BitTorrent - nobody loves me

fatherdougalmag · 23-12-2003 7:35pm #1

Hi,
I'm wondering what sorts of download speeds people get for 700MB files? My connection varies between 3 and 12kbps. I've disabled all firewalling. The little light in the BT client is only ever yellow which usually suggests a firewall (no incoming connections detected). My upload speed is usually around 10 kbps.

I'm with IOLBB. Appreciate any feedback.

innisfree · 23-12-2003 7:38pm

IOLBB, usually between 25 - 49kbps. Takes about an hour to get up to 50 though.

OfflerCrocGod · 23-12-2003 7:51pm

Umm it varies IOLBB, 20 to 30Kb usually - never ever get 50Kb:eek:. I always have the green light on; I have a router so I can open the ports needed by BT for uploading with the modem I always had huge probs.....are you sure the f/w is fully closed down?.

Mutant_Fruit · 23-12-2003 8:36pm

Try getting a torrent with many seeds. If you have less than 10 incoming connections generally it will be slow. A fast torrent will get you about 15+ incoming connetcoins, and you'll zoom along. If you only have 5 or less, try and find a different torrent with the same stuff that will give you more seeds/leechers.

fatherdougalmag · 23-12-2003 8:41pm

Thanks for the responses guys. It confirms that there's something wrong on my side of things. I won't burden you with my config details and devices and such. I'll stumble around and try all sorts of things before I get that elusive green lamp on my client. FWIW I've currently got a share rating of 4.9!! (d 1kbps/u 9 kbps).

muffen · 23-12-2003 8:45pm

You're not using an ADSL router with a builtin firewall... are you?
I had to open some ports on my ADSL router to get the green light.

fatherdougalmag · 23-12-2003 9:20pm

I'm fortunate enough to work for the company that manufactures the wireless router I'm using so I'll go and chase some heads tomorrow. I've already tried mucking around with the NAT config but that didn't have any effect. Anyway, posts I've read suggest that NAT doesn't really have an effect. I should probably try using the USB modem that I got. See if it makes any difference.

One of the reasons I got BB was for this sort of malarky and I'm a bit disappointed with that aspect of it. But I'm glad to know that I can do something about to fix it. A nice Christmas holiday project for me to do. I might also try getting a W98 machine with zero firewall or anything on it to see if there's a difference.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback lads and lasses.

fatherdougalmag · 23-12-2003 9:58pm

Isn't always the way.

Just hit the submit on the problem report page and I went into the router config to set up NAT settings. I'd tried this before but only with TCP. It seems that BitTorrent is a UDP-based protocol? I'd have thought it would be TCP but sure who am I. I've only written an Ethernet analyser or 2 in my time.

As I speak it's creeped from 6kpbs to 8kpbs so we'll see how the night goes.

If it's not disconnected. Again ...

Ho ho ho.

Mutant_Fruit · 24-12-2003 12:44am

Always RTFM. They always tell ya what ports need to be opened etc.

**Mutant_Fruit restrains himself from making derogatory comments**

fatherdougalmag · 24-12-2003 12:55am

I'm there with you Fruity but if the FM doesn't tell you what protocol is used it makes a life a little bit more interesting

At least I can go to bed knowing I learned something new today.

Thanks again to everyone.

OfflerCrocGod · 24-12-2003 1:15am

Not right.....

By default, BitTorrent listens on port 6881, trying incrementially higher ports if it's unable to bind, and gives up after 6889 (the port range is configurable). It's up to you to figure out how to poke a hole in your firewall/NAT.

just open that range of ports on your router and you will be flying, that what I had to do, the speeds picked up nicely.

Downloaders are periodically checking in with the tracker to keep it informed of their progress, and are uploading to and downloading from each other via direct connections. These connections use the BitTorrent peer protocol, which operates over TCP.

Not UDP; TCP......where did you get the idea it used UDP:eek: :dunno:?.

OfflerCrocGod · 24-12-2003 1:25am

Change the top of the range to 6999, newer versions use ports that high.

Mutant_Fruit · 24-12-2003 1:26am

Read the attacjed txt (i tried posting it but it was really long...)

Kenshin · 24-12-2003 3:29am

I currently get 30-50 KBps downloading anime and jpop.

I had a similar problem with my ADSL. My NAT is properly set up to forward everything to my main PC, but the problem was that my BT client was sending out the wrong IP address to the BT tracker and other clients. It was sending out the local IP 172.26.0.2 instead of my real IP 217.125.xxx.xxx, so that meant noone was able to connect to me. You can check that noone is connected to you by running netstat and you'll see if people are connected to ports 6881-6889 on your pc.

Anyway, get a decent client (I'm using Azureus) that lets you specify your own IP manually. That's what fixed it for me anyway.

fatherdougalmag · 24-12-2003 10:14am

Thanks for the text file. Makes everything quite clear.

I got the UDP hunch after trying to disable TCP filtering in my router and that didn't make any difference. Mind you, I was mucking around with so many things that something else was probably enabled. I thought that BT might initially use UDP to ping a host before using TCP when connecting.

Anyway, all is well now and I shan't waste any more of your time.

Thanks again everyone.

luckat · 24-12-2003 10:34am

How do you find torrents?

milltown · 24-12-2003 12:41pm

Google for "torrent downloads" :rolleyes:

chopster · 25-12-2003 2:22am

Originally posted by Kenshin

Anyway, get a decent client (I'm using Azureus) that lets you specify your own IP manually. That's what fixed it for me anyway.

Yeah , just about to mention that fact as well. Try a different client , i was using experimental client and was having varying speeds and connections then i too started using Azureus and was amazed at the difference in the amount of connections and speeds on the SAME torrent. Try it , you may be surprised.

:cool:

milltown · 25-12-2003 3:53am

Might make this even more confusing but:
I was using Azureus for its resumability and all round user friendliness and after coming across this thread decided to try another client. Tried Shadow's experimental, granted just running a single torrent, and saw 30+ KB/s for the first time since I started Bit Torrneting. I had briefly got 50 ish with Azureus but that was over a couple of torrents and very fleeting.
1.4 gig in less than 20 hours I can live with

chopster · 25-12-2003 4:17am

The thing is, as was my point, was just to try different clients until you come across the one that suits you. There are a multitude of clients around if you check.

I was using burst! but that kept on freezing , then i switched to Experimental that froze as well until i lowered the amount of connections, then finally Azureus which though is fast and never freezes it is resource hungry as java based and eats up memory like a whore. But that doesn't really bother me as i do all my downloading overnight.

It's just a matter finding the glove that fits.

:cool:

Placebo · 25-12-2003 3:12pm

.i was getting a 56mb files and i was on 40+kb constantly.
.getting an avi file now, around 200 mb from soulseek, getting 41kb constantly.
.getting another avi file off kazaa around 560, its the 3rd day and i have 60%, started at 30kb to 18kb and now its 1-5kb

cmdrpaddy · 29-12-2003 10:59pm

Bit torrent has completely stopped working for me. it was fine for the first month but now it's not working at all

:mad:

Placebo · 30-12-2003 4:47pm

Downloaded a 700 mb avi file(through bit torrent), it had around 10 users on it.
i left it on in the afternoon and it finished around 1am at night time.
This was the status

700mb file
Download rate = (started and kept at 20-30 for a few hours) 11kb
Upload rate = 14kb

Downloaded = 701 mb
Uploaded = 560 mb !

checked my net status = 14 hours !

ssh · 31-12-2003 12:24am

Not sure if this was made clear, but in my experience, bit torrent is TCP-based, and listens on port 6881 by default. So if you are downloading a torrent, you'll get more incoming connections if any given host on the internet can connect to your machine on port 6881. I've forwarded that port on my firwall to my desktop and it works quite well.

Try setting it up then start downloading a torrent and get someone to try telnet your.public.ip.address 6881

Atreides · 31-12-2003 2:42pm

My download speeds are psitively ****e. I don't know what it is, I can't get that java client to work on XP, and ideas why?

ixoy · 31-12-2003 5:39pm

Did you download the JRE first? You need to install it for the Java client to work.

Atreides · 31-12-2003 5:40pm

whats that then

chopster · 01-01-2004 2:48am

I presume you are talking about Azureus ? Well have a look at its official site and a link and other info on jre here .

:cool:

The_Scary_Man · 01-01-2004 6:47pm

For those of you whose download speeds are lower than your uploads I had the same problem.

I switched from burst to the BiTorrent experimental client and set the download/upload settings to dial up/isdn.

It worked a treat for me giving me 40-50 download speeds and uploads of about 5.

Of course when I'm finished downloading I put the settings back to adsl/cable and seed for a while at about 14-18.

Placebo · 01-01-2004 11:33pm

you set it to dial up/isdn although you have dsl and you got faster speeds ?
weird, gonna try it now, thanks for sharing !

-ADREN- · 02-01-2004 12:31am

how do u connect to the 'BiTorrent' Server thing?

BitTorrent - nobody loves me

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