Making A Private Torrent - "No connection could be made because..."

[BTJustice]

I am trying to make a private torrent of a family movie to share with other family members. I used the private tracker option which is http://your_ip_address:port/announce (where your ip is your computer's ip address and port is µTorrent's listening port). I also set "bt.enable_tracker" to true.

I have a Westell DSL modem/router for Verizon. Under services, I added uTorrent to port forwarding using port 20623 to my computer. Whenever I try to update the tracker, I keep getting the error message "No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it." I am pretty sure I have uTorrent configured correctly as I can go to OPTIONS > SPEED GUIDE and click the "Test if port is forwarded properly" button and it comes back "OK! Port 20623 is open and accepting connections."

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

[Ultima]

Did you use an alternative listening port in Preferences > Advanced > Web UI? If so, then try disabling the alternative listening port.

[BTJustice]

No. Web UI is not enabled.

[Ultima]

What firewall are you using? It might not be allowing µTorrent to make HTTP connections.

[BTJustice]

I am just using the one on the Westell. It is set to low (out of custom, off, medium, and high). I turned it completely off and that still didn't do the trick.

[Ultima]

O.o

Get Process Explorer from sysinternals.com, run it, File > Save, then post the contents of the saved process list in the .txt file here.

Other people have mentioned this problem before, but I'm not really too sure why it's happening :|

[BTJustice]

Here are the current processes running on my computer...

Process PID CPU Description Company Name

System Idle Process 0 96.92

Interrupts n/a Hardware Interrupts

DPCs n/a Deferred Procedure Calls

System 4

smss.exe 708 Windows NT Session Manager Microsoft Corporation

csrss.exe 768 Client Server Runtime Process Microsoft Corporation

winlogon.exe 792 Windows NT Logon Application Microsoft Corporation

services.exe 836 Services and Controller app Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 1000 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 1080 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 1176 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 1216 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

svchost.exe 1256 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

spoolsv.exe 1660 Spooler SubSystem App Microsoft Corporation

aawservice.exe 572 Ad-Aware 2007 Service Lavasoft AB

mDNSResponder.exe 752 Bonjour Service Apple Computer, Inc.

MDM.EXE 1020 Machine Debug Manager Microsoft Corporation

nod32krn.exe 1264 NOD32 Kernel Service Eset

nvsvc32.exe 1316 NVIDIA Driver Helper Service, Version 93.71 NVIDIA Corporation

svchost.exe 2044 1.54 Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Microsoft Corporation

alg.exe 2808 Application Layer Gateway Service Microsoft Corporation

lsass.exe 848 LSA Shell (Export Version) Microsoft Corporation

explorer.exe 1604 1.54 Windows Explorer Microsoft Corporation

nod32kui.exe 1968 NOD32 Control Center GUI Eset

CTHELPER.EXE 2008 CtHelper Application Creative Technology Ltd

jusched.exe 168 Java Platform SE binary Sun Microsystems, Inc.

ClockTraySkins.exe 188

ctfmon.exe 220 CTF Loader Microsoft Corporation

procexp.exe 1776 Sysinternals Process Explorer Sysinternals

Now I want to detail the steps I do to make a torrent with uTorrent...

1) Open uTorrent.

2) Click the CREATE NEW TORRENT button on the toolbar.

3) Add the directory (folder) that contains the files to share.

4) In the TRACKERS window add your Internet IP Address and Port. For example, http://12.55.23.35:49500/announce (assuming you use port 49500 and have it open for both TCP and UDP on your firewall).

5) The START SEEDING and PRIVATE TORRENT boxes are checked.

6) Click the CREATE AND SAVE AS... button.

7) E-mail the .TORRENT file to those who want the file.

I have bt.enable_tracker set to TRUE.

I uninstalled uTorrent and deleted all folders associated with it in Application Data so I would get a true fresh install. And still following the above steps, my uTorrent keeps saying in tracker status, "No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it."

I am currently using port 49500. It comes back as OK on the test so I must have the firewall set up correctly on my Westell modem.

Now out of curiosity, I downloaded Azureus (I hate it) to see if I could make a working .TORRENT file. And I did. It worked fine. Here is how I did it. First you have to setup Azureus...

1) Open Azureus Vuze.

2) Click the ADVANCED button.

3) Click on TOOLS > OPTIONS.

4) For CONNECTION, the INCOMING TCP / UDP LISTEN PORT is 49500.

5) For MODE, select INTERMEDIATE.

6) For TRACKER > SERVER, enter your Internet IP address in the TRACKER EXTERNAL IP ADDRESS window and check the box in front of ENABLE TRACKER ON HTTP PORT. The port to 6969. Uncheck SEND PEER IDENTITY TO DOWNLOADERS.

7) Click SAVE and close the OPTIONS tab.

8) Be sure to open ports 6969 and 49500 using both TCP and UDP on your firewall.

Now you can create the torrent...

1) Click the CREATE A TORRENT button.

2) Dot the circle in front of USE AZUREUS EMBEDDED TRACKER.

3) Dot the circle in front of DIRECTORY.

4) Click NEXT.

5) Click the BROWSE button and add the directory (folder) you want.

6) Click NEXT.

7) Select a place to save your .TORRENT file. I save mine directly to C:\ so it comes out C:\[NAME OF TORRENT].torrent

8) Change the PIECE SIZE to 2.00 MB.

9) Check the boxes in front of OPEN THE TORRENT FOR SEEDING WHEN DONE, HOST THE TORRENT ON THE BUILT-IN TRACKER, and PRIVATE TORRENT - ONLY ACCEPT PEERS FROM THE TRACKER. The check box in front of ALLOW DECENTRALIZED TRACKING WHEN TRACKER IS UNAVAILABLE should be grayed out.

10) Click FINISH and click CLOSE after the torrent has been created.

11) E-mail the .TORRENT file to those who want it.

As you can see, the tracker is http://YOURIP:6969/announce (for example, http://12.55.23.35:6969/announce)

So I am led to believe that the problem is obviously with uTorrent as I can make a working private torrent in Azureus.

[Ultima]

Do you see the error yourself while you're trying to seed? If so, can you try using http://localhost:PORT/announce to see if the problem persists?

Also, um, even if you don't have WebUI enabled, make sure you don't have the alternative listening port set/checked, and you didn't set some IP restriction(s) in Preferences > Web UI.

[BTJustice]

Yes I see the error when I am trying to seed. Doing http;//localhost:49500/announce works, but I can't share anything with the outside world. Web UI and its options are not enabled.

[itsmeeeee]

looks like your router/modem do not allow loopback connections...

[BTJustice]

All I can find is this...

Enable ATM 0/21 Loopback

It is enabled.

[Ultima]

Indeed, loopback being blocked was my guess as well.

Whoever's connecting to the tracker... are they also on your network? If not, do they see the error as well, or was it only you who saw it (and assumed they did too)? If the latter, then my only guess as to why Azureus worked was that the feature probably doesn't work identically to µTorrent's; it probably "knows" it can get the tracker information directly from itself, so it doesn't bother attempting to connect to itself (?).

[lkean]

Tried with private embedded tracker, port is enabled have used it and it's working fine, made sure IP address is correct, bt.enable_tracker is on, created a new torrent and emailed that to my sister. She could ping and see my IP but when she started the torrent, uTorrent showed 1 seed is available but she could not download from that 1 seed which is me.

I read this thread and made sure all other suggestions are followed, so not those issues given. I'll probably try with Azureus to see if that works too.

[Ultima]

Is your firewall allowing µTorrent to make HTTP connections?

[dt8884]

I had the same problem with using the builtin tracker. I used this tutorial and it worked perfectly.

http://filesharefreak.com/2008/10/08/share-private-torrents-with-utorrents-embedded-tracker/

Instead of disabling the WebUI and making sure it has the same port as uTorrent, you need to enable the WebUI and give it a separate port. And use the separate port as the port for your tracker.