Bittorent Information

Well, there really is a problem with the QZ tracker.

I'll start by giving a little background information in the shape of a simplified description of what happens when your client (uTorrent, or Azureus, or whatever you use) communicates with the tracker. I only mention the stuff that is relevant here, there is really much more taking place while communicating.

There are two basic types of communication between you and the tracker: scraping and announcing. When you scrape the tracker, you request (and get) information about how many seeders (with a complete set of files for the torrent) and "peers" (with an incomplete set of the files) the tracker knows about. These are the numbers that appear between brackets in your torrent client.

When you announce, the tracker receives and registers your IP address (and the port you use for incoming connections), and the tracker sends you a list of IP addresses for the other peers for that torrent. Then it is up to the peers to connect to each other - there can be connection problems that have nothing to do with the tracker, and there can be slow speeds that have absolutely nothing to do with the tracker. Most bittorrent problems have to do with peer communication, not client - tracker communication. If and when a connection is established with another peer, it will show up in your client as a number outside of the brackets in the seeder or "peer" column.

Now to the problem. It has happened several times that I haven't managed to connect to any peers for QZ torrents, even though I see them in those brackets, while torrents from other trackers work fine. Then all of a sudden, the QZ tracker will "kick in" and the torrents work as expected. It seems completely arbitrary. There is no telling when it will work and when it will not. Most of the time I use uTorrent for QZ torrents, but I have also loaded them in Azureus once in a while. It does not matter which client I use, which is not surprising since uTorrent and Azureus are both well-behaved clients. (Less well-behaved clients may cause problems because of poor implementation of the bittorrent protocol.)

Right now I am in one of those "can't connect" phases again. This time I decided to see what is going on by starting a couple of QZ torrents in Azureus and then check the log. (There is an option to have a very detailed log file created as Azureus runs - you don't have that option in uTorrent.) The problem is what I was beginning to suspect it was: even though my client sends an announce to the tracker, all I get is a scrape. I am told how many peers there are, but the tracker does not send me any IP addresses. Since I can leave the torrents open for days without making any connections, I suspect that the tracker doesn't register my IP address either. It treats my announce as if I were scraping.

There is nothing I, or any other user in this situation, can do about this other than wait and hope that the tracker decides to reply properly to an announce, as long as you use a decent client (like uTorrent) from the start.

It would be interesting to know if any admin has noticed this, though, and if there is possibly something that could be done about it. ;-)

FANTASTIC post ! FINALLY somebody who really CARES about problems. I unfortunatelly have no idea what's going on, but when this happens to me, usually the option "Update tracker" in uTorrent helps me to start the torrent. I don't know if this fact helps you somehow, because I have no idea what EXACTLY this option does :-(

Thanks for the kind words and the advice, pittrek! Good to know that SOMEBODY ELSE cares. :)

Yes, updating the tracker may sometimes help. What you are actually doing when you click "update tracker" is making a so-called manual announce. Since the tracker sometimes responds properly when you announce, this certainly might help.

I did not want to recommend it, though. This is why:

You normally announce once every 30 minutes to the QZ tracker - the interval is set by the tracker. (It is one of those other things that happen when you communicate with the tracker.) The reason for the interval is to keep the load on the tracker down - every announce uses some resources. The QZ tracker is already showing signs of being overloaded at times. If you look at the icons in uTorrent, you will notice that they will go red once in a while, with an arrow pointing upwards or downwards depending on whether you are seeding or downloading. That suggests that the tracker could not respond to an announce - a typical sign of overload (or other connection problems). In fact, I wonder if overload is what is causing the problems with the mere scrape response to announces, too.

Anyway, the conclusion is that you may of course try announcing manually (updating the tracker) a few times, but don't do it too often. If a lot of people do it, the problems may in the end go worse. :(

Ok, I have a technical question regarding seeding. I am using a laptop with a small hard drive to download my concerts too, then ideally moving them over to my vast USB hard drive. I cannot download straight to the drive, but when I move them over, can I still seed them from the new location?

Yes, you can. You just need to re-target the torrents - how to do that works slightly different for different clients. In uTorrent, stop the torrent (right-click and choose "Stop"), move the folder with the files to the new location, right-click the torrent and choose "Advanced - Set download location..." and browse to the folder with the files. If, for example, you moved a folder called "Queen - 1982-08-13 Chicago, USA [FLAC]", that's the one you should browse to.

In order to be extra careful, you can right-click the torrent again and choose "Force re-check". The client should end up saying that the torrent is 100% done. Then it's time for the final right-click, choose "Start", and you're back seeding. :)

:D many many thanks! I will try this now, I'm transferring the Japanese Jewels DVD over, let's hope it works!

Rechecking in progress....veeeeery slowly

Seems to be working!
Many thanks!

Ah, good to hear that it worked! :)

(And, yes, I agree - re-checking a DVD feels like it takes ages.)

I Cannot download with torrent.

Please tell what to do?

Can anyone suggest a free program that would help me burn the Houston '77 DVD torrent that went up a while ago?

I've been trying to burn it to a DVD, but most of the programs like NERO cost money and I need something free. I tried using DVD flick and was actually really happy with how simple it was and it worked okay.

However, the person who put the DVD together had a really great menu page with chapters and scene selections. I would hate to lose those, but DVD Flick just burns it staight out, and the 'title page' I guess you could call it and the scene selections don't work, they are just another chapter that I have to fast forward through to get to the actual concert. Any suggestions of a different program I could use to keep it all together like I got it with the menu options that I can actually click on?

IsilwenGilraen

Now, I've not tried this software, but sourceforge is a good reliable place to get freeware, so this is worth a try
http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/

I use Nero, you can get Nero v8 Essentials in the UK for about 5 pounds (10 bucks)
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/128287
maybe you can get the same deal somewhere in the states?

My Bit Comet is very slow for download torrent...How can do for encrase speed? Thanks!

Yesterday, I had a download speed of over 65 kB/s, with only one or two seeders! Today, the highest I can get is 30. Does anyone know why my client did that?

Oh, and my upload speed was around 14 kB/s, and now I can't even get it above 1 kB/s.

Please help!

Hi there, any time I try to open a QZ torrent in BitTorrent OSX I get an error and this message in the log

Critical: Aborting the torrent as it was rejected by the tracker while not connected to any peers.  Message from the tracker: mandatory announce parameter info_hash in query missing

Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Cheers!