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Destination Folder Check on Startup?


raboof

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Would it be possible to include a simple sanity-check for when uTorrent starts to determine if its configured downloads folder exists, and if NOT, to allow the user to stop the program from starting?

This is my scenario:

- I have uTorrent installed on a laptop

- I have the downloads folder (and torrents folder) set to an EXTERNAL USB drive

Everything works great EXCEPT if I start uTorrent without the external drive attached. The programs starts/runs FINE, but if "forgets" ALL my torrents! :-( I end up having to re-start EVERY torrent, then telling it to Force Re-Check (which can take some time with GB of data) and then I LOSE all my ratio data :-( So even though I have downloaded/uploaded tons of data, it shows the ratios as being ZERO. What makes this even worse is that when the torrent starts uploading again, the ratio immediately jumps up to some (wrong) high U/D value which will prevent it from seeding when complete (I try to seed to at least 200% but it depends on the bandwidth load).

As an example, I did this last night :-( Now I have a torrent that is 93.4% complete and it shows a ratio of 9.2! I know for a fact this is not correct and should be about 0.5 - so when it finishes, it will stop seeding (unless I manually overide the settings, which is a pain).

Sorry for the long explanation for such a simple feature! :-)

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I guess that would prevent me from inadvertently running uTorrent without the external drive attached :-)

BUT, the thing is that I use both my laptop disk and the external disk to store downloads. So, on the occasions when my external disk is at home or elsewhere, I would like to just run uTorrent with the torrents located on the laptop. The problem being that it would forget all the ones on the external drive...not good.

My current work-around is that I wrote a simple "loader" program to check if my drive is attached, then launch uTorrent if it is. I did this in two minutes, so its a quick hack at best to remind me to not be stupid ;-)

My DREAM would be that uTorrent would actually be "smart" enough to understand that the torrent is TEMPORARILY unavailable, but that it would still remember the torrent actually exists and hence keep it in the list and not lose U/D stats, etc. Perhaps it would appear as "offline" or something?

BTW - I think uTorrent ROCKS and this could only make it better as I imagine I am not the only one using an external disk for storage :-)

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  • 2 years later...

Here here ! - Please may I add my vote for this feature - I have a similar problem and have had to write a batch file to check if my external media drive is plugged in before allowing uTorrent to start.

The problem is that my media drive will only play media with the usb plug out - so it's easy to forget to put it back in. If I start the machine with it unplugged then I have just the same scenario as raboof. Takes a day to re-check everything.

As more people use bigger external drives this will become more of a problem.

A right click option on a per torrent basis to inhibit starting of a torrent when it's destination drive and/or .torrent file location is not visible on the system would be brilliant!

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Try 1.8, it does not recheck everything as long as it was closed correctly last time. Though I'm not sure the case differences between an ERROR: recheck and automatic recheck. . . As long as resume_valid appears in the torrent's resume.dat data... I'm thinking it should greatly reduce the checking time(s). But to my mind it doesn't recheck all torrents, only downloading ones which may have changed. Seeding torrents don't usually get checked unless it's some sort of power failure/BSOD which causes the computer to restart without allowing uTorrent to fully save the resume.dat

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I installed 1.8 and ran a test.

Before starting uTorrent with the drive disconnected I made a backup of resume.dat.

On starting uTorrent the expected page of red crosses appeared with missing file errors.

I shut down and re-connected the drive and re-started uTorrent.

All items in the list (seeds - no downloads) were red crossed with the error : "Invalid download state - try resuming"

I can not find any reference to resuming in the help files or menus.

I stopped uTorrent and overwrote resume.dat with my backup and all is back as it should be.

So, 1.8 does not seem to help with this issue unless I need to configure something differently?

P.S. All the .torrent files are also on the removeable drive, could this be a part of the problem?

P.P.S. I have realized that "resuming" in this message probably means re-starting the torrent ? Not very clear. I tried that and it started to re- check each file 30GB+ !

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>>Oh, and new version came out.

?? I don't understand this comment.

As I have already explained - I now have 1.8 installed - latest version.

If I close down uT and then re start it with the drive carrying the data and the .torrents disconnected, the next time uT is started with the drive connected all files show the error "Invalid download state - try resuming".

If I start any of the torrents they re-check.

This is the reason for my feature request.

After doing more testing I have found that if the .torrents are on a fixed drive and only the data is on the removable drive then it behaves as you suggest.

Torrents still need to be manually started though due to the "missing file error" that was previously flagged.

My feature request still stands, as with this feature there will be no error and things will continue normally when uT is started with the drive available.

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  • 6 months later...

I still get this issue (1.8.2). Its really frustrating, and has another side affect that can blow your monthly allowance very quickly. Here's my scenario.

As above, if my external ethernet NDAS drive has failed to mount, uTorrent marks all files with the red "X" (file unavailable or whatever). So I close uTorrent, manually mount the drive through the NDAS software and restart uTorrent, whereapon uTorrent commences CHECKING the lot, which takes hours over NDAS.

WORSE, it forgets which internal parts of the torrent files I have told it to SKIP, so if you aren't watching, it will start downloading GB's of content that you never wanted and blowing out your monthly allocation. spew !

Otherwise a champion tool

Hope that's clear.

Cheers

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  • 3 months later...

barryc, you are on the money when you said ....

"P.S. All the .torrent files are also on the removeable drive, could this be a part of the problem?"

If you move the .torrent files to your PC (but leaving the actual torrent files on the external drive) then it recovers fine. If the external drive is NOT connected all the torrents are still shown with a red "X" but if you then attach the drive, select all the torrents (CTRL-A) then hit the "RUN" button, they all come good instantly.

phew !

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