Tracker timeout (offline) after 2-3 minutes, periodic problem

[phantomc]

Hello guys. I currently have a 20mbit/20mbit line which I recently purchased, and it's a brand new ISP for Turkey.

Anyways, during a free-leech week in HDBits, I was able to upload up to 2-3MB/second with my new connection, which I was quite happy with. Then I tweaked some settings such as the TCP/IP connection patch. I increased windows half connections to 65555 or something and utorrent's to 200.

When I check the utorrent program, my upload is about 200-500kbits/sec, which I suspected could be due to smaller number of leechers after the free-leech week.

However, I realized that my trackers constantly went offline after about 2-3 mins from an update. I observe this in Hdbits and black-cats as well.

I went and researched utorrent forums, and most posts pointed to ISP throttling/shaping which I believe could be the case as they sometimes seem to block the port I was using (57062). It is interesting because I set it to a lower number 49009 and it works perfectly, i.e. I get the green port light always and when checking

it. I'm not sure if ISP shaping is the case, because the ISP is new and its nearly my 7th day.

When I researched further, I suspected the half connection patch to be the cause and saw this in some utorrent posts. I'm using Vista x64 ultimate so my initial half connection number was 25 (which I modified from 8).

Do you guys think that this is an ISP issue or a high half connection number issue from my side? Or it could be both, as I'm using high number of connections for download/upload and they somehow flagged me. Should I call the ISP and ask if they flagged me, and would this problem go away if I decrease the half connections to 50 or 25 or 8?

What should be the half connection size for a 20/20mbit connection and a 100/100mbit connection (which I hopefully will buy if the ISP is not shaping the torrents...)

I'm going to go mad with this issue, although download speeds are fine, upload speed is lowered and tracker goes offline... I'm thinking of buying usenet :-P

A thing to add is that I connect the PC directly to the wall via a Cat5e cable, so I might be throttling the company's router with high half connections, so that's why they may be punishing me

[Firon]

I'd suggest lowering the half-open count again. May even need to disable DHT.

[Switeck]

Have you tried Ultima's Troubleshooting Guide?:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=15992

...It lists additional information we'll need if nothing helped.

[Pierrot]

I upgraded yesterday from 1.6 to 1.7.5 and now i have the same problem. I didn't change any settings and therefore I believe it's a problem of µTorrent 1.7.5.

[DreadWingKnight]

I didn't change any settings

If you have a stupid firewall, this is a bad thing.

[phantomc]

I set the conn speed to default 20mbit settings, set the half connections to 8, restored vista tcp/ip connections back to original (25 for ultimate), disabled DHT, and problem seems to be solved.

[Pierrot]

If you have a stupid firewall, this is a bad thing.

Maybe. But if my firewall would block µTorrent, µTorrent wouldn't work ever.

I use ZoneAlarm and and the program page shows me that µTorrent is active and everything is open (except sending Mail, but µTorrent never asked for that ).

At the end, I think I will soon downgrad to 1.6 again, that version worked just fine.

[Switeck]

Zone Alarm is a stupid firewall because it may block incoming connections not recognizing them as bound for µTorrent. And it will block outgoing connections if it thinks µTorrent is trying to send "email"!

[jewelisheaven]

Please understand if you choose to not heed or let the dedicated support staff help you, they will simply stop posting:(. Doubly so for unsupported versions!! 1.7 works just fine WHEN YOU CONFIGURE things correctly. Think about it from the opposite side, how many registered users does the forum have? How many posts are there? in how many threads? Wouldn't it be (order of) magnitudes greater if the program itself was broken? Also checking in on the development of the new version coming out - 1.8 - shows the dedication in fixing bugs. As it stands 1.6 is deprecated and unmaintained. 1.7 will more-than-likely not see another release even though it has reported bugs (unless something unexpected happens):/. 1.8 is the upcoming version and if you want to make your experience better it would be wiser to upgrade than downgrade.

Also uT has one of if not THE EASIEST way to make different "installs" of the program... you need one file to tell uT to use the current directory. How simpler can it get?

Edit: I understand so-called "private" ratio-based tracker/sites exist and generally do not allow beta versions of software so please don't respond in that like-kind of answer

[Pierrot]

My post was only intended to tell you that there is a problem in 1.7.5. I know that because I had a working 1.6.0.0. Maybe that 1.7.5 works in 90% cases ok, or more or less. I don't care.

But you have also to be aware of the fact that 90% of the useres are even dummier than I'm and they will not even come to this forum, they will simply thrash µTorrent and look for another torrent client. I remember some time back I had on my peer list almost exclusively µTorrent listed, now it's down to 10% or so.

A word to the settings. Although i consider myself more a computer expert than many others, i'm at a very low level and i KNOW that. So i don't fiddle around with settings i'm not pretty sure to understand what they do. Therefor I use only standard windows settings and this i do also for µTorrent. naturally this means that my system is not optimized, but it WORKS quite well (except µTorrent). And i don't care if a download or whatever takes a little bit longer than it could be as long as it comes down.

A word to zonealarm. YES, it blocks all incoming connections but that doesn't matter because my router anyway doesn't forward them. Therefor I have this yellow tringle in my status line. BUT µTorrent 1.6.0.0 nevertheless just worked fine for me. It didn't loose the trackers. AND Azureus also works under the same conditions and it works just fine. Right beside µTorrent, as i use the two since a long time in parallel.

Concerning the possible blocking of outgoing connections, zonealarm ASKS first what to do with them (as I have set it up). And µTorrent never asked for sending mail, so there is not a misundertanding between the two. And once again, if it would, it would block them from the beginning on, and not after some time. by the way, at the moment i have still 5 (sorry only 4, just lost one again) working trackers out of 8, and this after approx. one hour after a fresh restart of µTorrent.

AND: I like(d) µTorrent 1.6 a lot (much more than azureus) which is the reason i would like 1.7.5 to run also.

PS: 1 hour later and the usual ISP reset, ALL trackers are lost again. Restart of µTorrent and everything is again working (but only for some time ).

[jewelisheaven]

So if you would be so kind to follow along and keep those who want to help appraised of what steps you are taking in trying to ascertain the incompatibility, it can only help you...

This forum works based upon helping and just so HAPPENS to be the best way to get into contact with the development team for uT and mainline

[Firon]

ZA is a terrible firewall, to be honest. It blocks programs without asking when you do inplace upgrades. Remove and re-add the rules, or get a better firewall (seriously, ZA sucks).

[Pierrot]

ZA is a terrible firewall

May be. But please, read my lips, , this has nothing to do with the firewall. The firewall blocks or it doesn't. In my case it doesn't! As i said above, i may be stupid, but not that much.

Everything works fine, uploading/downloading ... . BUT µTorrent looses the connections to the trackers after a few minutes, to 2 hours (that was the maximum i observed). One after the other in random order.

Anyway i'm going to reinstall 1.6.0.0. Let's hope that it works fine again.

[DreadWingKnight]

We currently don't support anything older than 1.7.5.

If there's genuinely a problem with 1.7.5 we need to know about it so that it can be fixed.

If your router blocks all your incoming traffic, you don't need zonealarm. By the time anything hostile gets to your computer, it's too late for a software firewall to protect you.

You have not mentioned what ANY of your settings are, and as such, we have no way to verify if the problem is there or not.

[Pierrot]

So, a few hours ago I downgraded to 1.6.0. And guess what ... it works again just fine. :cool:

Before that I made a cold reboot (just to be sure that the problem could not be remedied by something stupid and simple as a reboot). Problem persisted. I downgraded not directly to 1.6. but used inbetween 1.7.1. Problem persisted. Finally, 1.6. ... (see above )

As far as it concerns me, this problem is "solved" for the time being. This is almost all I can do for you, sorry. Except if you would like to have a copy of my µTorrent settings file, i could send you a copy, if you tell me first from where to where i can delete private information stored in the file without deleting the part of it which is of interest for you.

Hmm, one thing i forgot: It seemed to me as if the ISP reset (which comes in my case every 20h but is not always accompanied by a change of the IP address) is a 100% killer for the tracker connections.

We currently don't support anything older than 1.7.5.

Don't worry I did NOT ask for support, I just wanted to tell you that something definetively is wrong with 1.7.5 (i would guess even starting with 1.7). Maybe it is a problem which only occurs very seldom, however I doubt that one. There seem to be a lot of posts in this forum concerning this issue. And as I said earlier, most of the users running into this problem will simply thrash µTorrent. As i did with bittorent many many month ago because my router didn't like it.

If your router blocks all your incoming traffic, you don't need zonealarm.

As a dummy i don't trust completely the router's blocking capability. As always, the good stuff will be blocked fully but how about the bad guys? And second, ZoneAlarm let me block OUTGOING stuff. Bill doesn't have to know when I start Word.

There is however one problem i have with µTorrent 1.6. and azureus running simultaneously and this was the reason in the first place why i tried to use 1.7.5: ZoneAlarm gets mad from time to time and crashes.

@Firon: Please tell me a better Firewall. I'm always open for something new.

[jewelisheaven]

... downgrading instead of upgrading and getting support for continued troubleshooting always baffles me . (Keep in mind only dedicated support staff have the policy of not supporting the deprecated version)

You know if you are shaped by your ISP for bittorrent traffic the new pre-beta 1.8 version has methods to work around that:D. 1.7 is and has been stable for months now, and only a subset of users experience problems:). Usually this can be diagnosed to software incompatibility or hardware misconfiguration or ISP interference. If after those avenues of troubleshooting (no there is no magic bullet fix) it can be diagnosed to be a program bug that's GOOD. it means the next person to experience your problem can be told "yes it is a bug we are / have fixed it, please get the new version"... I guess it's me. :/

[Pierrot]

So, 12h and one ISP reset without IP change later, µTorrent 1.6 still runs strong without any problem.

That's the way i like programs to behave.

You know if you are shaped by your ISP for bittorrent ...

My ISP doesn't do that, i'm pretty sure.

For the rest of your post: I didn't understand what you wanted to say.

[DreadWingKnight]

Don't worry I did NOT ask for support, smile I just wanted to tell you that something definetively is wrong with 1.7.5 (i would guess even starting with 1.7). Maybe it is a problem which only occurs very seldom, however I doubt that one. There seem to be a lot of posts in this forum concerning this issue. And as I said earlier, most of the users running into this problem will simply thrash µTorrent. As i did with bittorent many many month ago because my router didn't like it.

Guess what, if it's broken and the user's reflex reaction is to downgrade rather than troubleshoot (which yours appears to be), then if it's actually a problem of uTorrent breaking, it won't get fixed until someone comes along who is willing to troubleshoot.

[Switeck]

Pierrot said: "May be. But please, read my lips, smile, this has nothing to do with the firewall. The firewall blocks or it doesn't. In my case it doesn't!"

If only that were true!

BAD firewalls such as Zone Alarm randomly block and drop connections. This is due to bugs and weaknesses in design. So under low loads, Zone Alarm (and internet-using programs) may work fine...but any robust internet using app like µTorrent causes random internet disconnects for no apparent reason. Magically, the problem usually solves itself when Zone Alarm is removed entirely.

It is no lie to say there's 1000 posts here as evidence of this!

Here's a recent one of just how BAD Zone Alarm has gotten:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=294339#p294339