Ohh about the port, if I take out that line in the .conf file, and I take it off the url :port spot in the bat file for ultracoinminer, I get the error pool 0 slow/down or url or credentials invalid.
Maybe it was just bad luck like someone suggested earlier. ( again so hard to tell with the cgminer cmd window info ) I was getting best share values.. so thought that was a sign I was mining..
the port is required for the miner parameter, it must be url:port for the miner, it doesn't have a default so without it, it can't work
you will get best share value, why didn't you think you were mining? maybe you were. you won't get any A: or R: unless you actually get a block, so for solo mining it would be normal to see your best go up occasionally, but you will only get A: , and it would be a very large value, like hundreds thousands or millions, but only when you find a block
if you had hash rate and no error messages and your best value went up occasionally , you were solo mining
have a nice day