Torrents won't download in uTorrent or BitTorrent

[HenryCan]

I can't start any downloads today. Every torrent I grab with uTorrent via Copy Link Location seems to get accepted by the client okay but no download will proceed beyond the "Connecting to peers 0.0%" stage no matter how long I wait. I've also tried Force Start but that doesn't get them moving either. Just for the heck of it, I download BitTorrent and tried with that client but got exactly the same issue there.

Is this problem at the server end, as it appears? If not, what can I do to get my downloads started? I don't see anyone else mentioning this problem so it's not clear if I'm the only one having it or if others are seeing it too.

[Edit: Strangely enough, two of my four torrents started downloading spontaneously not long after I posted this. But the other two are still sitting at "Connecting to peers 0.0%". I have no idea why two of them started and the other two remain stuck at the very beginning of the download process.]

[Moe]

You do not download anything from a server with bittorrent. Unless you are choosing torrents with a very small or no existing swarm, the problem is at your end.

[HenryCan]

You do not download anything from a server with bittorrent. 

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Sorry, I may be using the wrong terminology. From my point of view, I find a torrent at TPB, right click, choose Copy Link Location, and then click on the paperclip in uTorrent/BitTorrent, and my torrent gets added to the list. Normallly, each torrent begins downloading immediately but today, my torrients seem to get stuck at the very beginning of the download process.

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Unless you are choosing torrents with a very small or no existing swarm, the problem is at your end.

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I doubt my torrents meet your criteria of very small or no existing swarm but I don't know the terminology well enough to be sure. The numbers of seeds and leechers are both 0 in TPB but that's not unusual. I've had that happen many times over the years yet still successfully acquired the torrent's data. The sizes for the four torrents are 300 to 500 MiB.

If the problem is at my end, what do I look for? As my edit indicates, two of my four torrents finally started downloading spontaneously shortly after I first posted, even though they'd been sitting there for hours stuck. I don't think I did anything to make those two start. I'm baffled by why the other two DIDN'T start if I somehow inadvertently fixed my problem.

Well isn't that weird? I just checked again and the other two have now started and one of those two finished as I was typing these words.

I'm completely baffled by why they froze for hours, then started spontaneously in two separate batches. If you can suggest an explanation, I'd be very curious to hear it so that I can solve the problem myself next time.

[Moe]

There are a whole lot of reasons.

Being a peer-to-peer protocol, there are many variables that can change from one moment to the next.


It starts with the magnet link itself.  When you click the link, your browser passes the link to your client.  Now your client has to find peers sharing that torrent to get the torrent metadata.

If the magnet link included trackers, your client will query those trackers to get a list of peers.  If there are no trackers in the link, it relies on DHT to provide a list of peers.

DHT uses the UDP protocol.  Trackers can use either HTTP or UDP.  TPB uses only UDP trackers in its magnet links.

So that means your setup needs to be able to make outgoing UDP connections both for the trackers used in TPB magnet links and for DHT.  Other torrent indexes might use HTTP trackers in their links or torrents, so that is why it can appear to be a TPB problem when TPB links don't work.

If your client can successfully make outgoing UDP connections, and successfully obtains a few IP addresses of peers from a tracker or DHT, it will attempt to query those peers to get the torrent metadata.

In order to successfully query them, they have to be reachable from your network, they have to be able to accept incoming connections, they have to be using a client that supports the magnet protocol, and they have to be responsive enough to return the metadata in a reasonable amount of time.  If there are only a handful of peers in the swarm, it is possible none of them can respond to you.

So, from one moment to the next, maybe you successfully queried a tracker you couldn't query before.  Maybe a new peer became available that wasn't available before.  Maybe a peer that couldn't respond before could respond when some conditions changed.  Maybe something on your network changed that was previously preventing you from talking to one or more peers.

Getting connected to one peer opens the door to using PEX, which can help find more peers, which in turn can help find more peers.

To best ensure you can reach the maximum number of peers out there, make sure there is nothing blocking you from making outgoing UDP connections.  Make sure that whatever port your client is listening on can accept incoming T***** and UDP connections from outside your network.  Make sure your client is configured not to saturate your connection.

Everything else is pretty much outside of your control.  With smaller swarms, it often comes down to patiently waiting for that one peer to save the day.

[HenryCan]

There are a whole lot of reasons.

[snip]

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Thanks, Moe, for taking the time to explain how torrents/magnet links actually work. I didn't know most of this or appreciate how complicated it was. It usually works "effortlessly" - at least on my part - so it was frustrating not to have it work and especially not to have any idea WHY it wasn't working with no clue as to when it might work again.

Maybe someday there will be a version of the client that actually tells you what's going on and gives you suggestions about what you can do to make things start working again for each specific situation that can occur. In the meantime, I'm just glad it sorted itself out eventually.

Thanks again!

[waregim]

Something to be aware of:

New posts will generall have 0 seeders and leachers - this is because the site hasnt updated its stats for those. There can be dozens to hundreds in reality.

Older posts have generally more realistic numbers. 0 seeders/leechers is a good probability its going to give some trouble.
Especially if its stuck at 'downloading metadata'.

Often someone will come online and be able to connect eventually. If it doesnt happen after a few days, consider it a loss.
Might also want to try a different server on the VPN. What doesnt work in Canada might be OK in Singapore or Italy.

If you have a firewall shut it off and see what happens. If it fixes, then you have to reconfigure it for UDP.

[promodsharma]

Try https://www.qbittorrent.org/download.php

[BigDadE]

Try https://www.qbittorrent.org/download.php

I concur!  It's faster for me and I like it much better than Vuze or uTorrent.  Good call.