omitted by the exchange of information about known resources between clients.
