WinMX - Transfers - Downloads Screen (upper section)

The upper area of your transfers screen is the 'Downloads' section.  This is where you can monitor and keep track of pending and active downloads.  There are many buttons and functions available on this part of the screen to help you do this.
Some of these function only when you have certain things highlighted on the screen, like a user name or file name specifically.

The first thing to learn about this section is you can re size almost all of the columns and even decide how much of the screen the Downloads section will take.  To re size the columns or move their order around simply hover your mouse over the '|' bars you see between sections marked above in a green circle, holding down the 'left click' move them where you would like them.  You can also hover the mouse over the main bar just above the Upload buttons and a double arrow will appear, hold the 'left click' and move it up or down to the desired size.

The Incomplete/Complete buttons are discussed in WinMX - Transfers - Incomplete Files Section.

'Purge Users' will remove any users that have gone 'red' in your Downloads screen.  This usually happens within a certain time and you can set that by looking here at File Transfers Times.  But if you find there are many turning red then just sitting there, clicking this will remove those manually.

The 'Queuing' Button will take you to the Queue Settings page in Settings.

The 'Options' button will take you to the File Transfers Times page in Settings.

'Open Incoming Files Folder' will open the folder you have set up as your Incoming folder, in other words this is the folder your downloads are being saved to.

The next line of buttons will only be active with things highlighted in the Downloads Screen.

'Cancel' this will cancel a file downloading or queued when that file is highlighted.  It can also remove a user from the active transfer if the user's name is highlighted.

'Clear' is similar although this will not just deactivate the file/user but remove them from the screen.

'Retry' can be used when a user name is highlighted to retry to make a connection, helpful when the file transfer rate slows to 0.00.  

'Find Sources Now' can be used to find more sources of a file.  This can be done by highlighting the file name, and clicking the button or right click the file name and choose 'Find Sources Now'.  Its important to note, that this is looking for this specific file, meaning its going to preform a 'HASH' search, which are considered global (network wide) and this makes this procedure an excellent way to get more sources of a file faster.

The 'Auto Find Sources' and 'Auto Enter Que' buttons operate similar to the Settings for Search except that instead of setting this for all files they are specific to the file you have highlighted in the Downloads Screen.


You will notice there is either a '[+]' or '[-]' to the far left side of files in the downloads section.  You should click this to make it a [+] sign.  This will allow you to see any error messages displayed when a connection gets disconnected, it can be very useful for diagnosing problems or finding solutions to disconnections.  Here are the most common messages users will see in the Downloads section of the Transfers screen.

Status:

'Remotely queued (purple)'
Is were you are waiting in line for the file to be started.

'Locally Queued (Royal Blue)'
This is the message you will see if your trying to download more files than you have set as your limit. You can change this limit in Settings > File Transfers > Queuing.

'Busy (Light Purple)'
You will see this message when you are attempting to enter a Queue longer then your default settings are allowing.  You can enter this persons que by right clicking the user name, choose 'Enter Remote Que'.  To set your default settings higher you can go to Settings > Search > Auto Enter Que and make the desired adjustments there so that you do not continue to get this message.

Errors:

'Both Users Firewalled (Red)'
This is a message you will see if your attempting to download a file from a user that does NOT have ports set up, and neither do you.  We call this Passive Secondary Mode, WinMX requires one user to have ports open to communicate through, if neither do, it assumes your both firewalled.  This message can be misleading so remember, your always going to see this if your ports are not set up in WinMX Settings, it does not mean that it's 100% a firewall issue.
Setting Incoming TCP Ports
Setting In/Out UDP Ports

'Timed Out (waiting for connection)'
Reasons for this can vary but, this is seen when the connection could not be established in the default time frame (45 seconds is default).  For most broadband users 45 seconds should be sufficient however, there are times when adjusting the Time Out Settings can help with this.
File Transfer time Settings
If you have adjusted this and still get this message frequently, chances are you have a firewall or router problem or possibly are trying to download fake files.
Have a look here for more help with this issue.
Primary Connection Help
Secondary Connection Help

For more information on these messages or others not listed here please visit here:
Transfer Screen Messages


You will notice a few other options when you highlight a file name and 'Right Click', some of those are discussed above but here you see there are a few extra options.  Here is a brief explanation of those options.



Trim 10K From End of File:
There are times you may see a message 'Error File Mismatch (002/004)'.  This can happen if WinMX has crashed recently or ended abruptly, it can also just happen if you get a portion of the file that is corrupted.  This Trim 10K  option allows you to remove small portions of a file in order to remove the corrupted parts and allow you to resume your downloads again. You can get more information from here:
Transfer Screen Messages

Searching for Alternatives:
Search for Alternatives finds alternate users with a matching file to the one you are already downloading.  By using this option WinMX will do a HASH search (WinMX ID) for the exact matches to the file you have begun.

When you use this option it will take you to your Search screen, with the file title already listed and a HASH> number underneath.  You can then choose to add those new sources to your already existing incomplete download.  


Searching for Similar:
This searches for files of similar name and type.  These results will NOT match existing files but will give you other alternative files to download if the previous ones are just not working.  

Open/Play/Enqueue:
These settings allow you to Open or play a file that is partially downloaded.  Keep in mind some file types cant be opened or played until they have downloaded completely.  For audio types of files, most players will play an incomplete file so that you can preview it and make sure its the file you wanted.  For video files its recommended that you use Video Lan Client to preview incomplete files.  This is a great program to have as it plays nearly all video types of files, its light on resources, and its free.



This information brought to you by Mr and Mrs SiliconToad, many thanks for their hard work on this.

If you need more information than provided here please visit the forum for help.
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