Azureus for OSX, torrent files?

November 21, 2004 7:27 PM

What's the deal with Azureus for OSX and opening .torrent files by default? [more inside]

When you try to set Azureus as the "open with" application for .torrent files, OSX doesn't recognize it as an applicaiton. So you can't set it there. FireFox for OSX, after the recent update, does recognize it as a possible helper app, and I've set FireFox to pass .torrent files to Azureus by default. But even though Azureus comes to the foreground now when I download a .torrent file, it does nothing. It doesn't open it. It doesn't begin a download. Is there any way to just click on a .torrent file in any OSX browser and have it open in Azureus?

posted by scarabic to computers & internet (8 comments total)

I wasn't able to find a way to do this.

You may also be interested to learn that I quit using Azureus when I discovered it was reliably causing a kernel panic after a few hours of operation. It's a 'known issue,' apparently, upon discovery of which fact I removed it.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:32 PM on November 21, 2004

No, you can't invoke Azureus with a document. I just drag the torrent file to Azureus' window.

The kernel panic issue seems to hit G5s pretty easily, but I've never seen it on my lesser machine, and I have hundreds of hours of use behind me.
posted by majick at 7:58 PM on November 21, 2004

Every time I download a torrent it shows up in Azureus automatically and starts downloading, assuming I already have Azureus open. I'm using Safari, and I didn't do anything special to set it up that way.
posted by cali at 8:32 PM on November 21, 2004

I imagine the file-association problem has something to do with Azureus being a java app that's being developed on many platforms at once. You could try asking on the Azureus Forum on sourceforge.

2.1.0.4 had fewer kernel-related problems than the latest 2.2.0.0 (which seems to have a lot of Mac related regressions in terms of bugs). For the record, I haven't had any kernel panics with Azureus since a verrrry buggy version last spring; I'm sticking with 2.1.0.4.
posted by bcwinters at 8:42 PM on November 21, 2004

Dual G4/MDD/10.3.6 here, if anyone cares.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:43 PM on November 21, 2004

Not really a workaround, but in the Options you can set Azureus so it scans a directory ever X minutes looking for new torrents to start auto-downloading. So while just clicking on a torrent would be the most convenient, second-best I've found is just saving the .torrents to like my desktop or whatever, and making sure Azureus is set to watch that location.
posted by wolftrouble at 10:22 PM on November 21, 2004 [1 favorite]

The newest Azareus locked up on me constantly until I only ran two torrents at a time on it. Now it runs pretty well (7 days straight with no crash), although it REALLY bogs down my iBook 700.
posted by ejoey at 2:37 AM on November 22, 2004

I've been running Azureus for months (G3 and G4) and love it. The folder auto-scan feature is okay, though it does seem to bring on crashiness. The main thing I get into trouble with is downloading lots of torrents to use later, and having the auto-scan open them all 5 minutes later, filling my hard drive instantly. I'd have to have two download folders to make use of it... ecchh. Just haven't gotten around to it.

Cali - I think I'm just going to have to email you a bunch of questions and try to duplicate whatever setup is working for you.
posted by scarabic at 1:01 PM on November 22, 2004