DHT won't connect (but great speed)

[thepitcher]

Hello all,

Well after fixing a couple of problems (wonky firewall, ISP throttling workaround), I would like to solve my last issue. Basically, I am unable to connect to any DHT peers (nodes).

I do not have a router. I seem to have the problem whether my firewall is turned on or not. At the moment because of my problem with another firewall (100% CPU with uTorrent), I am using the Windows XP firewall.

I have not done the SP2 connection limit patch.

I have set a specific listening port to deal with the ISP packet shaping (speed throttling).

I have added an exception for uTorrent and TCP & UDP communications for the port in question.

I have had the UPnP setting in uTorrent off and it is now on. (But if I understand it, this is only for routers.)

I have left Enable Scraping and both Enable DHT settings checked.

I have checked 'Allow outgoing destination unreachable' in the ICMP settings of the Windows firewall.

Finally, I should mention that I have seen uTorrent briefly connect to 5 DHT peers, but mostly it reads 0 peers, and shows DHT status as 'announcing...' . This includes while being connected to several torrents with many peers (if that makes a difference).

Perhaps, I need to open more ports for outgoing connections. However, I don't think the Windows Firewall makes this easy (one port at a time). Regardless, I need to get a P2P friendly firewall. Is there a list of such recommendations somewhere? Even if this is part of my problem, I presumed I would have connected to DHT peers when the firewall was off.

I did a search for this issue -- hopefully, I didn't miss a thread somewhere. It seems the only DHT issues have involved people with routers or without UDP communications open. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Bill.

[Firon]

If you have no router, turn off UPnP.

And well, just try disabling the Windows Firewall so you can see if it's a configuration problem.

[thepitcher]

Thanks for the reply.

Okay UPnP is off. While the Windows Firewall is currently on, I have tried it with it disabled. It did not make a difference. I still could not connect to DHT peers.

Cheers, Bill.

[Firon]

You disabled the firewall and -then- restarted µTorrent with DHT on, right?

And well, apart from that, I can't think of anything else, apart from ISP interference.

[thepitcher]

Yes, after my last post, I thought I should just doublecheck. So, I disabled the firewall and restarted uTorrent. No change.

I might try downloading and using the mainline client to see if it connects to DHT peers.

Cheers, Bill.

[Firon]

Not likely, since mainline, µTorrent and BitComet use the same DHT.

Try it with Azureus perhaps.

[thepitcher]

Actually, I was aware that mainline and uTorrent use the same DHT protocol. I am able to connect to DHT with Azureus. Indeed, I can connect on Azureus to these torrents that show offline in uTorrent. However, like others, I would prefer to use uTorrent all the time if possible.

I just figured I might eliminate another variable by trying a different client that uses the same DHT method.

Cheers, Bill.

[TheBear]

I use Outpost as a firewall and have disabled XP's offering.

If you want to come close to eliminating the chance that your ISP is interfering with BT traffic, try running BitComet using header encryption with a torrent from a public tracker. If that works, then you know what the problem is.

[Firon]

Hmm... if something was blocking µTorrent from accessing router.bittorrent.com, you would never be able to get on DHT.

[chaosblade]

Also remember you need to allow ALL PORTS for outgoing communication as the peers you connect to use their own set ports and not the one you chose. This is true for TCP, maybe for udp aswell.

[thepitcher]

Thanks for the replies.

Unfortunately, DHT doesn't connect even without a router and the firewall turned off. I tried the mainline client and it appears it wouldn't connect with DHT either (although mainline provides much less information). So, it is obviously something with DHT and not uTorrent specifically. (As mentioned before, I can connect to DHT with Azureus.) I don't think my ISP could block uTorrent and not Azureus.

I occasionally am able to connect to a couple of DHT peers. So, something must get through once in awhile.

So, for the time being, I use uTorrent for most things and Azureus when I have problems connecting to a tracker.

Cheers, Bill.

[Firon]

Like I said before, tt sounds like something is blocking router.bittorrent.com, which is required for the functionality of DHT.

Azureus doesn't use it. It has its own, which is why there's no problem with DHT on it.

[thepitcher]

Yes, I understood that Firon -- thanks. I was just trying to respond to chaosblade and TheBear. (It's always nice to know when you are giving advice that the person that first asked is still paying attention.)

Maybe my ISP has blocked all connections to that address.

Cheers, Bill.

[Firon]

It's rather strange that they would block only one and not both, though. Especially since Azureus has way more peers on its DHT network...

[chaosblade]

Do a simple test.

Start -> Run -> cmd /k ping router.bittorrent.com

And see if you can reach the address at all.

[thepitcher]

Of course, a ping test does make sense doesn't it. I should have thought of that. Yes, pinged successfully. Four packets sent and received in good time.

That narrows it down a bit - thanks.

Cheers, Bill.

[chaosblade]

So nothing blocks the address, At least in TCP.

If uTorrent can login and announce to the router address, This means something happens to the UDP packets returning or going there. Im not sure how you could check for UDP instead of TCP.

[Firon]

There's UDP ping testers.