P2P (Bittorrent etc) configuration & use discussion...ongoing (Only place to post!)

JerkyBoy

Does anyone know if Vodafone at Home have any restrictions on usage of bitTorrent? Do they throttle?

Thinking of switching over as they give free calls to Vodafone mobile numbers but if they interfere with Torrent usage then I've no interest.

Also, is there a guide as to which providers throttle torrents and which do not?

cpu-dude

I don't know of any DSL providers who throttle BitTorrent usage but this thread begs to differ:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055285112

NTL are known to throttle them (without admitting it of course) but I've never had problems testing this myself.

JerkyBoy

The reason I ask about Vodafone at Home is also because on their tariff page there is the following paragraph:

"The Customer may use the Services for consumer, domestic and/or personal purposes or in the course of a trade, business or profession which involves the participation of no more than three (3) individuals (or employees). The service may not be used for peer to peer data usage."

see: https://www.vodafone.ie/df/modem/homebroadband/otherathomecharges/;jsessionid=3ABB524E9437156C4E10ACDA5BE8D841

Perhaps all DSL providers say the same thing?

Chuffie

Hi,
Asked to move this thread on NTL throttling torrents here. Looks like I've jumped into the right thread!

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055526285

Vibe666 : It definetly is shaping as I do have to use encryption. When I turn on RC4 encryption, my upload speed increases to 70-100kb/s. Turning it back off again causes it immediately to fall to 1-2kb/s. This happens both at peak and off-peak.

Weird thing is they are letting me keep my download speed. I had to stop downloading from various private sites to keep my ratios afloat! Is it a new policy to stop the uploads which is the more expensive traffic for any ISP?

I rang them back to see what they could do for me. They said that they could see that I was downloading torrents but they weren't limiting my traffic. I explained that if I used my Eircom 7mb connection I could get 60k uploads immediately. They still maintained that they weren't doing anything on their side....

Anyone seeing anything similar recently?

Cheers.

We

Trying to dowload some torrents w/ PirateBay + Demonoid.
They start downloading a few kb but after about 30 seconds it cancels and I get this: "Error: The system cannot find the path specified".
The fact that it is actually downloading in the first place before being cancelled leads me to believe that it is being blocked. Is this a valid assumption? Or am I just dealing with a standard bug?

Have been using torrents for a few years now and never faced such a problem..
Any help is appreciated,

Thanks.

cpu-dude

We wrote: »

Trying to dowload some torrents w/ PirateBay + Demonoid.
They start downloading a few kb but after about 30 seconds it cancels and I get this: "Error: The system cannot find the path specified".
The fact that it is actually downloading in the first place before being cancelled leads me to believe that it is being blocked. Is this a valid assumption? Or am I just dealing with a standard bug?

Have been using torrents for a few years now and never faced such a problem..
Any help is appreciated,

Thanks.

You need to set your Download and Temporary File locations and make sure the directory has enough free space (and that if it's more than 4GB, make sure your using NTFS and not FAT32). Also, disable the option to Pre-allocate all Files:

Jip

Ok everyone. I'm with UPC on 10mb and am pretty sure all ports are open as all tests indicate that they are. However for testing purposes I picked something with lots of peers to see what sort of speeds I'm getting. Currently my average is 21.9kB/s with uTorrent and this does not seem to vary with forwarding on or off. Any suggestions ?

edit: Just tried something different and now getting just over 200kB, how good is that ?

cpu-dude

10MB would max you out at about 1.4 - 1.5 MB/s (which is 1500KB/s).

Try download a public ISO and see what your actually transfer rate is (http://url.ie/1f54).

Then choose a popular public torrent and leave it be for a while, torrents always start slow and finish fast.

Jip

Will do when I get a change cpu-dude and post back what I get, cheers.

ROC1977

I'm on a 10meg line now. did have 20meg, but losing my job, so I reduced my UPC package. I' get about 1.2 to 1.4mb downloading from rapidshare and private trackers. Public trackers/torrents aren't have as reliable when it comes to download speeds, along with speed tests.

Donimo

Jip wrote: »

edit: Just tried something different and now getting just over 200kB, how good is that ?

What did you try Jip?

Donimo

Jip

Sorry, just poorly worded. I tried a different torrent which had lots more seeds for experimentation purposes.

Cabaal

Jip wrote: »

Sorry, just poorly worded. I tried a different torrent which had lots more seeds for experimentation purposes. The problem I think I had was that I was looking for old episodes of progs I missed when away and as they had fewer seeds the speed was lower. With newer ones the speeds are much faster.

I'd recommend you don't continue discussing downloading anything that is copyright,

Mmcd

If you put your upload to the max with no limit will it affect your download at all.

Also do eircom ever do anything about exceeding dl limit?

Jip

Cabaal wrote: »

I'd recommend you don't continue discussing downloading anything that is copyright,

I amended my post, can you do yours too, I've PM'd you about it yesterday.

jor el

Mmcd wrote: »

If you put your upload to the max with no limit will it affect your download at all.

Maxing your upload will choke all your downloads, torrents or general web browsing and downloading. You should limit your upload. Also, limit the download, as letting it go to max will swamp your connection, and browsing will be slower.

Mmcd wrote: »

Also do eircom ever do anything about exceeding dl limit?

Not yet.

Mmcd

jor el wrote: »

Not yet.

If they did would it be possible for them to charge back over previous months?

jor el

Only for the currently billed months, so if you're on a monthly bill, it would be for your last month. I'd doubt they'd be able to retroactively charge for months that are outside your current bill, as they have already billed and accepted payment for those months.

eoinf

ok ive just switched from Eircom to NTL and currently cant get any torrents to go above 1-2kb/s .

ive looked at port forwarding for the wireless router and think ive done it right but do i also need to forward ports on the modem?

do i also need to setup dynamic IP.

Any help will be very much appreciated.

welshy2009

i recently followed what was on this youtube page and installed a tool bar to increase my broadband speeds. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxBO7WsjYkY, it worked great and downloaded a legal tv program in a few minutes by going 1.3mbs per second of utorrent and i was delighted, couldnt believe it!! but i cant seem to get it working since. Any one ever tried it or would be able to tell me what to do. You have to press the speed boost button but nothing happens then.
thanks

Leiva

Hi,

May or may not help.....

I was using bittorrent 6.1.2 but found it to buggy , when it worked it worked excellent and i was getting 1.2mb speeds but most of the time it was hit and miss .

I uninstalled it and rolled back to utorrent 1.7.7 and i must say it is on the ball and no troubles at all (even on default settings), some times all the bells and whistles that get released with new versions are not needed .

I recommend you try this version (no harm) and see if your speed increases.

M

Ronanc1

Can some one please explain in laymens terms what port forwarding does and in what way will it help my using of utorrent thanks

Ronanc1

Ronanc1 wrote: »

Can some one please explain in laymens terms what port forwarding does and in what way will it help my using of utorrent thanks

In the most basic terms, port forwarding opens a port or range of ports on your router which will allow peers to connect to your pc in order upload/download from you. You then tell utorrent to use that port for incoming connections.

It will only help if a torrent is very poorly seeded and a number of the other peers in the swarm are unconnectable(dont have ports forwarded). In this case they will connect to you over the port you opened and you will be able to up/down from them. If a torrent is well seeded then it wont have much effect on speed as there should be a sufficient number of peers in the swarm that are connectable(have port forwarding enabled), it will however increase initial speed as you will connect to peers much more quickly.

All in all, its better enabled, especially for public trackers where alot of people wont have ports forwarded and wont be connectable.

As we all know the number and most impotantly the quality of the peers on the torrent will be the limiting factor in all cases (unless your isp directly throttles you!).

Ronanc1

thanks for your reply david really helped, i mainly use demonoid and i do generally get poor speeds of about 20kbs on most of my downloads and i do find there can sometimes only be a few seeders and peers, i think ill look into portforwarding after all thanks

cpu-dude

Ronanc1 wrote: »

Can some one please explain in laymens terms what port forwarding does and in what way will it help my using of utorrent thanks

There are 65534 ports available to connect through and all of them are closed except for the basic ones.

Port 25 for SMTP, 80 for HTTP, 81 for FTP and 110 for POP3 - plus a few more.

Imagine that every port is a door, all of them closed preventing access.

Now, by opening ports up on your router, you are allowing traffic to pass through them with ease, no congestion and a constant flow so you get your full connection whilst still keeping all other doors closed and your connection secure. It's like giving permission to your program to connect.

LoGiE

I just had the 20mb package from UPC installed today... Im not a happy camper.

Bit torrent just plain doesn't work! :mad:
I'm currently sitting out the last month of my eircom adsl and had 4 torrents downloading as normal maxing out my 7mb connection..

I then switch to my UPC router (Which I have set up for port forwarding correctly as the port test is fine) and all the torrents drop to 1kb - 2kb and new torrents recoginse the number of seeds and peers and connect to all the trackers but nothing downloads.

Im not a heavy downloader so why are my downloads being throttled like this? If this protocol is not allowed with this service potential customers should be told in advance.
People who want to download gigs of stuff will find ways to do so regardless of the messures UPC take to traffic shape so why make everyone suffer?

Fact is I would not of chosen this service had I known this in advance and will be finding a new provider asap. Of course I have to pay these SOB's €100 to get out of the contract.

I think it should be noted in one of the stickys in this forum be it the BB availability thread or service provider polls thread which ISP uses traffic shaping is this severe manner.

Here's the test results from http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency/bttest.php?measure=yes&down=yes&up=yes&port=-1&port2=-2&tcp=yes&duration=20& that checks your ISP results.

EIRCOM 7.6mb package

Glasnost: Test if your ISP is manipulating BitTorrent traffic
Results for your host (#ip removed#-dynamic.b-ras2.srl.dublin.eircom.net - ip removed#):
Is BitTorrent traffic on a well-known BitTorrent port (6881) throttled?

* The BitTorrent upload (seeding) worked. Our tool was successful in uploading data using the BitTorrent protocol.

* There's no indication that your ISP rate limits your BitTorrent uploads. In our tests a TCP upload achieved at least 45 Kbps while a BitTorrent upload achieved at most 59 Kbps. You can find details here.

* The BitTorrent download worked. Our tool was successful in downloading data using the BitTorrent protocol.

* There's no indication that your ISP rate limits your BitTorrent downloads. In our tests a TCP download achieved at least 628 Kbps while a BitTorrent download achieved at most 1561 Kbps. You can find details here.


Is BitTorrent traffic on a non-standard BitTorrent port (10009) throttled?

* The BitTorrent upload (seeding) worked. Our tool was successful in uploading data using the BitTorrent protocol.

* There's no indication that your ISP rate limits your BitTorrent uploads. In our tests a TCP download achieved at least 55 Kbps while a BitTorrent download achieved at most 55 Kbps. You can find details here.

* The BitTorrent download worked. Our tool was successful in downloading data using the BitTorrent protocol.

* There's no indication that your ISP rate limits your BitTorrent downloads. In our tests a TCP download achieved at least 733 Kbps while a BitTorrent download achieved at most 1678 Kbps. You can find details here.


Is TCP traffic on a well-known BitTorrent port (6881) throttled?

* There's no indication that your ISP rate limits all downloads at port 6881. In our test, a TCP download on a BitTorrent port achieved at least 1205 Kbps while a TCP download on a non-BitTorrent port achieved at least 733 Kbps. You can find details here.

* There's no indication that your ISP rate limits all uploads at port 6881. In our test, a TCP upload on a BitTorrent port achieved at least 104 Kbps while a TCP upload on a non-BitTorrent port achieved at least 55 Kbps. You can find details here.

---

UPC 20mb package

Results for your host (#ip removed#):
Is BitTorrent traffic on a well-known BitTorrent port (6883) throttled?

* The BitTorrent upload (seeding) worked. Our tool was successful in uploading data using the BitTorrent protocol.

* Your ISP possibly rate limits your BitTorrent uploads. In our tests a TCP uploads achieved at least 21 Kbps while a BitTorrent upload achieved at most 3 Kbps. You can find details here.

* There was a problem with the BitTorrent download. Our tool did not detect forged TCP RST packets, but nevertheless no data could be transfered.


Is BitTorrent traffic on a non-standard BitTorrent port (10011) throttled?

* The BitTorrent upload (seeding) worked. Our tool was successful in uploading data using the BitTorrent protocol.

* Your ISP possibly rate limits your BitTorrent uploads. In our tests a TCP uploads achieved at least 1032 Kbps while a BitTorrent upload achieved maximal 8 Kbps. You can find details here.

* The BitTorrent download worked. Our tool was successful in downloading data using the BitTorrent protocol.

* There's no indication that your ISP rate limits your BitTorrent downloads. In our tests a TCP download achieved at least 193 Kbps while a BitTorrent download achieved at most 120 Kbps. You can find details here.


Is TCP traffic on a well-known BitTorrent port (6883) throttled?

* Your ISP possibly rate limits all uploads at port 6883. In our test, a TCP upload on a BitTorrent port achieved at least 104 Kbps while a TCP upload on a non-BitTorrent port achieved at least 1032 Kbps. You can find details here.

sam_hain

hey guys,

does anyone know if UPC (NTL) are blocking torrents at the moment? I keep getting the message 'connection closed by peer' even with private trackers and calling them gives you no help (no surprise there). Just to point out I am still able to download (not all of the time mind) and I have noticed that a quick 'close the program and re-open it' works, but then it happens again.

sam

BLissIRL

Hi Still no issues 3 yrs in torretns run fine on the network.
Loads of reasons you might have issues.
1. Make sure upc have youre mac from router enlisted on severs as they are having alot of cloners pop up.( cloner will not know youre router mac so traffic for cloner gets slowed down).
2. try if you can to get someone to test signal strength for you as this will result in crappy connections too.
3. always and i mean always run torrent apps on upc in full encryption mode (generally i run 30+ uploads on torrent app fully encrypted ie client drops all non encrypted packets.)

---

Even still my download are always pretty much full speed but upload fluxuates according to time of day and traffic loads. (shaping policies at play).
4. insist on point 1. I have seen this on my own line i moved and got ****ty connection as new router was supplied (support person let it slip that my old mac was showing as active even though they supplied the bloody thing.) once i got that my speeds were sorted again. - This i believe to be an attempt to curb the cloners on the networks up and down the country.

5. if you change mac addy behind modem make sure they allow its mac for all data types.

Netgear is a peice of crap router try better brand as it free anyway.
peeps winging in here about upc its prolly yer setup vista tcp limits or god knows which problem you are having but best of luck finding it.

I still maintin upc rocks as an isp way better than any other isp in ireland END.

sam_hain

I have no problems with speeds (most of the time). The problem I am having is just with the torrents coming up with 'connection closed by peer'. They still download and they download ok but I am just worried about the 'connection closed by peer' part.

BLissIRL

yeah no worries as long as you encrypt and get one of those kimsufi or seedbox connections yer laughing.
They do close down torretn conenctions when detecting them but ecryption only i cant stress that enough deny all non encrypted packets and yer luaghing especially on private trackers --- of which not long left in torrent id say ALL sites are gonna come down soon with recent legal battles all over the globe.

Might have to move to binaries and newsgroups soon. they dont touch newsreaders full tilt all the way on those babies.