UTORRENT kills my connection!

[peepnklown]

I am not saying this will work for everyone but, it worked for me and I will share my tale. I would be downloading a few torrents and surfing the web and then BAM my connection died and I have to wait until my connection reconnects; this would happen several times which really frustrated me. I am not going to type out a long explanation but, I am going to offer a simple solution:

PREFERENCES

BITTORRENT

GLOBAL MAX 200

MAXIMUM NUMBER 50

UPLOAD SLOTS 4

APPLY

[Switeck]

Heh, bad networking hardware and software will still die every time from those settings.

And you failed to mention some more "connection killers":

1.too-high half open rate (absolute worst IMO)

2.too-high upload speed max (still pretty bad)

3.DHT and/or Resolve IPs enabled (which they are by default) on Belkin or D-Link routers...or wireless USB cards/USB modems...generally, these aren't problems at all even for slow (256 kilobits/second) internet connections! ISPs that throttle BitTorrent traffic may be able to detect them and throttle/cripple/disrupt your line because of them though.

Even allowing too many connections at once isn't as bad as too-high a half open rate, because many torrents won't let you approach really high seed/peer links at once...there's simply not enough seeds/peers to connect to. (...especially if you're firewalled!)

Having said all that, determining what your worst networking hardware and/or software is...and replacing or just removing it can really open up what settings you can use in uTorrent.

Numerous if not MOST software firewalls are just plain junk when it comes to uTorrent.

[Firon]

Please try some of the other suggestions in this thread. http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=15992#p258231

[laugher]

I've been monitoring this situation myself as it is also impacting me on Vista Ultimate with Service Pack 1.

For me, when uTorrent starts the process of degrading both my system's performance as well as stability, the symptoms are;

1. Slowing behaviour of applications that access the network/internet. e.g. Email applications don't connect to SMTP servers and often timesout, Internet Explorer begins to take its time to respond to mouse clicks/keyboard input, etc.

2. When Internet Explorer starts to stop responding, it begins to trigger off a system-wide non-responsiveness. This could start anywhere in any application but generally, its Explorer (file), Desktop, etc. That's usually when you know the system is dying.

3. Eventually, no applications can access the internet or no applications will respond.

Sometimes, the first symptom that something is going wrong is when uTorrent locks up. i.e. it shows in the right-hand corner of the start bar tray but it won't come up when you double click on it.

Trying to kill it with Task Manager, Process Explorer, etc has no effect. Trying to kill the parent explorer.exe process (even when successfully killing explorer.exe) has no effect on the child process, uTorrent.exe.

Logging off (even when it takes forever - like 15min) and then logging back on...you think uTorrent.exe would be killed with the successful logoff. Nope...still there and with the same pid (process id).

Shutdown/Restart and jump into Event Viewer. Event ID 4226 occurs every 12-14 minutes. There was no other obvious cause for the system hang or uTorrent hang or anything I can interpret to mean something I can actually fix.

So I followed some of the guidelines, applying what little rudimentary intelligence I have around this space and did the following;

1. Lowered net.max_halfopen to 6. This is a guess as it was already set to 8.

2. Disabled IP resolving in the Peers tab's context menu (who cares where they come from)

3. Disabled UPnP and NAT-PMP (don't need either)

4. Maximum global number of connections set to 150 (from 200 - just to see what happens)

I wasn't game on patching tcpip.sys as it means I could introduce something else to my system. i.e. instability or worst, incompatibility with something.

An hour has lapsed now and no Event ID 4226 has occurred. Fingers crossed.

What I did noticed is that the download speeds appeared to be down but this could be the seeds I am connecting to. So I will monitor this for a few days and see how it goes.

From my perspective, there are two parties that can fix this;

1. uTorrent development Team - they know tcpip.sys is throttled with the number of half connections open - can uTorrent team please introduce a recommended set of settings that will increase stability for Vista? I am happy if they have a checkbox called "Increase stability with Vista" and let me choose to tick it or not. I seriously suspect the tcpip.sys throttling to be my problem and eventual hanging of anything trying to use the network/internet. The tip? tcpip.sys -> tcpip -> implies TCP/IP -> implies network -> links to all applications that fails to respond when connecting to network.

2. While uTorrent can introduce a workaround (so Vista users can live with uTorrent because Microsoft crippled Vista), Microsoft should seriously think about what they are doing here. They are crippling the performance of the platform so they can sell more server licenses??? Do they think they are making us, their users, happy? Last time I heard, we are suppose to make customers happy so they can come back and buy more things from us? If they think they are doing the community a favour, then how come we don't see the Linux community, Mac OS X community, etc doing the same? I don't see them crippling their OS to make it more "secure"? So they are afraid that we will turn into clients for some trojan that will carry out a denial of service attack on microsoft.com, well, they should fix that somewhere else. Inconveniencing their customer base is ludicrous. Its a band-aid approach to fixing a problem they are not publicly acknowledging. They need to fix it so we users don't stick with XP or worst, move to Linux or Mac OS X.

I am inclined to rebuild my system back to XP or one of the Linux varieties right now...

I feel better now. I had my yarn. Thanks for listening. :-)

[Switeck]

When uTorrent.exe gets completely unresponsive and won't shut down...and your internet connection cannot be accessed even by web browsers.

...You've got a BIGGER problem than uTorrent being uncooperative!

If it were me, I'd look into disconnecting my internet connection immediately -- either by turning off my modem and/or router or pulling the ethernet cable out for my computer to my router.

That should stop uTorrent from causing more error 4226's, regain web browser control after that happens, and allow you to shut down uTorrent.

It's even possible your computer has malware (viruses/trojans) on it that are "clogging" up your line.

If I were to guess, you've probably got some really crappy networking hardware like a Belkin router or Surfboard modem...maybe even some wireless or USB connection mixed in there. Or you have Zone Alarm installed. Or Norton/McAfee in-"security" software installed.

If your problems are really as severe as described, severe testing is in order:

Lower net.max_halfopen to only 1-4.

Set Maximum global number of connections to only 30-50.

[Firon]

Can you post a HijackThis log?

[laugher]

>> ...You've got a BIGGER problem than uTorrent being uncooperative!

Well...the problem only becomes apparent when uTorrent is being used and has never happened to me prior so I can't 100% agree with you. Of course, I don't use any other p2p tools so the problem may be exacerbated or surfaces only by uTorrent.

>> If it were me, I'd look into disconnecting my internet connection immediately -- either by turning off my modem and/or router or pulling the ethernet cable out for my computer to my router. That should stop uTorrent from causing more error 4226's, regain web browser control after that happens, and allow you to shut down uTorrent.

But my point is - shouldn't uTorrent detect this situation itself programmatically and then deal with the exception? I was once a developer myself and I'm sure if you do enough homework, you can actually capture this event/error and handle it more graciously. I also think the problem is much more widespread (because of all the other people reporting internet crashing, machine hanging, etc) that it makes it worthwhile to implement a trap for this issue.

>> It's even possible your computer has malware (viruses/trojans) on it that are "clogging" up your line.

Nada. I have Symantec AV 2008 running that deals with malware, trojans and viruses.

>> If I were to guess, you've probably got some really crappy networking hardware like a Belkin router or Surfboard modem...maybe even some wireless or USB connection mixed in there. Or you have Zone Alarm installed. Or Norton/McAfee in-"security" software installed.

Ok...here's the deal. I'm happy to spend money to fix this problem. So if you were me, what router/switch/wireless device would you recommend? I am running on an Apple Airport Express at the moment over wireless. Are you saying uTorrent doesn't run/is not supported/is not recommended over wireless? I don't mind if I am not leeching at over 500kps, but I do want stability!

I am running ZoneAlarm. I will uninstall it and monitor the situation.

>> If your problems are really as severe as described, severe testing is in order:

Lower net.max_halfopen to only 1-4.

Set Maximum global number of connections to only 30-50.

I'll incorporate these suggestions in my testing. Report back in a few days or so.

>> Can you post a HijackThis log?

I'll see what I can do.

[Firon]

Well, Symantec has one of the worst detection rates as far as malware and stuff goes... so I wouldn't trust it at all.

Zone Alarm is also terribly buggy, but having your connection go nuts is not one of the normal symptions of ZA problems. In this case, you were probably just hitting half-open limits even with 8 (https can make it go over, and any other app making connections just exacerbates things)... assuming everything got better when you lowered half-open from 8.

[Switeck]

uTorrent is not recommended over wireless with >60 connections at once. If you keep uTorrent's max connections at 60 or less, many wireless connections will have little to no problems. However, high half open rates are real killers...even excellent networking hardware and software can be taken out by it, the difference being only HOW high the value needs to be before that happens.

HijackThis! and Process Explorer can give you an idea just how invasive Symantec AV 2008 is.

[Firon]

Nah, it's not the fact that it's wireless... just that wireless hardware (especially USB stuff) tends to be dodgy.

[marinegundoctor]

I started uT after a reformat and forgot to change my speed settings (or maybe I left them too high after messing around, can't rember). My AT&T AirCard 881 (USB) got so hot I thought it would melt itself down. My max global conn.'s were at 600 and the speed topped around 200Kps.

I've got it at 90 right now after running the speed guide, but I may take Switeck's advice and use 60.

[Switeck]

"the speed topped around 200Kps."

Do you mean 200 kilobits/second or 200 KiloBYTES/second?

[marinegundoctor]

that would be KB.

[laugher]

Ok. This is what I have done.

Uninstalled ZoneAlarm.

Uninstalled Norton AV 2008

Installed AVG 8.0 (as one of the recommended AV solutions from moderators)

AVG 8 Full Scan confirms Norton AV 2008's results - no malware except for some tracking cookies which happens everytime you go on the web.

Tweaked uTorrent to use;

Lower net.max_halfopen to 5.

Set Maximum global number of connections to only 60.

I still get Event ID 4226. They usually occur 5-15 minutes for the first hour or so with uTorrent running but than evens out to 2 hour interval occurrences afterwards.

Maximum Download Throughput over wireless I've clocked is 107kB/s (as reported by uTorrent). This is predominantly throttled by a substandard DSL connection.

uTorrent no longer locks up. Nor does it cause system shutdowns to take a long time. Shutdowns are now snappy (or as snappy as Microsoft Vista normally does it).

I can live with Event ID 4226s occurring as long as the system is stable, which it is now. I guess I have found an acceptable compromise/upper limit. If I get experimental, I will up the connections and net.max_halfopen but for now, I'm happy.

Thanks for the suggestions.

[Switeck]

If you want Event ID 4226 messages to go away (and the problems that may come with them)...lower net.max_halfopen to 4.