Slsk seems so dead the last couple years, anyone else notice?

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Mikey j

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Mar 19, 2023, 10:48:02 PM3/19/23
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Been using over 10 years now, and I've noticed in the last couple years, that all the rarer stuff gets no results anymore. Kind of sad really, because slsk used to always have all the crazy rare stuff, so it seems like lots of users don't use it as much as before. Anyone else notice this happening the last couple years?

Mihai Raducu

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Mar 20, 2023, 12:41:09 PM3/20/23
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Private Telegram channels and Discord are biting some of the market share.

Nicolaus “Nico” Isco

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Mar 26, 2023, 12:00:33 AM3/26/23
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Not only that. If you try Depeche Mode you get no results... It's not even rare

Nicolaus “Nico” Isco

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Mar 26, 2023, 12:01:17 AM3/26/23
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private Telegram and Discord? That sounds like 25 years ago the all stuff was on Forum.

On Monday, March 20, 2023 at 12:41:09 PM UTC-4 Mihai Raducu wrote:

Nick Polak

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Mar 26, 2023, 7:02:13 AM3/26/23
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You have to remember that certain artists are filtered out. You won't get any results for "Depeche Mode", but if you type "Depeche Speak Spell", you get thousands.

Nick Polak

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Mar 26, 2023, 7:09:47 AM3/26/23
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I think the larger issue is that the user base for Soulseek is aging, and the younger generations simply don't have any interest in collecting physical (or digital in this case) media.

I'm nearly 70 and have been collecting and trading for 40+ years. I still find people with large, impressive collections on slsk, but they are becoming more and more rare, and they usually turn out to be people close to my age, or over 40 anyway. Streaming is the future, and file-sharing is becoming a thing of the past.

The same can be said of the BT sites and DC++ hubs, which have largely disappeared since their heyday ten to fifteen years ago. (DC++ on Mac is now impossible, for example, as there are no longer any clients being actively supported).

I'm very grateful that slsk IS supported and has this community (if only to gripe in LOL).

Johnny T

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Mar 26, 2023, 6:14:17 PM3/26/23
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Aha, so that's a real thing!

I was freaked out that searching Volbeat returned nothing at all, seemed bizarre and I concluded something must be fishy.
I did eventually find it by song/album texts.

Johnny T

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Mar 26, 2023, 6:15:41 PM3/26/23
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I dunno, 20 years in Soulseek seems as awesome as ever, I always tell people it's the best thing.  And has lots more than music now, most torrents' seeding is temporary but you can always find it later on soulseek (eventually, definitely master Wishlisting, and things in my experience always show up).

Johnny T

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Mar 26, 2023, 6:18:45 PM3/26/23
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I know what you mean, but I think there will always be people collecting/hoarding who value practical possession.
Or I hope anyway.
There's too much to lose relying on streaming and it seems like some smart kids must realize it.

John Gardner

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Mar 27, 2023, 11:23:20 AM3/27/23
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"You won't get any results for "Depeche Mode", but if you type "Depeche Speak Spell", you get thousands."

This explains why—for many months—searches for Melancholia kept turning up diddly-squat. When I tried searching by the director's name, however, I quickly found one of Lars von Trier's other movies, which was located in a folder containing the director's name. When I browsed the files of said folder, yup, there Melancholia was. I thought this was a bug at the time, but now I'm convinced that the movie's title must've been blacklisted (it's by no means an obscure film).

Having said that, an alternative strategy to circumvent blacklisted artist names like Depeche Mode would be to
  1. Search for a similar artist
  2. Browse the files shared by each user appearing in the search results
  3. Grep for Depeche Mode in their collection.

Dàwéi Hēiér

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Apr 4, 2023, 7:14:00 AM4/4/23
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I noticed something more drastic than this.  In the last 2 months, I received no private messages from anyone asking to download this / that and the "Received Searches" tab is almost inactive now.    I'd say it happened between feb and early march 2023.   What happened ?

On Sunday, March 19, 2023 at 10:48:02 PM UTC-4 Mikey j wrote:

Aaron Leach

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Apr 4, 2023, 5:21:20 PM4/4/23
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I get so many hits per second its hard to keep up with. Maybe your isp or ports have issues connecting? I talk to many people daily up there in various channels.

Dàwéi Hēiér

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Apr 4, 2023, 7:39:28 PM4/4/23
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If it was that, I'd see no search at all and no connection at all... I've been discussing with a few people on slks and they noticed the same thing as I did.    Maybe the slsk server has issues ?

Dàwéi Hēiér

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Apr 4, 2023, 7:40:22 PM4/4/23
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Like right now, I've restarted my client a couple of hours ago and I only have one search.

Dàwéi Hēiér

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Apr 5, 2023, 12:12:59 PM4/5/23
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So I know it works but this :
Capture.PNG
is a changed behavior.   If I'd see none at all, I'd believe the issue is on my side but that'S not the case.   I've restarted this client yesterday and since then I have only those searches sent to me where as before, I had these every seconds added to this tab.  This means the server is not sending me searches and I have lots of matches usually... like 1M files will surely match somewhere at some point.

Ryan Shea

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Apr 5, 2023, 12:28:39 PM4/5/23
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I'm seeing this exact thing and it was almost to where 1 day it went from numerous people downloading from me to now none ever. I can still find what I[m looking for but no searches are ever coming in. I tried a lot of things and it works fine for me but it's like searches aren't reaching me.

Dàwéi Hēiér

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Apr 6, 2023, 11:39:10 AM4/6/23
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We were shadow banned ... if you login with another account , it's back until they shadow ban you again.

Dàwéi Hēiér

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Apr 7, 2023, 10:26:59 AM4/7/23
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See, this morning it stopped again.   Disconnected my account, reconnected it, no new "server searches" are sent to my client ... I disconnected my account again, connected a new again and then I receive lots of "server searches".   By server searches I mean in the 3rd tab of your searches, you can see the searches sent to you from other users and see if they match or not.   Something's preventing the server from sending me searches somehow.

Dàwéi Hēiér

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Apr 7, 2023, 12:59:27 PM4/7/23
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It looks like when it stops working I get this in "Distributed Network"

[Fri Apr 7 11:10:36 2023] Received parent min speed 1, currently not processing

...

[Fri Apr 7 12:48:14 2023] Parent socket closed


And then in "Search" tab I see this:
...

[Fri Apr 7 12:48:13 2023] Sending search results to user arcticyeti1 for search string the sound of perseverance

[Fri Apr 7 12:48:13 2023] Sending search results to user together robots for search string arctor


Looks around the same time.   Is there a socket timeout somewhere and slsk is not trying to reconnect ? @nir
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