Actually, you don’t need to do anything. This just means that the central server, Napigator, which keeps the list of all the active servers to connect to is down or otherwise unavailable.

Starting with Drumbeat 2.0, we now use an entirely different display for our Server List. Drumbeat 2.0 actually connects you to more servers than before, but the numbers you see may be lower because of more accurate reporting of connections, and because in version 2.0, we have discontinued the use of Hard-Coded Servers, those servers whose information has been stored permanently within the Drumbeat application.

With this in mind, we have added a new feature. the ability to use .wsx Server Lists in Drumbeat, .wsx files being lists of current Servers created and used by the fine Windows client, WinMX.

We really think this is perhaps the most important new feature we offer, as it can increase the number of servers you can connect to substantially over time -- and that of course affects everything else you do with DB, including searching and downloading.

When you click the Get Today’s Server List button in your Filter Options or select it from the Connections Menu, DB performs a search for any current .wsx files out there on the system. These files all have the current date as part of the filename, in the format YEARMONTHDAY, so today’s date would be 20031118 for example. You then get a list of the available files in your search results. You have to choose a file to download, and usually the best files to choose are ones of (obviously) the largest size, generally the maximum file size being about 32k. Whatever file you choose, DB will download all files with matching criteria as a group (as it does for all your other downloads), and you should quickly receive a .wsx file with the filename chosen to your Downloads Folder.

These files are then used by DB within the first few minutes after they are downloaded, and they are cumulative, meaning, the more files DB sees, the more it will use. You can keep these files at the root level of your Downloads Folder, or store them in any location (subfolder) of the Downloads folder, say in a folder called "My Server Lists".

The more of these files you get over time, the more Servers DB will be able to use to connect. So we highly recommend that you download a .wsx file at least once a week.

To further explain what .wsx files are and how they are used in Drumbeat, please read the following...

Napigator is a site which maintains a "live" list of all active Servers, and this is where DB finds it’s Server List to make all your logins. But occasionally, this service goes down, and Napigator cannot be contacted for the Server List. In that case, you would have no one to connect to. So we have always had a "Backup List" of servers we have previously found using Napigator which, while that service is down, can be used instead. This list was always Hard-Coded, meaning that it was permanently stored within the Drumbeat applicationitself whenever you downloaded the program.

But more, Drumbeat also used that list to see if there were any servers out there not being currently reported by Napigator, but to which DB might make a live connection. Since the list had always been growing with more information about new servers, this meant that DB was able to connect you to more and more servers with time.

We were not the only ones following this procedure. WinMX, a very good client like Drumbeat, for Windows, has been doing the same thing, but in a more sophisticated way. They save all the known servers that any user anywhere has ever found, and stores them to a special file in that User’s shared folder called a .wsx file. These files are then updated daily on each user’s machine, and WinMX Users can then search for and download other User’s lists and use them in making their own server connections. This means that these lists contain even more servers than even DB was storing before, as DB’s list was only updated when we would release a new version. So we decided to give our Users the same benefits of having the .wsx files as our counterparts using WinMX, and so now provide the ability to search for, download, and use .wsx Server Lists.

However, the trade-off is that we have completely removed the internal list DB used to maintain, which means if Napigator goes down and you haven’t already downloaded the latest .wsx file, you wont be able to connect to any servers using Drumbeat.

The basic idea is to get you as many servers as we can for your files :)

To find .wsx files, open the Filter Options Tab and click the Find Server Files Button. This will give you a list of the latest files. These files generally include the Date the files was modified in the filename in the format of yearmonthdate or 20030820 for example for Aug. 20, 2003.

After finding and downloading the most recent version of these files, you can add the new Server List simply by leaving the list anywhere in your Downloads Folder, and restarting DB. If later you download additional Lists, these can simply be added to your Downloads Folder, or even in a subfolder maintaining the lists, and all the servers in all the lists that you may have accumulated will be read in by DB on opening.

These lists will retain the filenames of the files which you originally downloaded and are not the same as the Drumbeat Server List.txt file found in your Preferences folder. .wsx files should always be stored somewhere in your Downloads Folder, and can be placed anywhere in that folder, from the root (top) level, to say, a Folder called "My Server Lists", or any other name you like. The more of these files you download, the more servers you can access over time using Drumbeat.

You will then be able to use your .wsx files for your Server Connections instead of Napigator. This usually means that will get somewhat less servers than if you had been able to connect to Napigator, but you will still get on and should be able to continue searching for and downloading files, until Napigator comes back online, which is usually is no more than a few hours, or a day at most.

If, however, after seeing this message, you aren’t able to connect to at least some servers within the first 5 min. or so, this may be an entirely other issue. If both Napigator and the Reserve Server List do not connect you to any servers, you may be having a problem with either your Internet connection, or with Drumbeat itself. The best solution to this problem is to try restarting your machine, and then try re-connecting to the Internet. If this doesn’t work, please contact Support at:

support@drumbeat.info