Apparently stalled sync, or very slow sync

[parkhays]

I and my peers recently upgraded to the latest version (1.4.0.1).  I run Vista on one machine and Mac OS 10.5? (Leopard) on the other, and my remote peer runs Win XP.  I am behind a router (a LinkSys WiFi router connected to a Comcast cable ISP).  Presumably that means I'm in a NAT domain and JXTA is using the Collanos (edge2?) relay server.

I show in my status bar: "0 B in, 2.31 MB out", and have shown this for two or three days.  The outbound value varies from about 2.27 to about 2.32, but never seems to change much more than that.

I can sync very quickly and without trouble on my LAN, at least according to one quick test.  However, I appear to be totally unable to sync with my remote peer.

I get, at least sometimes, invitations to new workspaces on one or both of the local computers, but so far (after several days of waiting) they don't appear to ever be created.

Question 1:
Are the relay servers overloaded or something?

Question 2:
Is there any alternative to using the relay servers, for example by port forwarding the LinkSys router to one of the LAN machines?

Question 3:
What does the traffic status actually mean?  Is "out" the amount that has been sent, the amount queued to be sent, the rate, or what?

Question 4:
Is there any way to tell what has been synchronized to who (or what is pending synchronization)? If not, consider that a feature request!

Thank you for any insight.  I like Collanos, but it sure has been frustrating lately.

[Alexander.Onishko]

Dear parkhays,

The problem may be in that there is a firewall at your router.

If so, please set up your firewall by adding Collanos application to the list of exception.

Also, please review this topic http://forum.collanos.com/index.php?topic=945.0

[parkhays]

Alexander,
Thank you for the tips.  I think there is no particular problem with my router, which is not configured as a firewall.  It is nearly factory default Linksys WRT-300N.  In any case, I get chat-type messages through without trouble, though they are often delayed several minutes.

I spent some time reading about JXTA, the underlying protocol used by Collanos (as I understand it).  Opening ports on a router into a network address translation (NAT) domain doesn't offer any speed advantage.  The reason is that the outbound traffic is reshaped to use the real internet address.  Inbound traffic, however, is not.  Therefore, even if you use port forwarding on your router you won't be able to get advantages of direct computer-to-computer transfer.  That means still using the relay server.  As a result, don't waste your time opening the ports indicated, at least if you're a typical home user (DSL/Cable Modem type).

It does appear that some future version of JXTA will support UPnP, which might overcome this difficulty as long as routers are intelligent enough to support.  Still, I suspect that is some time away.

I'm still interested in answers to my other three questions, if anyone has them.

[Alexander.Onishko]

Question 3:
What does the traffic status actually mean?  Is "out" the amount that has been sent, the amount queued to be sent, the rate, or what?

"Out" shows the amount of data queued to be sent. So, for example, if your colleagues went off line this value will not be changing.

Question 4:
Is there any way to tell what has been synchronized to who (or what is pending synchronization)? If not, consider that a feature request!

Currently there is no progress bar or anything of that kind.  We may plan it for future releases. Meanwhile, can you please share with us your vision of this feature? So far, we thought only of adding a progress bar indicator of the amount of data received for the receiving party. According to your comment you would like to have some synchronization indicator for the sending party. So, all your comments and suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

[parkhays]

First, thank you very much for the description of the "out" content--that certainly clears things up.

Question 4:
Is there any way to tell what has been synchronized to who (or what is pending synchronization)? If not, consider that a feature request!

Currently there is no progress bar or anything of that kind.  We may plan it for future releases. Meanwhile, can you please share with us your vision of this feature?

I'm not really envisioning a progress bar, what I had in mind was more like metadata about each file (and of course some kind of summary tool).  I think a spreadsheet format would be effective, which could show each object in a row and each member of the workspace in a column.  Color code green or something for everything has sync'd, but put the date/time in the cell that sync acknowledge was received.  For objects that haven't been sync'd I would want to know how much progress had been made, effective data rate, and the time of last action (ideally time of last successfully transferred segment).

It would be helpful to know the mechanism of the synchronization to each recipient (point-to-point, server, etc).

At a minimum you would need be able to view this information for each workspace.  Ideally you would be able to view an aggregated version of all your workspaces.  Perhaps the rows on the left could be displayed as a foldable tree...  Here's my ascii stab

Object            |  Alice            |    Bob  |  Cindy | ...
----------------------------------------------------------
 - TestWorkspace  | Today 9am         |
 +- Folder1       | 8% 2008-12-25 4:13|
 |- Folder2
   |- FileA
   |- FileB


I realize how difficult this would be, conceptually, for files which Alice received from Bob and then forwarded to Cindy, though it is probably conceptually possible.  Certainly it is no more difficult than a revision control capability, which must certainly be a much-requested feature.

Yours,
Park

[Bob.in.NZ]

If you're looking at an easy enhancement that could be helpful, how about starting with a simple log file about synchronization traffic?  Next would be a report showing what's in the que and who it's directed toward.  That would be helpful in determining who's got a problem within the peer network.

I also like Collanos, but have been frustrated over synch problems lately.