why when there are two seeders & i'm at 89% am i standing still?

[reckone1999]

my downloads work good for the most part, but i'm sick of this download it's not moving, and then it'll go up a tenth of a percent after like a few hours.

why is it doing this if the file is available, by not just one seeder, but two?

in addition to the two seeders, there are 3 other peers with the same percentage of the file finished as i have (89%), and a couple more who have less.

also, it seems like this always seems to be the case, there will be about 3 or 4 seeders, yet, i'm standing still not getting anything from any of them.

thanks, in advance,

[Switeck]

Many people set their BitTorrent clients to upload at <10 KiloBYTES/sec, but run many torrents at once with typically 4 or more upload slots PER torrent.

So even assuming they're only running 5 torrents at a time with upload speed set to 10 KiloBYTES/sec, that means their average upload speed PER upload slot (who they're uploading to at any given moment) is 0.5 KiloBYTES/sec.

In other words, in practice they're probably even slower than that (0.5).

[reckone1999]

unless they have 56k i cant understand a speed that slow, that's pretty gross.

but, yea, i mean it just seems like whenever i'm downloading a big torrent, and you almost are finished, you know getting towards the 90%, there will be multiple seeders, and i'm getting next to nothing from them, and it just doesnt make sense to me.

thanks, for your response

[Switeck]

Actually, it is BECAUSE they don't have 56k dial-up that their upload speeds end up so slow.

This is because many people mistakenly set Speed Guide (CTRL+G) to their download speed -- such as xx/2mbit for a 2 megabit/sec download connection. ...or they don't run Speed Guide at all!

They may try to come up with settings on their own, but without knowing what their real upload speed max is...the values they use are often very bad.

Another mistake is to think upload slots per torrent = TOTAL upload slots. That is only true if only 1 torrent is running at once...and sometimes not even then! If there's not enough peers, it can be less. Also, if they set their upload speed higher than possible and have "use additional upload slots if upload speed < 90%"...more and more upload slots will be used until ALL upload slots are running *VERY* slowly! Latest µTorrent will probably not allow new upload slots if none are running faster than 2-4 KiloBYTES/sec, but not everyone is willing to run the latest µTorrent...or even µTorrent at all!

Another problem is seeding versis downloading priority: most people put downloading priority high, so the seeding torrents get FAR less upload speed. In the case of 2 seeding and 2 downloading torrents with 40 KiloBYTES/sec upload speed total, the downloading torrents might get 30+ KiloBYTES/sec of the total...so the 2 seeding torrents have <5 KiloBYTES/sec each. (And if it's split between 5+ upload slots, you won't see good speeds from them.)

Another problem is ISPs are throttling BitTorrent traffic, often denying they do it to their customers! One favorite trick ISPs do to save money is throttle only BitTorrent traffic to ips OUTSIDE their ip range. This may save them a fortune on bandwidth costs. Their customers may either be unaware of this, because if the torrent's popular enough they can still find other ips on the same ISP...or helpless about it, because it's the ONLY broadband ISP around. So for ips not on the same ISP as you, speeds may be terrible.

So, I'll "throw the ball back into your court":

What is the speed of your connection both down and up?

And what settings are you using in µTorrent, as shown by Speed Guide (CTRL+G)?

(If you're using bad settings yourself, it can make the above problems even worse for both you and others!)

[reckone1999]

i used the speed guide on this site to set my stuff right

i did the speed test, and then configured my stuff right, and once i did i noticed a difference.

384k is my upload speed.

(this is all prior to our discussion of course)

35k is my max upload allowance, with 4 upload slots available

QUOTE YOU SAID

"Another problem is ISPs are throttling BitTorrent traffic, often denying they do it to their customers! One favorite trick ISPs do to save money is throttle only BitTorrent traffic to ips OUTSIDE their ip range. This may save them a fortune on bandwidth costs. Their customers may either be unaware of this, because if the torrent's popular enough they can still find other ips on the same ISP...or helpless about it, because it's the ONLY broadband ISP around. So for ips not on the same ISP as you, speeds may be terrible."

man, that's bullshit, how do you know if they are doing that to you, and is using the encryption device in the utorrents program effective at stopping this from happening?

again, thanks

[Switeck]

Numerous ISPs are no doubt doing that, such as Rogers in Canada...or NTL/BT Central/others in the UK, almost everything along the Pacific rim of Asia and Australia...SingTel is especially notorious in this regard -- they throttle most everything out-of-country (both in and out!) to near 0.

Encryption will probably have no effect, since even encrypted the packets HAVE to clearly have their source and destination ips listed...otherwise they couldn't be sent/received at all!

[SOURIN]

I have a feeling that something is wrong with the distribution of parts.

As I understand it, different parts of a download are distributed to

different peers, and then they are supposed to exchange these parts

amongst themselves. The process should be quite fast - like a chain

reaction.

I have been seeding for the last 2 weeks - there are 42 peers (connected),

and the progress has been only from 85% to 98%, and they all show the

same percentage at the same time. I wonder if I am sending the same

parts to everyone while nothing is taking place between the peers. Why?

[Firon]

Are there any other seeders besides you? Perhaps you're sending corrupted data.

Try forcing a recheck on your torrent.

[Switeck]

SOURIN,

Your uTorrent settings as well as the torrent's piece size has a HUGE influence on how fast the peers get the parts. If the piece size is 4 MB and you're uploading to >10 peers at once (upload slots = 10 or more) at less than 20 KiloBYTES/second total upload speed, then it may take hours for new completed pieces to appear among the peers.

Seeding usually runs quicker to use slightly fewer upload slots than you would while downloading...and as fast an upload speed as is stable...leaving enough upload for web surfing and other things of course.

[SOURIN]

No other seeder at the time. I am waiting for someone to

become a seeder. They are all stuck at 98.2% (very slow

progress) now.

I can view the downloaded film - so it must be o.k.

Recheck was also o.k. I have done it several times.

It is not the first time that this is happening. I have experienced

the same problem while downloading also - i.e. several weeks to

download the last few percents.

Port forwarding o.k. - uTorrent 1.7.7.

Speed can go up to 255 kB/s at times. Upload max. is 25 kB/s

(limited by provider). But most of the time it is trickle speed -

specially for the last few parts.

Sourin

Shouldn't the availability be more than 1.982?

At 25 kB/s 4MB should take 160s. At 1 kB/s 25 x 160 s.

Shouldn't the dissemination speed go up once the packet is there?

Is distribution of parts speed maximized?

16:24:00 hrs

To Switec Moderator:

Thanks for the tip regarding the slots. I have now adjusted

the slots by trial, and things are moving much faster.

[torrero]

Availabilty is 1.982 because you are the only seeder and everyone else is stuck at 98.2%. If you leave, availabilty drops to 0.982.

You should activate initial-seeding for smarter seeding.

[Switeck]

At 25 kB/s 4MB should take 160s. At 1 kB/s 25 x 160 s.

Shouldn't the dissemination speed go up once the packet is there?

Is distribution of parts speed maximized?

When you have 4 upload slots, then each peer you're uploading to gets about 1/4 your max upload speed on average. This means...25 KiloBYTES/second / 4 = 6.25 KiloBYTES/second.

And 4096 KB (4 MB) at 6.25 KiloBYTES/second will take 655.36 seconds. (almost 11 minutes)

At the end of that time, 4 peers should have a completed piece.

But...once again if you're connected to more than 4 peers and uTorrent changes who it's uploading to, then the same 4 peers won't be uploaded to for 11 minutes straight.

So instead of taking 11 minutes, if there's 20 total peers and uTorrent cycles around equally...it might take 55 minutes.

And that's assuming no disconnections.

Worse, after all that, you've probably uploaded the same pieces to multiple peers...ESPECIALLY if they have sequential downloading enabled (BitComet clients have that.) Read the 4th link in my signature for just how bad that can be.

You can try initial seeding.

That way, your seed should ONLY upload missing parts.

You may even be able to turn off initial seeding within an hour, since the torrent should finish uploading to some people that quickly.

[gomp]

yeah I have noticed this behavior as well, the availability graph for a large torrent I am on is really dark blue at the start and gradually fades towards the end, I can connect to seeders for early parts but not for late parts. There is a problem with the algorithm it seems to favour early parts.

[Switeck]

May be nothing wrong at all with uTorrent's piece choices.

LOTS of clients try to download first and last pieces of a torrent first.

Some even allow sequential downloading, totally sabotaging piece distribution.

The last piece to grab is often the most rare...or you would've gotten it sooner.

[gomp]

is there a way to block sequential downloading as I agree that messes up swarms, ideally everyone should have different peices to each other and the shade of blue should be balanced across from start to finish.

[Switeck]

No, you can't stop sequential downloaders...you won't even know for certain who most of them are ip-wise or BitTorrent client-wise...though uTorrent doesn't support true sequential downloading.

Correct, ideally early on everyone should get different pieces from the few seed/s so everyone can share with basically everyone else. But lots of people have first/last piece priority (bt.prio_first_last_piece in advanced settings) turned on even in uTorrent, so lots of people get the 1st and last parts of the file...and find no one to share that with.

[gomp]

well the problem I see is not first and last peices, but rather out of 700 files, the early files (complete files not first and last pieces) are heavily available and the last 100 or so are less available, people seem to be getting the files in numerical order, the availability graph is like looking at a bar showing the different shades of blue, darkest blue on the left, lightest blue on the right.

[Switeck]

BitComet and clones (BitSpirit and BitLord) have sequential downloading as far as I know.

Azureus might have it as a plug-in.

It only takes a couple of them per 20+ peers to wreck piece distribution.

A few people might be using uTorrent's ability to not download certain files so they can get some files "earlier". It's a good idea if you're checking to verify if a large torrent (by downloading 1 or 2 files) is what you're searching for, but even that level of micromanaging can be hard on the torrent piece distribution.

[gomp]

Although I am doing selective downloading on this very large torrent, I am actually skipping all the early files so I am guessing I am actually helping the swarm since I am increasing availability on the weakest part of the torrent. I dont usually skip files tho this is a first time I have done it simply because over 60 gig of data is files I already have.

[Switeck]

These files files you already have aren't identical to the ones in the torrent?

[gomp]

no they from a different source so I cant do what you was thinking by just inserting them next to the other files.

[Switeck]

I've gotten that with tv shows re-encoded due to an error in the 1st encode. Very close to the same size, yet so different that there's often not a single piece duplicated between them.