uTorrent 2.2 and BTguard (socks5 and encryption) issue

[DliciousFish]

After I upgraded to 2.2 from the previous version, my uTorrent CPU usage has spiked and the program becomes unresponsive for 15-20 seconds at a time; just very sluggish. While my torrent continues to download, it does so at a very slow pace. UT will eventually get to the point of not being usable.

I currently use BTguard along with their optional encryption service. I ran several tests for several hours, read FAQs and optimization guides, and really tried to do my homework on this one. I investigated disk IO issues, networking, firewalls, router problems, etc. I've narrowed the problem down to the encryption service. The steps to reproduce the problem are repeatable and consistent.

The encryption service provided by BTguard is a tunneling program (MyEnTunnel) that has all the SSH settings preconfigured to log in and establish the tunnel with their servers. The only changes needed to uTorrent is changing the proxy server from the usual "proxy.btguard.com" to "127.0.0.1". I know the connection is good because torrents simply do not function without the tunnel running. It worked great prior to the update to 2.2. I was getting very high speeds, no program hiccups. So...

Here's how I narrowed it down:

My setup:

uTorrent 2.2

Win7 64-bit

Windows firewall on, with exceptions to uTorrent

Port manually selected and properly forwarded through my router, tested good to be open (incoming users: green check mark in all tests)

Test torrent: ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386 from their website. Their speeds are consistently high and a very good benchmark to test problems.

Test 1/3: No socks5 proxy, no encryption

Torrent downloaded at high speed (over 1.4MB/sec)

CPU usage 15-25%

Test 2/3: socks5 proxy on, no encryption service

Torrent downloaded at high speed (over 1.2MB/sec)

CPU usage 15-30%

Test 3/3: socks5 proxy on, encryption service on

Torrent downloaded at poor speed (under 0.08MB/sec)

CPU usage 65-100%

Program nearly unresponsive

I hope there is something that can be done; some setting that I may have overlooked that can correct this problem. Keeping uTorrent up-to-date as well as encrypting my traffic is very important to me.

[isepiq]

The newest 2.2 uTorrent has Encryption built in. It is in options. I have it forced & do NOT accept legacy connections. It may be possible that you have two encryptions runninig??? I use BTguard on a windows 7 x64, & also on several XP SP3 pro machines (not all at once though). After downloading & installing BTguard's easy install, I promply UNinstalled it & went to their ADVANCED INSTALL. With that you can just download the newest uTorrent & put the proxy nfo in, make SURE you check all the new uTorrent proxy security check boxes!!! With the newest 2.2 uTorrent & its built in Encryption, you should be fine.

As for uTorrent 'not responding', I have had that happen on every computer I have after each of the last two upgrades. I went through about 3 days of just checking every once in a while, if not responding then ending with Task Manager, & then starting uTorrent over again, ugh. After 3 days of this they are all running just normal now. I went through this process with both of the last 2.2 updates. I have no idea what the problem was when first running the update, but it appears to have solved itself for now two different times!!!??? Beats the heck out of me??? Hope there is some helpful nfo here.

IMHO

isepiq:cool:

[DliciousFish]

Thanks for the info isepiq.

The last version of uTorrent I was using also had protocol encryption, and I had it on forced without legacy support. It functioned just fine with the encryption program from BTguard. Something must have changed in the way uTorrent handles socks5 proxies.

I've tried a number of things over the past couple of days. I downloaded the beta 2.2.1 to see if that would clear things up. No dice. For the time being I'm going to run uTorrent without the encryption provided by BTguard's tunneling program. I'm going to put some trust in uTorrent's built-in forced protocol encryption.

[isepiq]

My ISP 'throttles' peer to peer traffic, including torrents. Without uTorrents Encryption set to Forced & NO legacy connections, I get nothing. With it, everything fuctions normally. Since the point of BTGuards Encryption is to by-pass ISP throttling, you can tell if it is working if you successfullly share torrents.

IMHO

isepiq:cool: