Talk:BitTorrent/FAQ

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BitTorrent/FAQ discussion area:

• I want to know how that anti-leech design is supposed to work. If I download using the official client I often end up with (ul/dl) ratios in the 10x range. OTOH if I throttle my upload rate to almost zero I still get the file pretty quick. Isn't this supposed to be prevented?

How were you able to throttle the upload ratios with the official client? This may answer another question posed below.

[Note to author: bittorrent has a --max_upload_rate switch]

It is possible that either you have stumbled upon a major error in the BitTorrent design or that a particular configuration happened to yeild positive results. There are a variety of technical questions associated with this, such as if your ISP has bandwidth throttling detection for BitTorrent and other File Sharing clients. For instance, if your ISP saw download-only activity, they might have a system in place that allows for more bandwidth where a high upload detection might trigger a lower overall speed. These variables make for a highly technical question possibly more appropriate on the TorrentTalk group.

There are lots of clients out there that work perfectly well, and allow throttling of bandwidth. I myself use the bittornado packet in the debian tree. As to why this works, I would guess that other bt-clients preferably communicate with clients that give something back, but they dont yet prefer those that give something back in a nice and high speed. Perhaps this is a solution? If all clients not only rated clients giving something back higher, but also those that gave back in high speed, this leech-trick would probably no longer work as intended.

//Martin Kihlgren, zond insert at troja.ath.cx, 2004

• When I use Bittorrent, my internet connection slows down so much its pathetic... I do a speed test from speedtest.newtel.com and it drops from 3000kbps to 490kbps when I'm only downloading at 10kbps on bittorrent. What can I do to stop Bittorrent from using so much of my internet connection??

You should limit the upload rate. With the official bittorrent client do something like btownloadcurses.py --max_upload_rate 7 --responsefile your.torrent (btdownloadcurses.py is a *nix thing afaik, you might use btdownloadgui.py.) The '7' means 7KB/s, you should set it to 1-3 kb below your upload capabilites, other traffic, and ACK's need to get through as well.

Apparently i missed some chunks of the docs... just to note here. I didn't find the executables 'cause the all start with 'bt...' ie. btdownloadgui.py etc. just was helped by someone in the #bittorrent channel on irc.freenode.net which i also found by chance. cheers, FloK

Understood. I'll post where you got assitance on the front page. Webfork

Flok; Can you please point us to the docs where you found the answer? Some of us don't do Chat ;)

• I have a problem that many others seems to have that is yet unresolved. I can use bittorrent (experimental/Azureus/ABC) for a short time, 10mins to 2 hours, before my modem freezes. I then have to reset the modem before the computer is useable again. I have - configured the client/router correctly (works for a while) - turned off XP firewall/Zonealarm - throttled uploads to 80% - changed modems, Dlink usb to Billion router. I run Xp SP2 on an AMD 2k+ with 512meg ram, so there should be no gruntyness problems. Help! Is it XP not being able to handle it?

• I ran out of space on my hard drive. Error: "No space left on device". Now when I resume, I can upload to others, but I do not download, even tho I have freed suffient space on the drive and have not completed the download. How can I fix this? Am I uploading corrupt data to others?

I can't believe this isn't a common question, but it's not answered in any of the BitTorrent FAQ's I've found. "No space left on device" often presages file corruption from which BitTorrent will not resume. No easy fixes for this. I saw this answered on a BitTorrent mailing list (sorry I don't have it anymore, or know what list it was on) that one's only hope in that situation would be to delete all and restart the torrent.

I suspect that in this situation, one's uploads to others are corrupt, but I don't really know.

I don't have enough insight into this problem to add this to the FAQ myself. If this only occurs in some clients, I can say it does in mine, BitTornado 0.3.7 (BitTorrent/T-0.3.7). --Edgarde 10:20, 27 Dec 2004 (GMT)

Need Bit Torrent help!

When attempting to dowload a large directory of files (single BT download), I get the following error:

"trouble accessing files" - [errno 24] too many open files"

Is there a way to increase the number of open files allowed so that I may download the torrent? Any help is appreciated.

The reference implementation of BitTorrent keeps all the files being downloaded open. This can cause trouble with some of the larger multi-file torrents, which can have hundreds or thousands of component files. When the number exceeds the OS limit, the OS refuses to allow them all to be opened, preventing BitTorrent from accessing them.

To solve this problem, either increase the OS limit (ulimit -n 12000, /proc/sys/fs/file-max), or use an implemention that limits the number of files it has open at any one time.