OK I think found the problem? I had forwarded the port in my router, but I updated the rule from the one I had for QQBcoin, and only changed the internal port! So my router was forwarding BBQcoin stuff from the external port 59333 to the smallchange client! People must still have had my IP in the bbq network and were trying to connect to me.
This explains a lot, why my blockchain kept thinking it was much larger, the 60+ connections etc. I wonder if I mined any BBQcoins to my smallchange address!? haha!
Too many coins, doh!
How is it even receiving blocks from the BBQ network, though?
The 4-byte handshake magic-bytes are copied from BBQ to make it connect to them, presumably?
The whole point of the magic bytes that identify which network you are / which network you are trying to connect to is so clients know instantly whether an incoming call is actually for them not looking for some other network.
Was this coin copied from BBQcoin without assigning a new unique set of magic bytes to identify this network, or did this coin and BBQcoin both copy from some other coin and both fail to do that trivial but essential part of the process of creating a new coin network?
If the latter, both can also get into this same problem with whichever network their magic bytes are causing them to masquerade as.
-MarkM-