Serious utorrent problem

[brutlern]

For the past few days I've been having some weird issues with utorrent. Basically my internet connection seems to be working fine (browsing, downloading, a bunch of speed test sites all returning good results - download and upload). In utorrent download is also okay, however upload is almost non-existent. I used to be uploading with 100 KB/s almost all the time but now I'm lucky if I get 10 KB/s. Another weird thing is that the torrents update their trackers status extremely slow (sometimes it's so slow that it gives a timeout error, even if the tracker is functioning properly). Even more weird is that often I get "D:0.0k U:0.0K" status. Now, I'm no expert but usually utorrent used to download and upload at least 1k even if it's not downloading or uploading anything. I never had completely 0.0k down and up. And the little connection status icon on the bottom takes a long time to turn green (if it wouldn't turn green than I'd know something is wrong, but it eventually does).

I tried all the guides, faqs, tutorials and test I could find without any results. I tried WinXP Service Pack 3, Service Pack 2 fully updated, Service Pack 2 without any updates whatsoever. I tried utorrent 1.6.1, 1.7.6, 1.7.7 (currently using) and 1.8 rc1. I tried them with and without the TCPIP patch. NOTHING!

Please HELP!!!

[GTHK]

SP2 is an update. Anyway, need more information. What specifically have you tried? What has changed recently on your computer, and in your network setup? Look at these entirely, and describe how a test torrent in the first thread works: http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=15992 http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=4128

[brutlern]

Test torrents work fine. The download is not the problem. The upload is. I reinstalled windows 3 times. So it's not a windows problem. I tried everything from the troubleshooting section. Just recently upload started working, seems that the longer it's running the better it gets but still only half speed (maxed out at around 50kb/s.. should be above 100).

[GTHK]

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=15992#p258238 everything except basic hardware specifications. What change to the computer preceded these problems? What do you have in the event viewer in the system log?

[brutlern]

Ok. Here goes:

- network status light - green

- Port 32555 open and accepting connections.

- Upload limit 0 kb/s Upload Slot 30 Connections 125 Conections(global) 800 Max Active torrents 8 Max Active downloads 5

- Enable Encryption - checked

- net.max_halfopen - 8

- OS - Win Xp SP2 (no updates) - it was working fine without any updates for over a year

- software - Windows Firewall, Nod 32

- don't know router model

- ISP - RDS

- connection type - Dial-up PPPoE

- speed test results - speedtest.net - 23212 kbps/s down, 1345 kbps/s up (which is about the advertised speeds from the ISP, and was about the same even before the problems started)

- mondospeed.com - Remote server: czone.mondospeed.com

Size of transfered data: 8193 Kbytes

Download Test Completed.

Down Load Speed: 13426 kbps

Down Load Time: 4.882 seconds

Upload Test Completed.

Upload Speed: 1297 kbps

Upload Time: 50.548 seconds

Nothing changed before the the problems occured. Like I said I reinstalled Windows 3 times thinking it was something wrong with it.

In the event viewer I get a Event 4226 error very rarely (I'm not using the TCPIP patch). Other than that no errors.

[Switeck]

"- Upload limit 0 kb/s Upload Slot 30 Connections 125 Conections(global) 800 Max Active torrents 8 Max Active downloads 5"

One problem found, infinite upload speed on a non-infinite speed connection.

Your ISP may have even throttled your connection for repeatedly going beyond the limit!

...possibly for hours on end.

The other settings are pretty extreme too. 30 upload slots per torrent times 8 max torrents is really extreme even for a line about 10 times faster. Your max connection limits may be hitting against some hidden networking hardware or software limit as well if you had 8 VERY busy torrents running at once! It'd be very noticeable to a system administrator wondering why the network was "a little slow" or overloaded.

Do take a look at the 2nd link in my signature for even more conservative settings than Speed Guide (CTRL+G) will give you.

[brutlern]

I'll try more conservative settings but I've been using these settings for quite a while without any issues. I even had more extreme ones at some point and still no problems.

[Switeck]

Gotta love all that auto-updating software on your computer so you can't really say that everything is exactly the same as it was awhile back.

Even if you don't post the findings here, you may want to go through your system with Process Explorer and/or HijackThis!

The danger now is not so likely to be malware/viruses/trojans, but rather poorly-written or just pure hostile commercial software that demands too much from a computer.

NOD 32 AV had a few issues with uTorrent, I don't know if it's not a problem anymore due to updates or settings changes.

That and your ISP may have rolled out recently general BitTorrent throttling.

...Or like I suggested before, they noticed your traffic and throttled just you.

[brutlern]

I'm sure it's not a software problem. Like I said I recently reinstalled windows and installed only a few other programs.

There might be another problem though. My advertised upload speed is around 1.5 Mbps but only for external connections (aka outside the country). But inside i can get 20-30 Mpbs easy. So if I limit the global upload rate won't that slow down my upload? Also I have noticed that occasionally I get some really high upload speeds, up to 600 KB/s (just a couple of minutes ago in fact, it slowed down to 50 again). So maybe the ISP is throttling only outside connections?

[Switeck]

ADSL to my knowledge isn't capable of faster than ~24 megabits/second down and ~2 megabits/second up. That means the only explanation for the 600 KiloBYTES/second upload speed you saw was either link compression on + highly compressible data...or a very short burst that didn't get measured right for speed.

Either way, with as few inside-the-country ips you're likely to get on less-popular international torrents, you're probably better off having uTorrent set up for international speeds and limits.

Try my 2nd link...and start out with the 1.5 megabits/second upload speed max settings. You may need to reduce the upload speed slightly or use the 1 megabit/second upload speed max settings instead.

Without knowing what few other programs you installed, we can only assume the worst...because after all you ARE having problems!

[brutlern]

Tried the 2nd link. No difference. And if I set global upload limit, that slows down my inside-the-country speeds and since those are the only ones that are working right now (properly I might add) I'd rather not set an upload limit lower that 2MB/s. For example yesterday I had 3.3 MB/s down and 2.2MB/s up at the same time for about 15 mins. But as soon as I finished downloading and the other one finished downloading from me everything stopped even of there were plenty of foreign peers connected.

As for what I have currently installed: nod32, utorrent, adobe flash player plugin, k-lite codec pack, .net framework 2.0, java plugin, firefox 3, winrar, yahoo messeger, and Via KT400 motherboard driver.

[Switeck]

NOD AV has been a real thorn to uTorrent in the past. I believe there's troubleshooting threads devoted to making them work together now...

Does your Via KT400 motherboard happen to use an Nvidia chipset?

(I'm really out of touch with identifying chipsets by brand and number.)

[brutlern]

No problems with nod32. But I unistalled it just in case. Still nothing. The chipset is VIA VT8377 Apollo. I don't know why that is important, I didn't change anything in my PC.

[Switeck]

It seems your ISP is probably crippling/blocking BitTorrent traffic to international peers/seeds, otherwise you'd be uploading to foreign peers if you've finished a download.

[brutlern]

Ok. So what is there to do? And why did it happen only now?

[jewelisheaven]

.. ISPs are always changing their methodology. Start by isolating parts of your setup. I made a checklist http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=300000#300000 which helps if you know which end is likely to not have changed.

[brutlern]

Some new developments with my problem. It seems that while it still not working as it should, over time it starts to improve, after a couple of hours of running utorrent the upload does eventually get up to around 100kb/s. Another strange thing is that one tracker in particular seems to be running well, and the torrents from that tracker mostly have foreign peers and they can connect just fine. What's really weird is that I've had problems with this tracker before (not being able to upload) while all the others were working fine. Now the tables have turned and this tracker is the only one which is working properly while all the others are having problems.

[Switeck]

How many connections (peers+seeds) do you typically have at once?

[brutlern]

That depends on the torrents. Right now I've got 21 torrents seeding. Best one is 0(1126)/0(74), worst one is 0(5)/0(4). Best one that's active 0(218)/11(69), worst active one 0(11)/1(5).

[jewelisheaven]

You don't run 20 ACTIVE torrents on that upload. Your queue can be as large as you wish, but any more than three is pushing your luck generally.

Lessen active torrents, see if you see immediate results

[brutlern]

I've had 40 active torrents before without any problems.

[jewelisheaven]

yes, and your stupidly high settings are limiting you from getting the best speeds and sharing efficiently divide your upload by 3 to get an "average" number of slots you can have which are to be divided among ALL the torrents you run.

Start at one, then increase it slowly by number of connections. As you increase torrents, reduce connections per torrent to keep your total connections consistent. Also you should be aware of any connectivity problems which arise after a certain # of peers are connected. It's good that you cut your active torrents in half, but that still fares magnitudes above Ctrl-G settings for a 2Mbit connection.

[brutlern]

I understand your point but why did everything work fine for over a year without having to limit anything?

[jewelisheaven]

See previous response regarding ISPs. Just because you can do something for X hours doesn't mean your ISP won't change the rules of the game. Follow best practices... or better yet, see if you can maximize your connection at all anymore with minimal (< 20 connections per torrent 1 torrent 5 upload slots) connections and minimal (turn off DHT LPD, UPnP/NAT-PMP) features following post #2 in the troubleshooting sticky.

[brutlern]

The thing is that I've got plenty of friends who are much more aggressive than me. I only have access to the internet about 2-3 days/week. And they download everything they can get their hands on all day, every day for 2-3 years now and the ISP hasn't throttled them in any way. So why is ISP buggin' me, a casual user by any standards?