Bitcoin Forum

I have noticed this for a few days now...

And yes I have forwarded my ports :P (In fact, I don't have any to forward, I am not behind a router).

Whenever I double click on (I'm using windows) the bitcoin client, it pops up and begins acquiring connections quite quickly, up to about 50 or 60 connections in less than a minute I would say.

When I run bitcoin.exe -server from the command line, the GUI pops up like normal but it only ever reaches 10-15 connections maximum, even after waiting for an hour or two.

Anybody else notice this? Anybody know why?

Notes: Windows 7, 32 Bit

Really shouldn't happen, I see no reason why.  Have you tried just opening alternating ones repeatedly for a while to make sure its not a first/second time thing?

10-15 connections means your port is properly forwarded, and other clients can contact you.

The networking code is the same in either case, so it was almost certainly just a coincidence and you got unlucky with the peers you connected to running -server from the command line.

I seem to recall someone else mentioning this earlier and attributing it to Windows.  I don't know much about Windows networking code, but is there some sort of adjustable limitation placed on services?  My detached bitcoind process running under Linux currently has 114 connections.

As gavin said, its the same code either way.  My bet is the OP opened it once noticed quite a few connections, closed it, and opened bitcoin one last time with -server causing him to lose all the previous connections.  Even after waiting a while, those connections didn't come back because the clients who did have his node in their known node list lost their connection they won't make a new one and others just didn't connect to him. 

Update: 3 full days later of running bitcoin.exe -server and I am only up to 43 connections. It climbs steadily...

BUT, if I were to simply open bitcoin.exe by double clicking on it, without adding the -server command... I would be up to 50-60 connections within a matter of minutes.

Something about this doesn't seem right.

I am running Windows 7 Ultimate, 32 bit.

Have you actually tried?

Yes. I have tried. And I will try again right now to double check.

Just now... my internet connection cut out for a few minutes... I plummeted from about 40 connections (after 3-4 days running bitcoin.exe -server non stop) down to ~10 connections, and hours later I am still only at 12 connections.

Once again... I have shut down by bitcoin.exe -server and opened bitcoin.exe by double clicking on it... after just 20-30 seconds I am up to 20 connections - where as it has taken me hours to get up to 12 connections using bitcoin.exe -server

I assure you, I am not crazy!

Hmmmm...just doesn't seem possible.  They do run the exact same networking code.  Has to be something circumstantial but I have no idea what it would be...oh well, unless you don't have the 8 outgoing, you are fine.

Pretty much the same issue here. I launch bitcoin -server and I will jump to 120 connections. Within 2 minutes that has dropped to 60-70, in a few days to around 50 then after a week maybe 5.

This just happened tonight with it dropping to 5 so I restarted it, initial was 117 connections, dropped to 66 then bounced back up to mid 80's then 90's, all within 5 minutes. I am behind a firewall and I do have ports open on both that Firewall and Windows 7 firewall.