Do you have low speeds and the settings are fine?

[Claw_gr]

Many people think that this is different to the client they use but its basically the same...

I wont describe the correct settings or how to forward your ports but i will give some advice to those who doesnt know what is the meaning on shareratio...

In the start when you first used torrents (with correct settings and forwarded ports) you noticed that the speed was fine (always talking about healthy torrents)

After a while you saw that the speed dropped...

Well the true reason for this isnt your settings but that you were leaching files and didnt shared it fully.

Well Torrents work basically all the same and here comes the question...

Who deserves better speed?

Well of course the one who shared the most...

Who has shared the most then?

The one with the biggest TOTAL shareratio of all the files he downloaded

What is shareratio exactly?

It is a way to find good users that share files after downloading and give priority in the current torrent

If you remember correctly if the shareratio after the file finishes is lower than 1 then every client gives you a warning to not remove it before reaching 1... I assume the reason for that is that it stores the transfer history of total downloads and uploads and create a new share ratio (the total share ratio). If that is lower than 1 then it means that you were leaching files...

So how can torrent prevent leaching and support sharing?

Well this was the best method...

-Some trackers ban your ip(connection refused by current tracker)

-Low download speed to those users

-Banning some ports

If you think that because you have dynamic ip it wont ban your port or ip you are wrong because every user has the total shareratio stored in his own pc and the torrentclient just see that he was a leacher and his ip at the time he is requesting files

This also means that common ports are bad ports (like 6881 or near it)

Well if you want more info about this check the Azureus FAQ as it gives some information... The torrent client you use doesnt matter...

The only thing that i dont know is that all torrent clients store the TotalShareratio in a same file? I think NO is the answer but i cant prove it.

That means basically if you want to receive you must first give... If you want to start over format your pc

Of course those files arent in the utorrent settings or near the next other settings and i dont know where they are... I dont know a way to see the total share ratio in utorrent or other client except on azureus (which is displayed in statistics-->transfers).

I hope with this the post about settings or something will stop now... If anyone of you can find more detailed information about this please post it. (Its not theory its posted on FAQ of Azureus and Wikipedia(search leacher))

[1c3d0g]

Great post, Claw_gr.

[Claw_gr]

Also in this version (I dont know if it were on previous versions) If you click on help-->Show Statistics it says how much you have downloaded and uploaded... (totalDownload/totalUpload = totalshareratio). Also i heard about something new nut i dont know if its true... Limiting upload speed to <6 means automatically you are leacher... If anyones writes about increasing speed plz refer at least what happens to leachers (or if you want to type refer to this post) :cool:

[Computer Guru]

Wait, so does µTorrent broadcast your TOTAL share ratio?

AFAIK the BT protocol is a session-based system, where basically your stats for that one file determine your speed... or am I missing something?

Also AFAIK, the reason torrents start fast then slow down is to give new connectors a chance to download enough to start to upload before limiting based on share ratio FOR THAT TORRENT....

Also, µTorrent has never warned me on the couple of times when I remove a torrent without reaching 1.00 share ratio... :S

[Firon]

it tracks it locally, so people can have statistics it has nothing to do with anything but pure stats (like Azureus' stats)

And yes, it doesn't warn you 'cause it's a dumb warning, and you can turn it off easily in Azureus anyway.

[Switeck]

If µTorrent had a message that popped up in red "LOW UL/DL RATIO" at the bottom, then more people might believe the warning means "something's broke, how do I fix it?"

[Computer Guru]

True... true.

And some n00bs might think Ludde will come avenge their low UL ratio and pay them a visit overnight..

Yep.. He just sprouts wings, grows fangs, and drinks Leecher blood all night long

He invited to go with him last night, but I had finals

[MisterMiagi]

I have been having real problems with DL speeds, and since the speed guide didn't fix it, I figured it could be this.

However, my stats say that I have downloaded ~3GB and uploaded ~1.2. Isn't that quite a bit of upload, or is it not considered to be enough. I only get 10GB a month, so it's relatively generous...

At the moment i'm getting upload speeds of about 15kB/s and downloads at about 0.2 kB/s. Which is clearly unusable. I'm a bit pissed because i'm ab out 40% through a 4GB download, and now I can't finish it.

Any suggestions? Or is it just that i'm a filthy leecher and didn't know it?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Your ratio is about 0.4. You probably aren't a deliberate leech, but your ratio is low enough that private trackers might try to penalize you. How many peers and seeds do you have on your nearly frozen downloading torrent?

If you are desperate, try stopping and restarting everything. Since I don't think it is a good idea to keep doing this, you may as well restart your whole computer. That will reset the maximum number of variables that might have gone astray. Then open uploads to 80% of your practical max if you aren't there already and restart uploading.

If after 30 minutes you still don't get anything, stop the torrent again, download BitComet (for all the complaints it IS good at getting the most out of a crap torrent) and see whether it can pull anything out of them. If you happen to be on a private tracker that banned BitComet you will just have to phone back here and wait.

If BitComet starts working, then it is up to you. You may choose to try to copy down the IPs it is getting and typing them into uTorrent, or you can (if you can stand the increased resource drain in using BC) just go ahead. You can always make up your BC-using sin later by uploading with uTorrent after you have finished.

Warning: This is advice from a person with mediocre BT ethics.

[Claw_gr]

For the Doubtfull ones here: (Azureus actually put in the bar the total share ratio like an error to make noobs to be scared :p that means it really counts and it mentions that download speed would suffer in the long run)

check here:

http://azureus.aelitis.com/wiki/index.php/Share_Ratio

When i told about the warning i meant the message "Do you really want to remove the selected torrent(s)" message ==> Which in azureus is refering to your total share ratio (azureus also warns when stopping a torrent i think with shareratio <1) And yes its a dumb warning in utorrent but i dont know why torrent clients dont pay much attention... IT IS a reason that someone have lower speed

If you have >1 this messsage is skipped and it removes it without saying it (no need to verify cause it doesnt matter if you dont want it already seeded it once)

The total share ratio also isnt used by the same way with all trackers... Everyone has different standards and different ways to check... But I tried at a specific torrent(with a specific tracker) with 2 pcs (one with me being a leecher and the other with share ratio 1...) To the one i was leeching the tracker did ban me (refuses connection actively) and the other it accepted me... thats a proof it counts the totalshareratio but it depends on the tracker standards as i said

Also i am not sure about priorities but its easy having access to total share ratio and create a priority list from there with good users and bad users... and its sopposed to be the basis on the torrent clients because it improves the swarm that way(something like superseeding). I think i have read this before somewhere.

[DNA]

I have uploaded 4.83 GB and downloaded 4.06 GB. What's my Share Ratio?

[Claw_gr]

I have uploaded 4.83 GB and downloaded 4.06 GB. What's my Share Ratio?

It is Upload/Download or Uploadratio/downloadratio its the same 4.83/4.06=1,18 >1 so you wont have problems with trackers baning you

[Togorashi]

Alright. I've come here for confessional. I'm a serious leecher. I didn't know I was, but I looked at my statistics today and it's bad. Really bad.

Total Uploaded: 83 GB

Total Downloaded: 551 GB

I'm using the network and not giving anything back. This discovery was prompted by the fact that my download speeds dropped almost overnight. (I suspect I've been banned by some trackers)

So how do I reform? How do I get back into the good graces of the netowork? My problem is this. I usually move anything I download to my file server almost immediately. So my downloads never seed. What if I downloaded a few of the most popular downloads and kept them in my uTorrent folder to seed? Would that be a solution to get my ratio back to good (and ethical) standing.

I really do want to fix this. Not just so that i can get my download speeds back, but because I feel really guilty about being a leech. I realize how much of a drain I've been on the network and I'd like to give something back.

Any advice?

[Claw_gr]

So how do I reform? How do I get back into the good graces of the netowork? My problem is this. I usually move anything I download to my file server almost immediately. So my downloads never seed. What if I downloaded a few of the most popular downloads and kept them in my uTorrent folder to seed? Would that be a solution to get my ratio back to good (and ethical) standing.

Any advice?

If you want to feel making something useful then leave torrents to seed when you are not using your internet connection (or at least your upload bandwidth). The best torrent to seed and you help arent the popular ones but those who have low seed/peer ratio (the popular propably have good seed/peer ratio). try seeding those

try seeding those who you have already downloaded somewhere (you can use right click>Advanced-->Set Download Location (after stopping it first) because you dont have to move them to finished utorrent path)

But its not as easy as it seems to go back... try seeding big files and every torrent you download from now on leave it until you reached shareratio >1.1... The more the better

Also you should seed first to the trackers they banned you those files

Basically most torrents die because everyone does this.

[Switeck]

Firstly - are you firewalled?

(being firewalled makes it harder to find and keep connection to peers to upload to)

Secondly - how fast is your connection?

(faster upload is better)

There's no secret to a high ratio -- you just have to seed for hours/days/weeks if you want it. The lower your upload speed, the longer you'll need. So knowing just how high you can set upload speed -- even considering time-of-day variations and whether you want to web surf at the time with nonexistant/minimal/noticeable slowdowns is acceptable.

I have a cable connection with roughly 6-7 Mbps down and 380 kbps up.

I limit download speed to 500 KB/sec more as a joke than any serious reason, as the torrents I'm on don't have enough fast uploaders usually for me to reach over 300 KB/sec. (tit-for-tat doesn't always represent equal trades, just something-for-somthing)

While downloading, I allow upload speeds of 36 KB/sec.

While seeding only, I allow upload speeds of 42 KB/sec.

During busy times when I (and others here) want to access the internet with minimal slowdowns, I use Scheduler to set upload speeds to 32 KB/sec.

I can upload between 2.5 and 3.4 GB a day if I keep µTorrent running round-the-clock.

Your ratio is at 15% -- though bad, is not hopeless. You're just going to have to accept that the places you're banned from you'll likely never get back in. Though you can try emailing them, and promise to seed some files that you already got for days/weeks before downloading ANYTHING from them.

Fortunately, blacklists tend to be site-specific. Having your ip (if fixed) passed between lots of torrent sites to be blocked would be a cruel fate even for such leechy behavior.

Lots of public torrent sites may WANT you to maintain a ratio, but almost none enforce a ratio policy. But for the community's sake, you should make an effort to upload there too. Hit-and-run download is where someone stops a torrent very shortly after the torrent finishes downloading...often having uploaded as little as 5% of what they downloaded. It does immense damage on poorly-seeded torrents, potentially killing them so nobody else can download them! But on well-seeded torrents it just slows the torrent down for others...possibly a lot for the firewalled ones.

Setting reasonable upload and download values is a good first step.

Even lowering download speed to 100 KB/sec or equal to your upload speed might be in order to prevent your ratio from getting far worse.

You only need about 20 connections per torrent to get reasonable download speeds for most torrents -- using 100+ per torrent just costs upload bandwidth better spent uploading the torrent!

Don't run lots of torrents at once -- a good rule-of-thumb is no more than 1 active torrent for every 10 KB/sec of upload speed you're giving back. Don't run too many very slow torrents at once either. I've had good results mixing a 'big' (lots of seeds+peers) torrents with a couple poorly-seeded ones. If there's no peers that are missing what you have, you won't be uploading at all.

Don't allow lots of upload slots, even though it sounds more "giving". It isn't. Uploading at <1 KB/sec per peer (which is what an upload slot is) is basically cruel and doesn't deserve the resulting ratio improvements they give...much of the uploaded pieces get replaced by faster uploaders, resulting in lots of duplicate data accomplishing nothing. Better to upload about 2-10 KB/sec per upload slot (which you have to calculate if you have more than 1 torrent active!) so you're not splitting your upload so thin. (overheads for EACH upload add up too!)

Also, the faster each upload slot of yours is, the more likely the peer you're uploading to will return the favor! If you're only uploading 2 KB/sec...others could be uploading at 3 KB/sec to that same peer...so guess who that peer's going to be uploading the most back to?

The converse of that is beyond as little as 10 KB/sec per upload slot...you're not going to get good returns. Few others upload that fast per upload slot, so you may be giving a peer 10 KB/sec and getting 5 KB/sec back in return.

[Togorashi]

My connection is pretty good. 4.5 Mbps down and 350 kbps up.

I've followed the guides on this forum for all of my settings. I run just the standard XP firewall. I suppose my ports could be messed up in the firewall or on my router. I've never really checked.

The thing is, I was getting awesome download speeds for the past year until just a couple days ago. Now everything seems to be capped at around 5 kb/s. I notice that every once in a while I'll get a big spike at a torrent will shoot up to 200-300 but within a few seconds it will drop back down to under 5. I suspect it is a new site connecting to me and then seeing what a leech I am.

I've made all the stereotypical noob mistakes. I used to setup enormous queues with WAY too many downloads. Now I never have more than 4 downloads at a time and my queue is never more than 10.

Even though you say my situation isn't hopeless, I'm wondering if a clean reinstall of XP would help. Even though IPs can be banned, it's also the share ratio info right? So a clean reinstall would help? Or am I wrong?

The thing that bothers me is that even after I set up all of my preferences according to the guides on this site, I still don't upload anything. Across the board it is 0.0 Every once in a while I get a little spike something will start uploading, but then it drops back down again. (and usually my download kb/s correspondingly drops too) Those kinds of things make me think that there is a firewall issue or something else besides my share ratio. Because no matter how bad my ratio is, wouldn't someone allow me to upload?

Thanks for all of your help. I really appreciate it. I thought I would get flamed for being a noob leech. I want to fix this and contribute to the network. Thanks.

After reading another thread, I tried disabling DHT. It did nothing. Then I tried downloading 1.5.1 Beta and all of my speeds are back to normal. Not awesome, but at least normal for now. I don't know what Beta fixed, but it works. I'll keep all of the new and improved settings and hopefully my ratio will start to improve.