Can I force a change of peers/seeds?

[troo]

A couple of torrents that I want are being particularly stubborn, with only periodic seeder availability. But then sometimes when there *are* seeds available, *I* won't be connected to them!

Is there a way to force uTorrent to connect to them? I've tried stopping and restarting, which doesn't seem to make a difference, and I've also tried "update tracker", which also doesn't seem to make a difference!

[Firon]

They probably aren't connectable.

[jewelisheaven]

Neither of those solutions will "fix" a peer who is not incoming connectable. You will need to wait for them to connect to you ("I" peer) or if you are also firewalled you are stuck.

Note also clearing peer list will not help, unless you only want to reinitialize with tracker peers.

[Switeck]

Also, if you have bad settings for µTorrent...even though you shouldn't be firewalled (and wasn't when µTorrent started), it can become firewalled due to overloads.

[troo]

Thank you, all.

Question: if I take note of any seeder's IP (when they actually DO connect), can I somehow add them to my list of peers, so that I make them be part of my swarm?

[DreadWingKnight]

No guarantee that those will work.

[troo]

They probably aren't connectable.

Why would that be?

Note that sometimes I *do* connect to them, or at least to some seeder. It just seems to be random - I'll be "0(5)" for a while, then notice that I'm "1(3)", and then drop back to "0(1)" or whatever.

So there's no way I can insist that a certain peer be in my swarm, it's just whatever uTorrent decides?

[jewelisheaven]

If you see it under General it IS in your swarm.

Whether your two clients connect is another story.

If you are firewalled they need to have allowed incoming connections ("I" flag). If they are firewalled the reverse needs to be true.

If you both are firewalled.. you see what he means by not connectable

[troo]

Ohhhhh, ok, that makes sense, thank you!

I really don't think my firewall (ZoneAlarm) is the problem, both because I have it set to allow everything uTorrent through, and because I don't have this problem with most torrents, only some of them.

So basically, whether any peers are at "0(5)" or "12(89)", there's nothing I can do to "fix" it and improve my speed?

[Ultima]

If you configured everything as prescribed by the setup guide, and your port is indeed forwarded, then yes, there isn't much you can do about the speed you get other than to be patient.