hkBattousai Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 I'm downloading a torrent file. It had two trackers originally. There was asterisk characters at the beginning of these two tracker URLs.I tried removing them by editing list of trackers.Every time I removed those asterisk characters and saved my editing was ignored. Those characters keep existing at the beginning of the URLs.I tried removing one of them. It got removed successfully. Then I added it back, and it had that asterisk back again.I tried adding a third tracker, the one you see from "openbittorrent.com". It got added successfully, and it didn't have an asterisk character unlike the other two.Why does this happen? Why those asterisks keep existing? Is this a bug or are you censoring that tracker?(Version: uTorrent 3.3) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreasvb Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 That tracker is no more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hkBattousai Posted March 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 That tracker is no more.No more what?No more existing? No more allowed? No more stable? No more trustworthy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DreadWingKnight Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 No more existing.Where have you been the past couple of years? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hkBattousai Posted March 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 No more existing.Where have you been the past couple of years?I don't follow health and activeness of trackers. I frequently see other not working trackers. Asterisk don't appear in their URL. It came to me strange that uTorrent is protecting us from obsolete trackers. That wasn't a possibility in my mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciaobaby Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 It came to me strange that uTorrent is protecting us from obsolete trackers.It isn't, it it simply acting on the response codes returned by that particular URI.The asterix is because it is an INVALID URL which means that the tracker does NOT exist at the specified port on the IP returned by the authoritative name server.Status code 501 or maybe 502 for HTTP.Status code 6801 or 6802 for UDP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hkBattousai Posted March 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 Thank you ciaobaby, I understood it now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cbrown Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 I'm gonna try to get a proper error message put somewhere in there. Tired of seeing people get confused about this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciaobaby Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 I would have thought a status of "Invalid URL" in the trackers tab is pretty clear already. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hkBattousai Posted March 22, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 I would have thought a status of "Invalid URL" in the trackers tab is pretty clear already.No it is not.First thing a standard user thinks is that the URL is invalid because it has an asterisk at the beginning of it.It is not clear that if the asterisk is there because the URL is invalid, or the URL is invalid because of the asterisk is there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciaobaby Posted March 22, 2013 Report Share Posted March 22, 2013 But on the other hand that presupposes that the end user does actually know how to use a bittorrent client. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ichigo69 Posted May 16, 2013 Report Share Posted May 16, 2013 I would have thought a status of "Invalid URL" in the trackers tab is pretty clear already.No it is not.First thing a standard user thinks is that the URL is invalid because it has an asterisk at the beginning of it.It is not clear that if the asterisk is there because the URL is invalid' date=' or the URL is invalid because of the asterisk is there.[/quote']This is correct. I've been using uTorrent since about 2006 or so and the asterisk confused ME, so I can't imagine how people who are total n00bs respond.Does anybody know why they even put the asterisk there in the first place? It seems like it's redundant b/c, like ciaobaby said (although I'm not sure he meant it exactly like this), you shouldn't NEED an asterisk, b/c there is that "INVALID URL" message which SHOULD indicate "OH HEY! I GUESS THE URL IS INVALID!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciaobaby Posted May 16, 2013 Report Share Posted May 16, 2013 Does anybody know why they even put the asterisk there in the first place?Appending a character in a binary encoded file is simpler, quicker (and safer) than "on the fly" removal of an entire entry.I'm not sure he meant it exactly like this), you shouldn't NEED an asterisk, b/c there is that "INVALID URL" message which SHOULD indicate "OH HEY! I GUESS THE URL IS INVALID!"Yes he did, because if it isn't displayed in very large, very bright flashing letters some users manage to miss the message completely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ichigo69 Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 Okay, lemme try again, b/c evidently it's getting lost in translation.When I first saw the "Invalid URL" I thought, hmm... what's the matter with the URL? Then I saw the asterisk there and thought, "OH, THAT'S what's wrong w/ the URL. Lemme take that asterisk out. Dunno how it got there in the first place."I remove the asterisk and click OK and lo and behold, the asterisk is BACK. then I go WTF???!!!?!?!! and start looking online to see if anybody else has noticed this and got to this thread.I guess what I'm saying is... The asterisk is dumb, gaise. It's also confusing. Please pick another way to give flashing lights and sirens saying that the URL is bad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciaobaby Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 When I first saw the "Invalid URL" I thought, hmm... what's the matter with the URL? Then I saw the asterisk there and thought, "OH, THAT'S what's wrong w/ the URL. Lemme take that asterisk out. Dunno how it got there in the first place."You are mixing up cause and effect.The aterisk is the EFFECT and 'Invalid URL' is the CAUSESo it is NOT the asterisk that makes it an invalid URL. It is the invalid URL that causes the asterisk to be prepended. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hkBattousai Posted May 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 ^ And you are mixing up the good notification and the bad notification since this topic has started.Putting an asterisk is a BAD NOTIFICATION. Showing a message like "this tracker is dead" is a GOOD NOTIFICATION. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciaobaby Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 So doesn't reading "Invalid URL" in the tracker status suggest that there is a problem with it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ichigo69 Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 So doesn't reading "Invalid URL" in the tracker status suggest that there is a problem with it?That's my point. it DOES suggest that there's a problem.The thing is, if I didn't know what I know NOW (no documentation on this, btw... at least none that I can find), I would think the asterisk MADE the URL invalid. Come to think of it... ANY sane person would've made the same assumption. This brings me back to my original question and statement: Why did they put the asterisk there in the first place? It's dumb and confusing. Plz2change it, uTorrent.P.S. yes, I DO understand cause and effect, however, you COMPLETELY missed the point of my last post if you were trying to explain to me that the asterisk doesn't make the URL bad. I KNOW THAT NOW. I just didn't know that when I originally saw it. Reading comprehension is difficult sometimes, and if you're used to dealing with stoopid people on the internet in droves, I can understand why you'd make that mistake. However, I really don't fit in this category, but thanks for your concern ^__^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciaobaby Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 Read the first paragraph of post #13 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ichigo69 Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 See also where I questioned the intelligence of the person who actually decided to code that in there. THAT'S the real issue. It's not really so much REALLY asking the REASON they did it, but rather what in HOLY HELL possessed them to do it in the first place, because it's a BAD DECISION.(sorry if you were the one who did it, but it doesn't change the fact ^__^ ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ciaobaby Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 Certainly nothing to do with me, but as a programmer, checking a single character at the start of a name string, to save wasting resources trying to communicate with a non-existent tracker makes a whole lot of sense to me.If you don't like to see the asterisks, just REMOVE the dead trackers and save a few more resources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ichigo69 Posted May 24, 2013 Report Share Posted May 24, 2013 oh, I know how to FIX it, it's just that from a non-programming viewpoint (yes I know programmers think differently than everybody else i.e.: the opposite of "sit down" is not "stand up" but "not sit down"), they should do something else, b/c it's confusing to non-programmers.Anyhoo... this horse is dead. We need to quit shooting it. Hopefully, the devs will come up w/ something more "user friendly" but oh well if they don't. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bugmenot2 Posted July 10, 2014 Report Share Posted July 10, 2014 Hi, This asterisk business confused me too, so I Googled it and found this thread. Ichigo69 has it right; adding and insisting on re-adding an asterisk to the the invalid URLs is bad design and will continue to confuse knowledgeable users.We will instinctively try to fix the tracker links. First, by removing the — in our minds — unnecessary asterisk that the program put there. Because logically, an url that begins with an asterisk is not going to be a valid URL.As it stands now, every single person who is curious about these asterisks is going to have to discover and learn about this obscure and undocumented "feature". Sincerely,Daniel "3ICE" Berezvai p.s.: What if, down the road, a tracker comes back online? Will the asterisk's presence cause uTorrent to stop trying to contact that tracker? Forever? That's a very long time. I hope we can do away with that asterisk in future versions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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