Limiting connection attempts

[Martin]

Would've been nice if you could limit the number of simultaneous connection attempts to peers like you can in Azureus.

For example: If you set the limit to 8, it will only try to open 8 connections at a time and that way it bypasses the TCP limit in Windows XP.

Edit: I tried to allow 100 connections per torrent, but then Windows started to drop packets (connection died) because uTorrent was exceeding the amount of incomplete connections.

Some info:

TCP/IP "Patch": http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=267665

Azureus: http://azureus.aelitis.com/wiki/index.php/NetworkConnectionDying

[Martin]

Does anyone else have this problem?

[static-]

Yes, a lot of people do. You'll see these in your system event log:

http://www.i-like-pie.com/neowin/tcpiperr.jpg

I guess I'll try this "patch"

Cheers

[Martin]

Yes, a lot of people do. You'll see these in your system event log:

http://www.i-like-pie.com/neowin/tcpiperr.jpg

I guess I'll try this "patch"

Cheers

That's the error, but I don't want to use the patch just because of something that easily can be bypassed.

[ScubaSteve]

u should use the patch for it. microsoft limited the amount of half open connections on SP2 to 10. this seriously affects any p2p software and especially torrents becoz of the nature of how they work. all it does is patch ur tcpip.sys file in windows and then reboot ur pc. thats hardly a difficult thing todo.

[Martin]

u should use the patch for it. microsoft limited the amount of half open connections on SP2 to 10. this seriously affects any p2p software and especially torrents becoz of the nature of how they work. all it does is patch ur tcpip.sys file in windows and then reboot ur pc. thats hardly a difficult thing todo.

Read that Neowin topic and you'll understand. It's not about how difficult the patching process is, it's about how easily it can be bypassed in the client. P2P applications that require this patch to work properly just proves how mis-informed the developer(s) of those applications are.

And what should I answer other users asking me about this problem?

"Go patch one of your system files with a 3rd party patch"? .. I don't think so.

Let's say that I want to have 100 connections per torrent. Now there's absolutely no need for my client to open all those connections at once. Instead it can open them in batches of e.g. 8 and there will be no problem at all. There could also be a option to set the number of connection attempts in the settings of the client.

[static-]

Yes but if it affects your internet connection outside of the bittorrent client, then that poses a problem. It's happened a few times to me that my inet died completely until I killed utorrent. I understand what the patch does and it personally doesn't bother me. I see that MS change as more of a precaution for mass users.

Anywho, the original file can always be restored.

[Martin]

There's also the matter of principles.

[chaosblade]

The limitation does NOT effect the speed of any P2P program. It just takes a bit longer to connect initially, Which is hardly a problem.

[ScubaSteve]

maybe a warning dialog on first usage of uTorrent informing the user that they are on XP SP2 and that they will have limited connectivity and that they should change the connection settings or get the patch to change the tcpip.sys settings in windows. unfortunately many ppl dont know about all the small tweaks windows has in it, like also reserving 20% of connections bandwidth

[chaosblade]

It doesnt limit your connection what so ever. Even if the connections are queued (and they ARE, they are never dropped), XP processes that queue pretty fast. You're talking about mere seconds, thats all. It doesnt effect it any other way.

The need for this patch is pretty much a myth.

[static-]

I agree it improves speeds, but it helps to prevent event 4226 errors (as the neowin article states). Every time I've come across this, my inet dies until I close utorrent.

[ScubaSteve]

u do understand that its 10 tcp for the entire system. if utorrent is trying to open 8 at a time all the time becoz of the way torrents work and you in the meanwhile try to use other programs that require opening network conenctions at the same time its going to mean alot of dropped packets.

i guess you dont seem to understand quite how the 10 simultaneous connection limit works.

[Martin]

u do understand that its 10 tcp for the entire system. if utorrent is trying to open 8 at a time all the time becoz of the way torrents work and you in the meanwhile try to use other programs that require opening network conenctions at the same time its going to mean alot of dropped packets.

i guess you dont seem to understand quite how the 10 simultaneous connection limit works.

Yes it's 10 simultaneous connection attempts at a time, then it starts queing the rest of the connections. And that's not "the way torrents work", this setting depends solely on the client, not the protocol itself. The client is not going to try to constantly open 8 connections forever because no torrents got an unlimited amount of peers to connect to. Besides, most of us have a reasonable maximum amount of peers per torrent.

[chaosblade]

The patch doesn't improve any downloadupload speed at all.

The 4226 event means you've reached the maximum possible half-open connections - but XP never drops the excess connections - it just queues them and connects them as soon as possible.

[Martin]

I'd like to hear what the developers has to say about this matter.

[ScubaSteve]

having it limited to 10 connections wont effect the speed but it will decrease performance of the overall system. maybe you dont mind things loading slowly but i for one like to get the most out of my fast internet. in my browser i have it set to make 20 connections at once making web pages load extremely fast. if i had the limitation of 10 connection requests it would drastically decrease the performance and speed of which pages open. if by having uTorrent open and having it set to 8 that still only leaves 2 spare requests for other programs to use. not very good if u ask me. luckily most ppl i know already have a patched tcpip.sys file included in there windows install cd.

[slayers]

Microsoft clearly dropped the ball on this one by imposing that limitation. All the p2p clients I've used had this problem before I put Windows back to what it was with the patch.

It just isn't logical to solve an OS problem with a workaround in the program.

[okasvi]

Microsoft clearly dropped the ball on this one by imposing that limitation. All the p2p clients I've used had this problem before I put Windows back to what it was with the patch.

It just isn't logical to solve an OS problem with a workaround in the program.

you are right about it being OS problem...

but still i would find this setting useful, so i can set it lower while browsing forums etc.

[grug]

i guess you dont seem to understand quite how the 10 simultaneous connection limit works.

You don't seem to understand it either.

in my browser i have it set to make 20 connections at once making web pages load extremely fast.

Luckily for the web servers, most of them won't accept more than 2 connections anyway.

20 Connections will be slowing you down. What you want to do is pipeline, that is, use the same connection to ask for more than one file, not create 20 simultaneous connections, most of which will be created, have to close them, and then open new connections.

Also, if you use Firefox, no matter how many connections you ask for, it will never provide more than 8.

if i had the limitation of 10 connection requests it would drastically decrease the performance and speed of which pages open. if by having uTorrent open and having it set to 8 that still only leaves 2 spare requests for other programs to use.

Once they make their request and get a response they're NOT PART OF THE LIMIT.

The whole point of the SP2 limit was that worms such as Blaster connect to RANDOM IP addresses. Huge numbers of random IP addresses at a time. Many of these will not resolve or connect. So SP2 limits the number of unconnected addresses, and puts them into a queue.

It doesn't adversely affect programs where you know the IP addresses are going to respond -- such as the IPs given to your client by the tracker.

[zixter]

So any conclusion to this ? (newb here)

I tried the patch(using Bitcomet before this),I was able to limit the half open connections to 40 and surf net rather comfortably. After using utorrent I find my 4226 errors coming back.

Anyone knows how to set the half open tcpip connections in utorrent? I tried patching the tcpip back to 10 and my torrent seems to be faster?? (dunno if this is true or not)

any advice?

[ScubaSteve]

40 isnt really a very good amount to set it too. especially if your using browsers such as firefox/opera which make multiple connection attempts when requesting pages. i would reccommend setting it to atleast 100 connections. that should be enough to cover openening multiple pages simultaneously aswell as µTorrent and a few other p2p programs.

and yes the problem has been resolved. in the advanced options theres the option bt_slow_connect which should be set to true by default. once you have set ur connection limit to 100 it should be safe to set that to false.

[zixter]

Oh wat i meant was i setted the bitcomet limit to 40 and my tcpip patch actually settted to 50. (meaning 10 left for browsing, i know it doesnt work like 50-40 =10 but wth...)

although that may not be the ideal situation, but changing to utorrent makes browsing worse now, as i do not know how to limit the u torrent half open connections.... anyone noes? or do i have to increase the tcpip even more to accomodate utorrent?

[chaosblade]

uTorrent works well even with the now-default 10 half-open connections.

Just mark 'Connect to peers slower' and you dont even have to patch your system.

[winMX_67]

I would patch it. I got the 4226 just from webbrowsing p2p and updating something. 10 connections isnt enough. I have mine at 52 and its fine.