uTorrent seeding stalls out every ~24-30 hours

[tarento]

This is a problem I've experienced recently (last two weeks), with 1.8.2. (I forget which build it was), and 1.8.3. build 15772 (what it upgraded itself to four days ago). Note: no router settings have changed, no computer settings have changed, I have not installed any new programs and the issue is specific to utorrent (not my network):

After having actively seeded files for about a day to a bit over a day (varies) the upload essentially stalls - shows as 'active' in utorrent but the trackers do not see the torrents as active, and all activity stops. uTorrent reports a green checkmark for my network, it shows seeds/peers, says its active, but all upload activity stalls - required a stop all / shutdown / restart of utorrent than a shutdown/restart of all torrents. A few things: most of the active torrents do not have activity on them (I am just available as a seed), with most of them having been queued and then gone to active (since there was no activity on them). The trackers eventually do not see me as a seed, and I essentially disappear as a seed, while utorrent reports "everything ok." I have tried changing the active torrent numbers (which were high, set it down to 50 and then 10, no change (note: I don't have more than 1-5 torrents actively uploading ever, so don't read "active torrent" as "actively uploading").

My network is fine, my router does not stall out or reboot spontaneously and this is solely a uTorrent issue. The only reason I noticed this was when I checked overall activity on torrents over the course of days - and noticed that I was essentially gone as a seed. I have seen this issue over twelve different trackers, all of which worked fine. Azureus/Vuze works fine with a few torrents I let sit there, seeding but not actively uploading, for days. My uTorrent has a -lot- of seeded torrents (400+, used to be more,all of which worked fine), rarely actively uploading, if that matters. Everything worked fine before (for 6+months), with the same files, and the same uTorrent settings.

[DreadWingKnight]

What internet security software do you have installed?

What settings are you currently using?

What sort of connection are you on?

[tarento]

Comodo firewall / Avira AV, DLink 604 router.

Connection: 1.2M/s down & 108ishK/s up (cable).

uTorrent limited to 875K/s down, 90K/s up). 50 max global connections, 15 peer per torrent, 5 upload slots per. Currently 50 active torrents (but all this changed was the amount the queued stuff also turned green (ignore slow connections = on for queuing), active uploading is 1-3 torrents every few hours). UPnP, DHT, Peer discovery off. Max_halfopen = 4, rest default.

Again, all those settings have not changed in 6+months. All I can think of is a corrupted utorrent install (maybe?), or failing router (will test bypassing it, but the logs don't show a restart, and my net is fine otherwise). A/V, HJT, Superantispyware, Malwarebytes clean (just in case, but all I've done in the last week, since I've noticed utorrent stalling, is use Firefox + word).

[DreadWingKnight]

Did you remove and re-add the rules for uTorrent in comodo and avira after updating?

[tarento]

I have not; I was just doing that actually, hoping it would matter (the old uTorrent also stalled, which is why I updated it recently). I'm actually checking to see if Comodo has any recent bugs related to this on their forums (but that wouldn't be it, uTorrent's showing a green check for the network icon at the bottom).

(The only software update was Avira needing a software update, recently, but I only run the a/v component and it's never interfered before, but I am fiddling with its settings now.) The strange part is that uTorrent (torrents stopped, uT shut down, restarted, torrents started - only method that re-enables the torrents' functioning correctly) works consistently fine for about a day (it's set to seed essentially infinitely, 200000% percent or so >.>).

edit: Anyway, will do the above & watch uT for the next few days and see if it fixes it. I assume this isn't a bug present with uTorrent recently (sudden drop of all torrents, while reporting them being ok), or similar (which is why I posted). Thanks for any and all ideas!

[Switeck]

Did you change any advanced settings?

Have you tried uTorrent v1.8.4?

[tarento]

Nope, to both (no settings changed at all for months, only today when I messed with active torrent numbers). I don't think 1.8.4's supported for my uses yet, but the issue's been there with multiple versions of uTorrent, and it's a new issue (everything was fine for the past six months). Very strange. I guess I should port my entire uTorrent setup over to another pc and test it out (assuming the re-adding to firewall & a/v doesn't fix it - that seems promising).

[Switeck]

The firewall and AV probably "see" upgraded uTorrent as a corrupted/infected exe file...and are not fully allowing it 2-way internet access. Most software firewalls (found both in classic firewalls and now in AV products) are terrible! Best to test with them completely uninstalled just to be sure.

[tarento]

Strange, I think the above was it, even though uT and my firewall/antivirus were reporting everything as a-ok! (*cross fingers*)

I readded (the updated) uTorrent to A/V, firewall, stalled out within ~6hours, then again 8 hours later. I was going to mess with turning a/v & firewall on/off or uninstalling them, but that's more hassle (and requires reboots! ) than I wanted to try right then.

Uninstalled uTorrent (well deleted it... previous versions didn't have an uninstaller/installer, I think), cleaned my registry (just in case, but didn't need to I think), installed 1.8.4 (with installer, nice), and ran/seeded a handful of torrents overnight and everything seems ok. I backed up resume.dat before and I'm running that (old one) but everything else is new (manually edited uT's settings back to most of what they used to be yesterday, just in case the settings file was the issue). 10:1 that one of my security programs didn't give full access over time, as said above.

My old uTorrent would also hang occasionally when shutting down (~10minutes in the background) and when it didn't it would take a while to shut down properly (even with torrents stopped beforehand). 1.8.4 doesn't do this, so great update. Thanks I hope it keeps working I guess I'm uninstalling/wiping instead of upgrading uTorrents from now on, especially if it's a version update.

(Kind of obvious now that I think about the above; I should have tried reinstalling first)

[Switeck]

"My old uTorrent would also hang occasionally when shutting down (~10minutes in the background) and when it didn't it would take a while to shut down properly"

That's a sign that other programs are interfering with uTorrent's shut down process.

...And that's almost certainly software firewalls or AV/media/file scanners doing that!

[tarento]

Yeah, I didn't connect it until now -.- Hope this helps other people who find new, strange behaviors. My antivirus (Avira) did an engine update about five or so weeks ago and I bet that change trickled down when I updated uTorrent, and it flagged it as suspicious (without telling me or being consistent about the interference). At least I learned something from this

edit/update new install of utorrent stalled about a day and a half after, determined it was Comodo acting up (utorrent shutdown would stall unless Comodo was disabled). Time to reinstall firewall or try a new one.... :/

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edit/update: After uninstalling my firewall, using another firewall (Online Armor), the same issues started happening again. I finally resolved the stalling out by completely clearing my utorrent's .dat file and starting from scratch - so this seems to be related to having too many torrents seeding and/or a corrupt .dat with my specific utorrent install (and since it happened with multiple firewalls, it was not an interference issue, or rather, it was interference specifically with the .dat that was loading - bizarre).