Downloading, but not downloading...?

[gjm]

I have a 2.64Gb torrent I am downloading, comprised of 12 files. One file I am not downloading - it's only 31b. This is currently the only active torrent.

There are between 4 and 11seeds: I've never been connected to more than two.

Download speed varies from a few kbps, to hundreds of kbps. (We don't have huge bandwidth here.)

Status is 'Downloading 99.8%'; of the 11 files I am downloading within this torrent, 10 have completed and one has completed 83.8MB of 87.8MB - 95.4% of the file is completed. This is the only incomplete file. Oddly, downloading will sometimes show 99.9%, stay that way for a while, then drop back to 99.8%.

However, regardless of how long I leave the torrent, it continues to show as downloading. Sometimes it drops the connection and shows 'Connecting to peers', but it has sat at between 12kbps and 300kbps for hours, with absolutely no change in the amount completed, or percentage of file completed. ETA (time remaining) changes from as little as a few seconds, to several minutes, to ∞.

To recap - torrent is showing as downloading, with variations in speed of download, but there is no change in amount or percentage downloaded.

Any thoughts?

Edited June 29, 2021 by gjm

[gjm]

Left it overnight. Just one torrent, the 11 files set to download, 1 file incomplete.

Whenever checked it was 'downloading' at over 100kbps, yet has progressed from 95.4% to 97%.

What could be happening?

[rafi]

You have skipped that file *after* starting the download. Try force-recheck and id not working, delete the torrent, re-add, skip,  and force-recheck

[gjm]

I don't think I skipped anything.

But I've had the same problem again. New laptop (Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-9750H CPU @ 2.60GHz, 32Gb RAM), new build of Windows (10 Pro, Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.3530.0), uTorrent v3.5.5 build 46038.

I didn't skip or change anything. Same situation though - a couple of files hadn't completed (99.8%, flicking to and from 99.9% total out of around 300Mb), download speed was 1Mbps for well over an hour.

I stopped the download, forced a recheck, restarted the torrent and it completed in about 3 seconds.

[gjm]

Got it again.

Almost identical situation, only this time uTorrent got to displaying 'Flushing to disk' before reverting to 99.8%, 99.9% 'Flushing to disk', and so on.
Again - stopped the torrent, forced recheck, but this time it still won't complete.

There are files within the torrent that I chose to not download, but that was before starting the download. Since the download has been running, there have been no changes to this torrent.

[rafi]

Is  your Pref->UI->When adding torrents->"Don't start the download automatically" -   enabled?

Edited July 13, 2021 by rafi

[gjm]

11 hours ago, rafi said:

Is  your Pref->UI->When adding torrents->"Don't start the download automatically" -   enabled?

No - it is not.

A torrent loads and displays (or if using a Magnet, loads, typically waits, then displays) and the 'Start torrent ' box is ticked. Sometimes I will deselect some files if I don't want to download them.

However, it requires me to manually start the torrent before any connection or download commences.

Once that has happened, I very rarely make any changes to what is being downloaded.

[rafi]

If you do not do any change to the setting the torrent will auto-start after clicking OK on the options dialog. If you forgot to skip files, OR the metadata - has not been pre-loaded yet and you press OK - it might start before you can see the metadata (files list) and skip them, which would cause your problem. I believe you might have made that mistake.

Check/enable  "do not start"  to be sure.

Edited July 14, 2021 by rafi