NTL/Chorus (UPC) Traffic Shaping on Torrents?

Ernie Ball

I've been able to connect to relakks. Sometimes it takes a few tries.

I've been using a service called VPNout that is somewhat better. Relakks has a problem with OS X and requires adjusting the MTU in a way that I've never been able to get right. VPNout uses OpenVPN and doesn't seem to have this problem. It's also cheaper than Relakks.

Downsides to VPNout:

1) It's located in the US. Who knows how safe it is? They have some reassuring words on their site, but I wonder.

2) They only take PayPal, which may involve a further compromise of your anonymity.

3) They have a traffic cap. Beyond the cap you have to pay extra.

What I've been noticing on NTL is that I can't connect to trackers at all lately. I get SocketException warnings of various kinds. But if I run it through a VPN, suddenly there's no problem.

Chunky Monkey

Is anyone else with Clearwire? I'm not able to download torrents with them though I had no problem when I was with NTL.

BLissIRL

Yup i have used private trackers for 3 yrs now the up is the only thing affected, if i use public it ups at full speed but down is only 200kbs ish now that i know is due to the public trackers watching the ratio to make sure you dont grab n run.
Relakks i have used also but the netgear ntl suply has known issues with vpn tunnels i have flashed with latest firmware and all seems rosey im just pissed off i have to go through all of this crap to keep my ratio in check with private tracker.
All of my private trackers down at 700kbs every time im in cork.

BLissIRL

Cabaal ok sorry for the frustrated post i was just dying with flu and reading all the complaints in here just drove me too it sorry.

BLissIRL

I have decided to buy myself a seedbox for €60 a month a french company Dedimove i get nice server shared connection 100mb unmetered let you all know how it goes using private tracker hope to see my ratio flourish without the use of ratio master damn it.
Now im hoping that i will be able to up a terrabyte or so in that time frame then cacncel it and continue to leech, then reactivate it when i need to improve my ratio.:mad:
For a one off payment i would get 2 yrs out of a terrabyte roughly in terms of ratio value saves on donation to private tracker too.

RoyalMarine

just got my 6mb line installed today with chorus.
so far so good. 9 hours and downloads aint dropped under 500kb/s on torrents.

seems to be pretty good. just using a random port aswel. didnt forward anything on the router they gave me either.
all seems good!

but ill check back in a few weeks time when my cancellation period is over.

Bundy89

Hi lads, i've just moved house and went from Smart BB to NTL cable 6mb ultra, and my problem is Soulseek and not torrents, I can connect after 5 mins lag and then it disconnects after about another 5mins, files just stay initializing and don't start. I've done everything from patching system file which says on SLSK site and have correct ports opened.
Cant understand how I can connect for 5mins then get booted is this an NTL thing or can anyone shed some light on it, as its doing my napper in.

Cheers

CrazyRabbit

I've been having problems for weeks now with torrents, emule, shareaza and k-lite. Horrible download speeds even though I'm on NTL/UPC's premium 6mb broadband service.

And when torrents are downloading (even at 20-30KB/s), browsing comes to a standstill and there is over 10% packet loss on pings (ping -t www.o2.ie for example). 60-90 secs after I stop downloading the torrent, the packet loss goes away.

UPC's 2nd level have confirmed that they do block certain websites, including several image hosting websites that apparantely allow hosting of illegal or pornagraphic images.
But I can't get an answer from them regarding any potential packet shaping. I've spoken to almost 2 dozen customer service reps now and none are helpful. They all lie their asses off by promising me a call-back by their team leads or by 2nd level. And they won't fix their broken hold music either...arrrggh.

I've had months and months of horrible service from them. Dozens of outages, 70% packet loss for months, lies upon lies, incompetent engineers who ASKED ME how to set a router etc. They are hopeless. They are beyond incompetent.

Unfortunately I can't go with adsl because eircom in their infinite wisdom has connected this house to a local loop (basically, 40 houses sharing 1 phone line), so you can't even get dialup. And IBB is not available due to line-of-sigh issues as well.

So basically, I'm stuck on a 6mb connection that I can't use properly for anything other than checking email and plain websites.

dlofnep

Cabaal - did they e-mail you back yet?

Chunky Monkey

I had the 6mb product with NTL. They disconnected us cos we hadn't paid one of the bills. They said they would reconnect us when we did. Did it promptly, rang them, they told us it should be working. Rang them again, said it was busy someone would call back. Didn't so rang them again and they went through steps, still didn't work so made an appointment for them to send someone out. Technician never came. Arranged two more appointments and technician still never came. I will never be their customer again. Regarding torrents, it was slow, but stuff always downloaded as long as there were enough seeds and not too many leechers.

BLissIRL

Dudes firstly they are not shaping downloads on NTL its only outbound to trackers they seem to target the private trackers more so, so our ratio's go to pot and just to let you all know the dedimove solution in france is unreal it downloads at 6.5mbyte a sec and ups at around 1000kbs constant i have since sign up upped 700gb no worries now NTL shape that.!!!!!!!!.
To the guy above with soulseek issues try dropping packet sniffers in to see if timeouts are on your end or on the sites end ............ use wireshark or something like it.

Bundy89

Cheers Bliss I'll give it a go...

Bundy89

I used that smartsniff and it shows some packets when I connect and when I do a search, but I still get disconnected and takes ages to connect. Why?

Changed port number of times and it is open, can't uderstand it at all.

Going back to Smart BB I think is the only answer..

anyone?

BLissIRL

well i have never used that smartsniff i use wireshark as it shows you destination and source ips and which end is timing out i have installed soulseek it runs fine on ntl is your pc ok?, have you had limewire in it? as limwire is just a hacking platform used to open backdoors to your pc with the added garauntee that school kids go running home to install on home pc = few weeks later drives dont burn, audio doesnt play, and other apps get timed out check her for malware (spybot search and destroy) ect hijack-this is great at listing all the regkeys at bootup or find a copy of hirens 9.3 very usefull for getting rid of crap.

finally do you have any of these apps ? http://faq.slsknet.org/index.php?action=artikel&id=631 its the support area for soulseek.
And your max halfopen connection are ok / moded ?

Moriarty

This isn't a forum for p2p support.

BLissIRL

hense the off topic just trying to lend a hand to someone that states NTL are blocking his soulseeker i am making other suggestions as to what might be wrong sorry for being helpfull.
IE he aint being traffic shapped :-P

Dude install wireshark and look for high amounts of broadcast if your pc is whacking out tonnes of crap due to malware or something then you will see it in wireshark (if you are broadcasting on a certain port then your symptoms sound about right and NTL routers or UBR's are programmed to look out for that type of stuff to reduce virus outbreaks.)

Wireshark will show all packets coming in and out of your pc and to and from what ports.

Bundy89

Cheers Bliss I'll try Wireshark again, was not sure how to run it... the options where greyed out.
Maybe I was doing something wrong..
I did patch the laptop like Slsk site said for Event 4226 cap...

As for Moriarty c'mon its NTL related. These forums are to help people out with problems and not to bitch.

Bundy89

Can someone on NTL pm me their working Soulseek settings for that netgear router.

Cheers

BostonB

Whats the issue with the netgear router?

h57xiucj2z946q

private trackers are usually aimed at pirated software/media and nothing more. They make money for donations that can be traded of for upload credit.

RoyalMarine

rght its been 1 month since i got my broadband

for the first month i had at least 500kb/s on p2p.

now it wont go higher than 50kb/s

lucky me and F**K chorus.

christophicus

I have to say, for the first time I think I am getting pissed off at OTHER people hammering the local node, I am getting major lag on Ventrilo on anything outbound/speaking , but my downstream/listening to what people are saying is ok.

RoyalMarine

maybe they arnt causing the problems at all.

christophicus

How did you get that speed? I thought 6Mb was NTL's top speed ?

RoyalMarine

christophicus wrote: »

How did you get that speed? I thought 6Mb was NTL's top speed ?

im on 6mb with ntl

h57xiucj2z946q

heh what's that top torrent you are downloading

RoyalMarine

that would be telling

last night using utorrent, steam update and a download of crysis demo i hit 1.7mb/s

enosis

so, what settings do you use on utorrent? (privacy,dl/ul,number of connections,etc)

jackrussell007

Its a bit of a bummer reading this thread. I was considering making the move to chorus bb.

currently I'm useing a 3datacard which as you well know is not great by any means. Is the chorus 3mb line better than it? I use utorrent a bit but not too much as its not practical with teh 3card. Is chorus gonna be any better than it?

I refuse to pay eircon any line rental so getting the phone line back in isnt an option. I had Irish broadband and digiweb out to my house in limerick and they didnt have any line of site to wherver they needed. chorus seems to be my only option left.

whats the story in a nutshell? better than the 3datacard or not?

Shiny

Sent you a PM Jack on one method of getting better speeds.