Cannot seed/upload

[ianmacm]

Although I have downloaded torrents before, I am a complete newbie to creating them, so please be patient.

I have the latest version of uTorrent, and have read all of the help files for creating a new torrent, as well as looking at several web pages on the subject. The trouble is that despite uTorrent saying "100% seeding", none of them will download. I ran the Port Checker and it said "OK! Port xxxxx is open and accepting connections", so it does not seem to be this.

Either it is something simple, or something less obvious that has been overlooked. Either way, help is welcome. Thanks.

[moogly]

Did you publish the torrent you created onto a tracker/indexer?

[ianmacm]

Thanks, yes, I did add the following which were recommended:

http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce

http://www.torrent-downloads.to:2710/announce

http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce

http://www.sumotracker.com/announce

udp://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce

However, still no joy. Here is a test torrent, can you download this?

http://www.mininova.org/tor/2999310 (some bland desktop wallpaper, nothing controversial). Incidentally, how long does it take for trackers to show up, is there a delay? Thanks.

[Switeck]

Some of your problems could be due to offline trackers:

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=61288

[ianmacm]

Thanks for your help. I spent most of yesterday trying to sort this out and have now had some success. After double checking all of the settings, it was possible (just about) to download the wallpaper folder at http://www.mininova.org/tor/2999310 . At the time of writing, 37.1% of it is downloaded. I deliberately chose a small folder (10MB) hoping that it would be easier to seed and download. It's not as if we're looking at a 4GB video file here. Yesterday there was some uploading and the current stats are 228MB uploaded with a share ratio of 22.899. With such generous sharing I had hoped to download more than 37.1% by now, but maybe I'm too optimistic being a newbie. The denis.stalker tracker seems to be working OK, and I have set the uTorrent upload speed guide to 384k, which is nearest to what the figure is.

It is interesting to compare FTP and p2p, because this folder of 1280x1024 wallpaper could have been downloaded dozens of times by now from a FTP server (it is here if anyone is interested: http://www.webdoodles.org/digital%20blasphemy%201280%201024/ ). A p2p network relies on seeds, peers and bandwidth being available, and it should not take until next Christmas to download a 10MB folder. I'm still seeding this and will let you know if and when it is 100% downloaded, and anyone else who wants to try is welcome.

Thanks again for your help.

[DreadWingKnight]

Adding trackers to your local copy of the .torrent doesn't magically add them to any published copies on index sites.

[ianmacm]

Thanks for the info. If my experience of downloading torrents is anything to go by, the amount of inactive/snail slow/plain dead torrents on the web at any one time is enormous. The really frustrating thing is that no-one can say if and when a torrent will download successfully. At least with FTP the file is always fully available as long as the server is up.

[DreadWingKnight]

http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0017.html

http://bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0019.html

For dealing with that.

[ianmacm]

Thanks, that was very informative, as it shows how to set up a hybrid of FTP and p2p. The wallpaper folder was done as a test, and in real life it would be easy to offer via HTTP, FTP or even an e-mail attachment. It is interesting to look at torrent searches full of Gigabyte files, and to wonder how many people are successful in downloading them, if all of the bandwidth has to come from somewhere within the p2p system. Although in theory the sky is the limit with p2p, in practice some of the torrents are so slow and unreliable that they might never be 100% downloaded. Assuming p2p only, are there any other ways to speed up the delivery of the wallpaper folder?

Thanks again for your help.

Update: I have now managed a 100% download of the wallpaper folder. This took the best part of two days from the upload, but better late than never. I had to leave the computer switched on overnight (which I don't usually do) but from experience, leaving torrents running for 24 hours a day is the only way to get them to download. The share ratio on this folder is now 29:1, so hopefully this is enough to ensure a reasonable lifespan for this torrent. I will try to download the same torrent in a few weeks or months time to see what the results are.

(test wallpaper torrent at http://www.mininova.org/tor/2999310 , currently on 3 seeds and no leechers).