How do you deal with single seeders that ruin Streaming?

[manx7]

I'm annoyed right now because while trying to stream a video I've been blocked by 4 seeders who upload 1 KB every minute or so. They instantly latch onto my connection the moment I start the download, and it appears they're holding onto the beginning pieces of the file, so I am unable to stream.

It looks like my only option is to simply wait for the entire video to download, or manually create a text file and load in their ips manually to block them.

Is there a better way to deal with abusive peers than this? I really thought there might be a right click menu to manually ban a peer (at least until reboot).

Edit:

I should point out I've got the movie at 80% ready to go, with the first few blocks still grey and waiting for these slow pokes. The rest of the downloaded bits are solid green up till the end.

[ciaobaby]

Have patience and don't try streaming.

and it appears they're holding onto the beginning pieces of the file, so I am unable to stream.

Cannot happen

[manx7]

I was downloading from multiple seeds, yet the last piece of a 1,000+ piece 600 MB video was way at the front (I believe from one of these slow seeders).

Why if I was downloading from multiple 100% seeds was a block at the beginning of the video not downloaded until the very end?

At what point does uTorrent allow multiple peers to download the same block? From what I saw it would appear this only happens once every other block has been downloaded.

[ciaobaby]

was a block at the beginning of the video not downloaded until the very end?

Because the BitTorrent protocol downloads the 'rarest' pieces first, and those particular pieces probably had a 'high availability'

At what point does uTorrent allow multiple peers to download the same block?

It's called the "End Game" algorithm.

Read the BitTorrent protocol specification to see it explained fully.

[manx7]

Thank you by the way for the reference, reading through I understand now when blocks get requested from multiple peers, and downloading the rarest piece first makes perfect sense as well.

However, this particular problem seems less a problem with the official BitTorrent protocol and more a possible problem with uTorrent's implementation of streaming. The block at the beginning of the file was outlined in grey for the entire download. To my knowledge this means a user was actively trying to upload this block to me, it was in this state for at least 20 minutes.

If uTorrent is attempting to stream (which it was, all the other pieces downloaded more or less sequentially), it should care very much about a piece so close to the beginning of the file as to prevent starting a stream through vlc for example.

As long as a peer continues to trickle in data however slowly, the block will not be downloaded until the End Game algorithm sets in, likely at the very end of the download's life. This is why I was able to finish downloading the torrent even though that same peer still had sent me less than 50 kilobytes of data.

Shouldn't uTorrent see that a peer is uploading at less than 1/1000th the average speed of the download and invoke the end game algorithm for that single block? (Or really just request that block from an additional peer since this particular peer is beyond slow).

[ciaobaby]

To my knowledge this means a user was actively trying to upload this block to me, it was in this state for at least 20 minutes.

There is no mechanism in the protocol and clients to make a single specific piece 'unavailable' deliberately. The more likely scenario is that other peers, (depending on the client) had "first piece priority" set, were sequentially downloading or were also 'streaming'. So the only seeding peer was flooded with requests for piece 0 and simply had no capacity left for more uploads.

Shouldn't uTorrent see that a peer is uploading at less than 1/1000th the average speed of the download and invoke the end game algorithm for that single block?

Not really because that would exacerbate the problem with torrents that had relatively high peer/seed ratios

You also have to consider the possibility that the seed was using strict 'Super-Seeding', combine this with 'first piece priority' and streaming to peers and you end up with a situation where piece 0 is no longer 'rare', so will be left until "End Game" kicks in.

My personal opinion is that 'streaming' is one of the things that should never have become a 'feature' of ANY BitTorrent client, as it can/does create a situation where swarms become 'greedy' for certain pieces

[manx7]

So the only seeding peer was flooded with requests for piece 0 and simply had no capacity left for more uploads.

Not really because that would exacerbate the problem with torrents that had relatively high peer/seed ratios

This makes sense. Thank you for your help understanding what is going on behind the scenes. Streaming has almost always worked flawlessly for me and this just came as a surprise.