Tweak or replace this stalling bittorrent client?
May 16, 2012 12:13 PM Subscribe
My qBittorrent client (for Linux) stalls out far too often and knocks me offline. Why is this happening, and what can I do to fix or mitigate the problem?
I'm very new to torrenting, but all this interruption just can't be normal, or no one would be doing it.
Please correct (or overlook) any improper vocabulary on my part. I don't have a handle on this stuff yet.
When I download a well-seeded torrent for, say, 500 MB file(s), it takes very little time to finish, usually just a minute so, and I see no problems. When I download bigger torrents, especially those with a more even ratio of seeds to leeches (I'm not trying to get files when there are obviously too few seeds or fewer seeds than leeches), I run into the problem of qBittorrent stalling and knocking my computer offline. I have to shut down and restart each time this happens, usually about every 15-20 minutes. I tried just restarting my modem and router, but the only thing that works is restarting my laptop, which means I can't walk away from a download with any degree of confidence that I'll stay online.
I only download one thing at a time, since trying to download two will knock me offline with a quickness.
Info on settings:
In the qBittorrent settings, it's telling me that the port used for incoming connections is 6881, and I have the option to change that or choose a random port. No Proxy, no IP Filtering. There is no Download Limit, and Upload Limit is set to 50 KiB/s.
The box is checked next to "Use UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding from my router." Also, connection limits are at their default settings (in fact, all settings are still set to their defaults).
Under Privacy settings, Enable DHT to find more peers is checked, as are Enable Peer Exchange (PeX) to find more peers, and Enable Local Peer Discovery to find more peers.
There is an advanced option to "always announce to all trackers" that was added a few releases ago to fix a stalling error, but I don't know if that's dangerous... it sounds dangerous! I have no idea what that means, so I've left it alone so far.
My ISP is Comcast. Do they boot me offline when they detect that I'm downloading files? I've heard rumors of that, but I don't know if they're true, and I'm sure they'd contact me if it were a problem, eh?
- What might be causing the stalling and the disconnection?
- Am I at risk of harming my computer by restarting with such frequency?
- Should I switch torrent clients? Got any recommendations? (Linux)
- Is there just a setting that I need to tweak?
I will follow up via a mod if I need to answer any questions. Thanks a bunch for wading through this and knowing more than I do.
I'm very new to torrenting, but all this interruption just can't be normal, or no one would be doing it.
Please correct (or overlook) any improper vocabulary on my part. I don't have a handle on this stuff yet.
When I download a well-seeded torrent for, say, 500 MB file(s), it takes very little time to finish, usually just a minute so, and I see no problems. When I download bigger torrents, especially those with a more even ratio of seeds to leeches (I'm not trying to get files when there are obviously too few seeds or fewer seeds than leeches), I run into the problem of qBittorrent stalling and knocking my computer offline. I have to shut down and restart each time this happens, usually about every 15-20 minutes. I tried just restarting my modem and router, but the only thing that works is restarting my laptop, which means I can't walk away from a download with any degree of confidence that I'll stay online.
I only download one thing at a time, since trying to download two will knock me offline with a quickness.
Info on settings:
In the qBittorrent settings, it's telling me that the port used for incoming connections is 6881, and I have the option to change that or choose a random port. No Proxy, no IP Filtering. There is no Download Limit, and Upload Limit is set to 50 KiB/s.
The box is checked next to "Use UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding from my router." Also, connection limits are at their default settings (in fact, all settings are still set to their defaults).
Under Privacy settings, Enable DHT to find more peers is checked, as are Enable Peer Exchange (PeX) to find more peers, and Enable Local Peer Discovery to find more peers.
There is an advanced option to "always announce to all trackers" that was added a few releases ago to fix a stalling error, but I don't know if that's dangerous... it sounds dangerous! I have no idea what that means, so I've left it alone so far.
My ISP is Comcast. Do they boot me offline when they detect that I'm downloading files? I've heard rumors of that, but I don't know if they're true, and I'm sure they'd contact me if it were a problem, eh?
- What might be causing the stalling and the disconnection?
- Am I at risk of harming my computer by restarting with such frequency?
- Should I switch torrent clients? Got any recommendations? (Linux)
- Is there just a setting that I need to tweak?
I will follow up via a mod if I need to answer any questions. Thanks a bunch for wading through this and knowing more than I do.
Try reducing your number of connections, it may be swamping your network card or router or modem with too many in or out connections, resulting in DDOSing yourself.
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:13 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:13 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
My ISP is Comcast.
Comcast is well known for traffic shaping. Assuming this info about their 2008 Acceptable Usage Policy is not out of date, that probably explains what's going on:
The scheme includes a two-class system of Priority-best-effort and best-effort where “sustained use of 70% of your up or downstream throughput triggers the BE state, at which point you'll find your traffic priority lowered until your usage drops to 50% of your provisioned upstream or downstream bandwidth for "a period of approximately 15 minutes." A throttled Comcast user being placed in a BE state "may or may not result in the user's traffic being delayed or, in extreme cases, dropped before PBE traffic is dropped."
posted by ook at 1:55 PM on May 16, 2012
Comcast is well known for traffic shaping. Assuming this info about their 2008 Acceptable Usage Policy is not out of date, that probably explains what's going on:
The scheme includes a two-class system of Priority-best-effort and best-effort where “sustained use of 70% of your up or downstream throughput triggers the BE state, at which point you'll find your traffic priority lowered until your usage drops to 50% of your provisioned upstream or downstream bandwidth for "a period of approximately 15 minutes." A throttled Comcast user being placed in a BE state "may or may not result in the user's traffic being delayed or, in extreme cases, dropped before PBE traffic is dropped."
posted by ook at 1:55 PM on May 16, 2012
1. I got nothin'.
2. As for frequent restarts... of two computers, one of which was being run constantly, and one of which was being restarted every twenty minutes, I'd bet on the latter dying first. Being restarted every twenty minutes during the part of the day you're in front of it for a couple days? I wouldn't worry about it.
3. I like transmission along with transmission-remote-cli for what I consider a sensible server/client separation of duties and because it works well on the command line, which is my preference (but there are also GUI clients.) I have no idea whether switching would help you with the given problem, though.
4. Try configuring your bittorrent client to accept connections on ports 6881-6999 (which I presume is what it does when you say "choose a random port") and make sure that your router forwards that whole range to your computer and that whatever firewalls you have on your router and your computer admits incoming TCP and UDP (relevant for DHT before someone corrects me that bittorrent uses TCP) connections across that port range. I think there's only a very small chance that this'll address your problem, but it'll make for faster transfers when other problems are cleared up.
posted by Zed at 2:00 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
2. As for frequent restarts... of two computers, one of which was being run constantly, and one of which was being restarted every twenty minutes, I'd bet on the latter dying first. Being restarted every twenty minutes during the part of the day you're in front of it for a couple days? I wouldn't worry about it.
3. I like transmission along with transmission-remote-cli for what I consider a sensible server/client separation of duties and because it works well on the command line, which is my preference (but there are also GUI clients.) I have no idea whether switching would help you with the given problem, though.
4. Try configuring your bittorrent client to accept connections on ports 6881-6999 (which I presume is what it does when you say "choose a random port") and make sure that your router forwards that whole range to your computer and that whatever firewalls you have on your router and your computer admits incoming TCP and UDP (relevant for DHT before someone corrects me that bittorrent uses TCP) connections across that port range. I think there's only a very small chance that this'll address your problem, but it'll make for faster transfers when other problems are cleared up.
posted by Zed at 2:00 PM on May 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
I have no idea about what's causing the problem(s) you describe, but I can tell you I used to use transmission and then switched to the linux BitTorrent client "deluge". Deluge works a treat for me.
posted by Mister Bijou at 9:14 PM on May 16, 2012
posted by Mister Bijou at 9:14 PM on May 16, 2012
You might try using a nonstandard port (choose the "random" setting on whatever client you use), just in case Comcast limits traffic more than usual over the usual bittorrent ports. Either way, make sure you have port forwarding set up on whatever port you wind up with, as Zed explained. On preview, "random" generally (always?) gives you a port outside the 6881-6999 range, for the reason given above.
However, when you say your computer is knocked offline do you mean the bittorrent client or your computer in general, such that you can't even ping? If the latter, that's pretty weird. I'd give some different clients and settings a try. I'd also check non-bittorrent downloads, over http or ftp or whatever, to see if download amounts or speeds are the problem rather than the client. If it is a Comcast issue you could avoid getting knocked offline by limiting your download speed, though obviously that would slow down your torrents.
posted by mail at 12:55 PM on May 17, 2012
However, when you say your computer is knocked offline do you mean the bittorrent client or your computer in general, such that you can't even ping? If the latter, that's pretty weird. I'd give some different clients and settings a try. I'd also check non-bittorrent downloads, over http or ftp or whatever, to see if download amounts or speeds are the problem rather than the client. If it is a Comcast issue you could avoid getting knocked offline by limiting your download speed, though obviously that would slow down your torrents.
posted by mail at 12:55 PM on May 17, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
I'm guessing if you have an NTFS or FAT filesystem (if you were coming from windows), the above is the case.
posted by shepd at 12:46 PM on May 16, 2012