static const int MAX_OUTBOUND_CONNECTIONS = 4098;
this setting is bizarre.
1) select() limits to 1024. client would crash @ (slightly before) 1024 connections for the unix build. not sure about windows.
max_connections doesn't prevent this, as the max_outbound_connections has priority. that being said, this number would take a very, very long time to reach due to most nodes being saturated;
2) this number is greater than default max connections value, which inexplicably has been dropped from 125 to 24.
ember will stop accepting incoming connections at 24 count (of total connections, not just incoming). it will continue to attempt outgoing connections up until your client crashes (unix) or possibly until it reaches 4098 outbound + some small amount of inbound (maybe in windows).
anyone starting ember for the first time will have an incredibly hard time making a first connection. anyone behind a firewall, may have (extreme) difficulty establishing connections.
the chances of making a timely initial connection to any of these places on the 'addnode' lists presented by various people is minimal. it took me about 20 minutes to establish my first connection.
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My personal experience: ran client for a few days, connections topped out at around 120 (all but a handful being outbound, of course!).
Made some changes & recompiled, outbound to 5, maxconnections to 500. It hit this 500 amount in about 5 minutes (ok, that's an exaggeration. more like 10 minutes!). This standard 24 limit will fill in a few seconds after running a node for a couple of days (appearing in enough peer.dat files) --- basically, anyone running the standard client will never be at this max_outbound setting & thus it will always be trying to establish new connections, w/ the default 500ms (or maybe it's 1000ms? don't remember) between attempts.
... this is root cause of complaints about being unable to establish connections and such. It also doesn't give much confidence in the 'dev' team of this project. Fix it, prove me wrong, and give me avenue to sell these Embercoins that Cryptopia shafted me with. Those bastards.
ed: i have bishop.nogleg.com, pope.nogleg.com, cardinal.nogleg.com set to 5 outbound connections, 800 max_conn, port is the standard 10024. new ppl can try that.