force re-check doesn't work, has deleted my data and I am IRATE!

[fluffyarse]

I moved the downloaded data and used "set download location" and attempted to force recheck. I have used this feature on previous versions of utorrent. But today it wouldn't work(v 1.8.1) and completed the recheck in one second saying 0% completed, when the download is 100% complete. It was only after failing over and over again to get force-recheck to work after using "set download location" that I tried moving the files instead. So I deleted the .torrent file, re-downloaded it, letting it start downloading into a new folder and then stopped utorrent and then moved the completed files to the new folder, restarted utorrent and tried to force re-check.

Now my 4.7 gigabytes which took me a whole week to download is missing, even though I bothered to mark the files as read-only specifically because I didn't trust utorrent not to delete my files.

Such a simple thing I was trying to do. Should have taken about ten seconds.

Now I am thoroughly irate and will not use this program again until this awful bug is acknowledged and fixed.

What did I do wrong? How can I trust utorrent with a completed torrent? Do I have to make an entire copy of the folder before trying this feature? I hate it when software deletes my files!

As usual, data recovery programs can find no trace of the files. I have nevr found a data recovery program which can recover files which have been overwritten even though it only took a second. Obviously all my files should still be on the disk, but all that turns up is the pre-allocated files from when I tried to start the torrent from the beginning before moving the files.

[Switeck]

If the files are gone, you probably told uTorrent to delete them.

Chances are, you're just not telling uTorrent where they're at NOW...so uTorrent sees nothing/0% done.

[thelittlefire]

uTorrent isn't a file manager. Unless you have used the Remove toolbar button with any of the "+data" options uTorrent didn't touch your data. You can check where uTorrent is looking for your files in the General tab under "Save As". Be sure you selected the correct folder hierarchy.

[fluffyarse]

>If the files are gone, you probably told uTorrent to delete them.

so to prove that utorrent did in fact delete my files and does in fact have an awful bug i have to painstakingly re-create the procedure and screen capture the whole sorry episode? I simply tried to use a feature of the program I have used many times before whilst being cautiuos not to delete my files. Utorrent absolutely has deleted my files! I only deleted the preallocated files which were in a separate folder, and these are the files the data recover programs find - garbled nonsense.

I didn't delete my files, and if I did the data recovery programs would find them.

utorrent had decided that I have zero percent of the download no matter what i did with my 4.7 gig of files. Where did they go? Did I pre-allocate over the top of them?

[Ultima]

If it completed the hash check in a second, then it never checked the files to begin with, meaning you probably didn't point it in the correct location. Even when tossing out corrupt pieces, µTorrent needs to check the existing data to confirm that they need to be thrown out. They don't just disappear.

I've never seen Force Re-check behave in this way before -- it's always worked exactly as I expected (meaning files that I know to be there are never overwritten or skipped out of the hash checking).

Confirmation of a bug's existence can't happen unless we can reproduce it (or find an obvious and gaping hole in the code). Confirmation of the possibility that it exists can't occur unless we find it to be plausible (doesn't seem all that likely in this case). Providing us with steps to reproduce the problem is always the best step toward our acknowledging and fixing a bug.

[thelittlefire]

You didn't read my post I guess. Unless you START a torrent job, I wasn't aware any preallocation takes place.

[fluffyarse]

it has never been clear when using this feature which folder utorrent wants me to select, the folder with the files or the root folder. eg /downloads/torrenttitle or /downloads . I have always ended up trying one and then the other until it works. This time it never worked no matter which folder and never deleted my files until i tried to solve the problem by deleting the torrent and restarting the download.

obviously i have overwritten the files somehow, maybe i accidentally selected "delete torrent+data"

does anyone know of a data recovery program which scans for file types? i.e. scan for avi data? even if i do this the filesizes will be wrong. is ther something i did to the files to make them fail hashcheck? marking them as read-only perhaps? utorrent was sure that the files were not there when they were. it was only when the "set download location" and "force re-check" features failed to work for me and i tried to use an alternative method that things turned to shite.

[Ultima]

When you use Set Download Location in the torrent context menu, you always select the directory that contains the actual files themselves (downloads\torrenttitle, or downloads\torrentfile.ext). When you add a new torrent, it's always the containing directory (downloads\), which µTorrent proceeds to automatically append torrentitle to (so that you'll see downloads\torrenttitle in the Add New Torrent dialog's Save As path).

Holding Shift while pressing Delete will cause µTorrent to also remove the files.

Recovery by extension? Dunno, maybe Recuva does. Or maybe SoftPerfect File Recovery. Either way, though, as you mentioned, you should not expect recovery to go perfectly.

[fluffyarse]

>"Unless you START a torrent job, I wasn't aware any preallocation takes place."

yes i did re-start the torrent from the beginning to try and iron out the bug, to get the download going(one piece) so i could then replace the preallocated data with my completed files. so i was happy for it to preallocate, then i tried to copy my files over the top but couldn't find them.

i was just trying to move my files to another computer(and isp) where uploads are not counted so i could seed 'cause i'm now the only seed.

btw i have used these features many times before today with no problems.

Anyway thanks for your help people , I will try to re-create this scenario soon with another smaller torrent and try to figure out what happenned, maybe find out if there is really a bug or whether I created the problem myself with my absent mindedness. I was sure i knew what i was doing untill my data dissappeared.

[thelittlefire]

Yes please try to re-create the problem. Easy test torrents include http://distribution.openoffice.org/p2p/ and http://slackware.com/torrents/ if only for the fact you only have to wait for their seeds to connect

However if indeed you STARTed the torrent at the correct location (after set download location, BEFORE force recheck/checking 0->100%) I think you learned your lesson.

THE ONLY caveat here would be if after set download location uT did not AUTOMATICALLY re-check data before pre-allocating. This would be a bug, as rechecks happen after path changes... should be the first thing IMO.

[fluffyarse]

Problem solved!!!

The short story: "force re-check" doesn't work when files are set to "do not download", even when the files are in fact downloaded.

How it happenned: I was trying to download a multiple file torrent on one computer and seed on another by gradually moving the completed files to the seeding computer. To prevent downloading on the seeding computer all of the files were set to "do not download", thus preventing the force re-check feature from working. When I couldn't figure out why it wasn't working I tried to solve the problem by deleting the torrent and restarting the download and then adding files- and somehow I've managed to delete or overwrite the files.

My workaround: mark all files as "normal" priority when using "force re-check" feature, and then change them all to "do not download" before restarting the torrent. Or alternatively make sure the newly added files are not marked as "do not download" before using "force re-check".

My suggestion for utorrent developers: make "force re-check" work even when files are set to "do not download", seeing as this feature is well suited to the task of transferring downloads onto another computer for seeding. Whether a file is set to "do not download" or not is irrellevant to whether the file is in fact present.

I hope this info helps someone out there or is useful to utorrent devs.

btw utorrent has found another seed for my torrent via DHT so it looks like I might get all of my download eventually after all.

[DreadWingKnight]

Setting "Do not download" on already downloaded files is redundant. If you already have the pieces, uTorrent won't download them anyway.

[Adam8756]

Actually, it's not redundant. When downloading a torrent pack for example with a bunch of folders, some of which you already have, why bother telling uTorrent to download the ones you already have? I've been having a very similar problem as fluffyarse. uTorrent deletes my files on an initial check when loading a .torrent into uTorrent. If I already have some of the files, they get deleted or uTorrent tells me that they're not complete.

[Ultima]

When the file already exists, even if you don't tell µTorrent to skip it, it'll check to see if the data exists, and if so, it'll skip anyhow. So it is redundant.

Files that share edge pieces with other files won't go untouched, as that's just how BitTorrrent was designed (not with files in mind, but with pieces). Do see this explanation of edge pieces: http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?pid=262290#p262290

[moogly]

Maybe I'm wrong but when uT discards edge pieces after a forced re-check of multifile torrent, data are NOT physically removed on the HD.

Am I right or not ?

NB/ I have tested it and I thought it was the conclusion I'd had.

[Ultima]

Yes, they're not actually removed until they get overwritten by new data -- µTorrent simply tells itself "I no longer have this piece."

[moogly]

Yep it was a forced recheck but not followed by a restart of the torrent job. I used uT just like an hash checker.

[aa]

What happens to me that seems similar to what the original poster described (although he figured out what was his problem) is that I download a file, and then the .torrent file gets replaced by a different .torrent file with the same name, then when I start downloading the next file, it sees that it has 0% complete, and starts downloading the file all over again. And if they are different sizes, I think it would pre-allocate the whole file again, thereby deleting the original file. Edit: Though if the file is marked as read-only, that should not happen…

Remainder of original message: What seems similar to what Adam8756 described is that when there are many files, and I have several of them, the files I have that are next to file I do not have also get marked as not completely downloaded because the same piece might be split betwixt the file you have and the file you do not have. So if uTorrent starts downloading the piece that is split between the two files (which would always be the case if the file you do not have is in one piece), the part of the file you have that is also a part of that piece gets erased and downloaded from scratch. Hope this helps.

[moogly]

Horrible font!