How can torrenting and browsing co-exist on my Mac?

December 15, 2008 12:48 AM

How can torrenting and browsing co-exist on my Mac?

I'm currently using Azureus/Vuze 4.0.0.4, Firefox 3.04 and the Mac is Tiger, 10.4.11.

No matter what settings I tweak, web browsing is slow and unreliable while I'm downloading in Azureus.

Most infuriatingly, I get this effect where a page starts to load, but stalls, for instance I can see the title in the title bar, the correct background will load for the page, and even some of the content, but then it stalls, seemingly on anything which involves another server. For instance a page might load partially, then I'll see the status bar say it's hitting Google Analytics, and the page load stalls there. Ping times are very slow and there's an appreciable lag between Firefox saying "looking up [domain]" and "waiting for [domain]". I believe the more seeds the file has the worse it gets.

In the past I've adjusted the Azureus maximum download speed, number of simultaneous connections, and I have a memory that with a previous OS I reduced the MTU size, but none of that seems to help.

I don't mind the torrents being slower if it means I can browse quickly.

posted by AmbroseChapel to computers & internet (23 comments total)

You've adjusted the DL speed, but what about the upload? That's what is slowing you down. Throttle your upload to a small number and let me know how that works.
posted by cdmwebs at 12:54 AM on December 15, 2008

It's often flooding the upstream (which, on an ADSL connection is, the weak link) that kills browsing. Lock that down and try again.
posted by pompomtom at 12:59 AM on December 15, 2008

Depending on you connection, a "low number" might incredibly represent 10% of your donwload capacity.

In my specific case i can download at 200k/sec but only upload at about 15k/sec, so I set my torrent upload limit at around 10k/sec and everything is great.

Also, I prefer Transmission for torrents as it is a native app instead of a java one, like azureus
posted by edmz at 1:00 AM on December 15, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

If the upload cap doesn't help, one issue might be that Azureus is allocating too many connections. I know in Windows there's a limit to how many active sockets you can run without hitting performance issues -- I'm certain the same applies to OS X. The solution is to try reducing the number of connections Azureus makes.

You can change this in the options dialog under Transfers, e.g. if the global max connections is at 300 or 400, try reducing it to something like 200.
posted by spiderskull at 1:11 AM on December 15, 2008

Torrenting can overwhelm some older routers and modems. If you're connected to stacks of peers simultaneous, embedded IP stacks may not be built for this eventuality (I used to operate a linksys modem which suffered chronically from this; it required restarting every few days). Try limiting the number of connections and/or updating your modem's firmware, if it's a few years old. Also, seconding the advice regarding upstream speeds; I think the speedthrottle plugin for azureus will let you throttle with a configurable set of limits, so you can drain your bandwidth at night, and cap it through the day allowing you to get work done.
posted by davemee at 2:36 AM on December 15, 2008

Used to have the exact same problem. Then quit using Azureus, started using Transmission, and have never had the same problem.
posted by gramcracker at 3:47 AM on December 15, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Compile all the above answers into one, and that's been my experience. I started using Transmission, which gave me much less problems than other applications. Then I upgraded my router's firmware to one that could handle more concurrent connections better (if you can't or don't want to do this, turn down concurrent connections in Transmission), and then I throttled my upload speed (in my case to about 30 kbps).

I have had no problems since.
posted by joshrholloway at 5:18 AM on December 15, 2008

Yea, your answer is here. Limit upstream to 80% of maximum---remember that if you've got 512k upstream that that's 512Kbits and not 512Kbytes. You can also throttle your downloads, as they will use up all your pipe. Don't use more than 200 concurrent connections, really limit it to 100 or less. If you've got a firewall or something, you're gonna need to turn it off as it's allocating resources to every connection AND/or trying to prevent a DNS.

Azureus is the supergeek torrent tool of choice---but it's not newbie friendly.
posted by TomMelee at 5:20 AM on December 15, 2008

+1 on limiting upload speed.

You may want to look into an Azureus/Vuze plugin called Speed Scheduler. It lets you set different upload/download speeds for different times of day.

For example, I have SS set up to only allow a small amount of torrent activity during the work day, no activity during the evening when I'm watching streaming videos, and un-restricted torrenting during the time while I'm asleep. It works pretty well.
posted by iwhitney at 6:03 AM on December 15, 2008

I, too, started using Transmission instead of Vuze, and that fixed everything.
posted by timory at 6:08 AM on December 15, 2008

Nthing the upload throttle, especially if you're on ADSL which has very slow upload speed.

I don't use Azureus, but Transmission is running pretty much 24/7 and almost always downloading something, I don't notice any hit at all when using Firefox or mail or anything else on my Mac. I forget it's running until it dings at me to tell me something is finished.

Maybe Azureus is hoggy.
posted by rokusan at 6:14 AM on December 15, 2008

Transmission is banned on pretty much every private torrent site I've ever seen.

If you're happy in Azureus, you don't need to change to something else. I can happily run Azureus non-stop on an aging PowerBook and not have it impact my usage of the computer in the slightest. It uses less CPU while transferring than Firefox does while idling, which really makes me wonder where it got the reputation as a resource hog.

Upload throttle is the answer--and I doubt you'll need to do anything more complicated than that.
posted by bcwinters at 6:39 AM on December 15, 2008

I had exactly this problem, and extensive tweaking didn't fix it.

I ended up replacing my very old Airport Snow wireless base station with a Time Capsule wireless base station. I haven't had a problem since.

If a new wireless router isn't in the cards, I would recommend:

1) use Transmission instead af Azureus.
2) limit your number of simultaneous uploads and downloads, connections, and bandwidth.
3) quit and restart Transmission once or twice a day, or at the first sign of trouble.
4) reboot your router once or twice a day, or at the first sign of trouble.

Taking those steps should keep things manageable, if not ideal.
posted by alms at 6:50 AM on December 15, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I had this prob till I switched from an evil ISP (Rogers in Canada) to an awesome one (Teksavvy). Now everything's golden.
posted by Manhasset at 7:13 AM on December 15, 2008

+1 limit upload speed.

I had this same issue with torrenting on a linux box with Azureus. Vonage sounded crappy, browsing was slow.

I used Speed Scheduler like iwhitney above; turn it off during the day, crank it up at night; no more trouble.
posted by chazlarson at 7:30 AM on December 15, 2008

This has been suggested before, but ditch Azureus. It's slow, buggy, and bloated. Transmission is your friend. Also consider the new Mac version of uTorrent, though that may be Leopard Only.
posted by SansPoint at 7:31 AM on December 15, 2008

I set my upload speed to roughly a quarter of what it's actually capable of. That helps a lot. I've never had to throttle my download speed.

The other thing I've been doing that I haven't seen mentioned is adjusting the Quality of Service (QoS) settings on my router (which runs DD-WRT instead of the default linksys firmware). I put ssh first, followed by mail and www. My torrent ports (which should not be the default 6881) are lowest priority.

Finally, you can try a better client. I like rtorrent, but it is command line based. What's great about it (among other things) is that you can adjust your bandwidth depending on the time of day. Let it have full reign of your connection at night but pull back to something more modest when you might be using the computer.
posted by valadil at 7:38 AM on December 15, 2008

Ditto the advice to switch to Transmission. I was a Vuze/Azureus addict and enjoyed all the geeky settings I could tweak, thinking I could get the best possible speeds with some well thought-out adjustments. I tried Transmission one day, just for kicks. My transfers are just as fast and -- to tell you the truth -- I don't miss the settings overkill.
posted by pmbuko at 7:42 AM on December 15, 2008

I used Azureus with my Mac until I got an Airport Express which then caused all kinds of pain. I switched to Transmission and have never had a problem with any of the private trackers I'm on. But I recently switched to μTorrent for Mac. It's still in beta but so far so good!
posted by urbanette at 11:07 AM on December 15, 2008

Thanks so much everyone for your help.

Information I left out: yes, I'm on ADSL(2), and no, my router is pretty much brand new so that won't be a factor.

I had already throttled the upload speed, but now I've got some hard figures, I can see it wasn't nearly throttled enough. I've cut it way back and the problem is pretty much gone.

I'll take a look at Transmission, but I'd love to know more about this:

>Transmission is banned on pretty much every private torrent site I've ever seen.

Can you expand on that please bcwinters?
posted by AmbroseChapel at 2:42 PM on December 15, 2008

Transmission is banned on pretty much every private torrent site I've ever seen.

You realize they're banning it based on a string that it takes about ten seconds to edit, right?
posted by rokusan at 3:28 PM on December 15, 2008

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, or that it isn't based on bad information...just that on every private torrent site I've been a member of, one of the rules has been "no use of the Transmission client," the same way BitComet was persona non grata on many sites for a while. I think it stemmed from older versions not respecting tracker limits on the interval between connections or something like that.

I just wanted that detail to be in the mix of opinions. I guess all I meant is that if you want to be a good participant in a BitTorrent community (especially with a throttled upload speed) make sure you're checking out your tracker's rules. I have no vested interest in one client over another, go with what works best for you.
posted by bcwinters at 7:38 PM on December 17, 2008

[on reminder] edmz gets best answer, because he gave the right answer, and was specific about what exactly a "low number" might be for any given person.
posted by AmbroseChapel at 6:46 PM on January 15