tribalmixes.com (0-day club music) :: f.a.q. - frequently asked questions (answered)

TRIBALMIXES.COM : F.A.Q. (FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS) v1.95

SHORT INTRO... AND A GLANCE INTO HISTORY.

music has been our obsession for many years. back in the day when we just started going to raves and clubs it was very hard to obtain those quality mixes played live at the events. you all pretty much know that albums and singles very much differ from live dj mixes, which usually have harder base, newer tunes and (maybe the most enjoyable) djs expressing their skills and imagination in live demonstrations of mixing and twixing.

there are so many ways now to get live sets. our source list would include programs and website of over a dozen in count. but still there are thousand times mixes which we haven't even heard about. also we found out that those web sites corrently acting are mostly dedicated to few styles of club music, mostly bounded by trance, electro and breaks. quality house mixes only appear there once in a while. so after some careful consideration we decided to open our own web site with a bittorent tracker to be able to share all kinds of club music, not only those we love but also anything our users want to see here.

our goal is to try to provide the absolutely latest stuff. but we will never refuse any good dj mix because all of us here at tribalmixesdotcom are big fans and admirers of everything that has to do with club scene. therefore, if you have access to zero-day stuff do not hesitate to let us know!

this is a private tracker so you have to register to get full access to the site. before you do anything here at tribalmixesdotcom we suggest that you read the rules! there are only a few rules to abide by, but we do enforce them!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

General Site Information

User information

Downloading

Uploading

Stats

How can I improve my download speed?

My ISP uses a transparent proxy. What should I do?

Why can't I connect? Is the site blocking me?

Maybe my address is blacklisted?
Your ISP blocks the site's address

What if I can't find the answer to my problem here?

GENERAL SITE INFORMATION

What is this bittorrent all about anyway? How do I get the files?

Check out Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide

In two words, BitTorrent is a protocol of/for data/file inter-exchange that allows strong integrity of downloaded data via many checks and summs that are provided as a special torrent-file which needs to be downloaded from this website. Downloaded, then you need to open it (drag-n-drop) in your torrent client and let the client deal with the rest.

Where does the donated money go?

tribalmixes.com is located on some paid hosting. for the moment we have monthly running costs of approximately $234. please read more up here and donate for monthly rent!

What is shoutbox and how to use it?

Shoutbox is a rich shout message system designed to take care of fast short-line communication between users, small converstations and just announcements of any kind. you can edit its options in OUTLOOK. it's open by defaul, you can close it too. option split private allows you to see private messages in a dirrerent window below public, useful when you actively privately talk. one window can only hold 30 shouts, so this also split also allows to keep more (60 tops) messages active. messages are deleted 24 hours since the posted date. if you point mouse over some nickname (shout poster) in the [shoutbox] you can see a popup help saying how long ago it was posted and more info. if you then click this nickname link, you will be have your shout (even if it was there already) edited to be sent privately to this user. or you can post shouts as 2:nickname and here goes shout. always leave a single space after nickname to make sure adressee is definable. click [shout] button, window(s) will refresh. private shouts can only be seen by poster and person adressed.

also in OUTLOOK set up the shoutbox refresh rate in minutes, no less than 3 (too sad, this shoutbox thing takes too much bandwidth...) minutes shortest. it is displayed in small boxes next to buttons for each window, if you have two. but this is changable. you can press the [catchup] button for any of the public or private groups and refresh rate will automatically adjust to follow up faster converstations, setting itself to be refreshed in as fast as 10-20 seconds in the most intense moments. it will slow down refreshing as everything stops and will also fall back to your regular refresh time later. you can see refresh rate vary with shoutbox updating reloads. to renew shoutbox you do not need to refresh browser window, but rather click any of the update links there.

please use it wisely. private messages should be private. once said, it can't be deleted. also statistics are counted on public shouts, as for their number (just for fun, relax... :) per user. private shouts are not assumed. select html tags are working.

What about the immortal points and ways to use them?

Immortality is a complex feature (including immortal points) in two words meaning your personal input into the tribalmixesdotcom community. this feature has come active on april 18th, 2006, and all users had equal start - 0 points towards immortality rating. then most of us won't even find out about it until looked in here, but this shadow-hunter immortality dawg has started his count.. following below is a complete table of all possible points you can get into the immortable-sum (it might be enlarged later though), ladder will be headed by the biggest amount of points posessor, all other users' immortality ratings will be calculated by their immortable-sums divided by biggest immortable-sum, so the closer your rating gets to 1.000 is closer you get to being the immortable king of the hill/ladder. as for the reason of all this...i don't know now, just a funny idea, and this will be a big mistery, so if you read this - don't tell noone, let them find out the hard way... :) also note, that some options are only accessible by power users or uploaders, so don't be surprised if some of these don't make sense to you. also last few actions are taken automatically by system if special conditions listed in other parts of this document are satisfied... :)

action	points	where? when?
cast your vote	1	main page poll
add world of music news item	3	main page/news
rate any torrent	1p+2LT*	torrent browse/details
comment fresh** torrent	0.5	torrent details
upload torrent	5	upload page***
add new [e]-record***	3	[e]-browser
rate any [e]-record	5p+3LT*	[e]-browser, torrent details
first [e]-comment	1	[e]-browser
new topic in forums	1	forums page
new post in forums	0.5	forums page
donation to tribalmixes	100p$	donations page
ratio warning removed	2	according to rules
first torrent snatcher	1	new torrents
fulfill reseed request	6	comfirmed reseeds
become power user	3	accodring to rules
your torrent historized	2	end of t-life
your torrent goes undead	20	150 snatches now
post public shout in shoutbox	0	too easy...:)
your torrent gets rated as 4	1	details/torrents
your torrent gets rated as 5	5	details/torrents
seed 1 torrent for 1 minute****	0.002	your torrent soft

you will also lose points when...
your torrent is deleted	-10	bad/dead torrent
your comment is deleted	-1	any reason
your forum post is deleted	-1	to delete this
your forum topic is deleted	-2	total removal

^* - +2LT = plus 2 free Lottery Tickets as a rewarn for 'taking' this action
^** - fresh = uploaded less than 7 days ago
^*** - only for user-levels Power User and higher
^**** - read full explanations of that below...

points given for seeding::

please note that seeding a torrent for 1 week without uploading any data on it will be about equal to just 5-10 minutes of uploading data to someone on speed of 5-10kb/s, so basically these points add up for solidness and show that more people seed more they get immortal rating pumping.

undead torrents stand apart. since torrents become undead after that many snatches, that not many people will download them again, but seeding undead torrents is good for all new users to be able to download them, because many torrents after becoming undead double their downloads number in a month or so.. so basically for seeding an UNDEAD torrent you will receive 0.0002 points per 1 minute. and this is the highest points you will get for seeding any torrent, but any everlife torrent gives 2*10^-4 points at any moment.

seeding a regular non-everlife torrent is a little complicated. since in first week we usually see torrents become undead, all data transfers are at that point. so first week of seeding a regular non everlife torrent gives no points at all for seeding, only uploading data on it. then 1 week after upload date, if you're still seeding this torrent, it (if didn't become undead yet) starts giving you points little little points - 0.00000001, and as older the torrent grows, as more points you get for seeding it. after 6 weeks torrent has been on the website, seeding it will give you the maximum amount of points - 0.0002 - same as everlife torrent at any moment of time. this is maxxed until torrent is removed from the website (if is gets removed...) ... so basically every day torrent lives after that week for next 5 weeks or 35 days, it gets a little increase of 2*10^^-4/35 ~ 6*10^^-6, which added up sums up into 0.0002 by the end of 6th week. this way the older torrent gets, the more points you get for seeding it. now you see that seeding everlife torrents for flatrate is explainable, otherwise they would give maaaaddd points..

there will be no doubled/multiplied upload credit for uploading on any kinds of torrents, but there will be debits for downloading everlife torrents. featured dj torrents are turned into UNDEAD everlife in first hours by admins, other torrents hit everlife on getting 150 (currently) snatches, but whenever a torrent becomes undead, if you name is already in the list of snatchers, you receive an award....

for cases when AZUREUS crashes and starts reregistering many many peers, no immortal points gets awarded..

usage of (for?) immortal points

first of all you will be able to give up some immortal points being a user or a power user (v.i.p.s and higher can do it freely) to display power title at those forum posts and comments.

1 point will be exchabged for 1MB upload credit. this is designed for users with warnings earning their points of 'empty seeding' without uploading due to no downloaders, and is a small reward, need 5000 (or even now less - only 500) minutes - about 8 hours seeding 1 torrent, or just 5 minutes seeding 100 torrents. so basically it's not a way to raise your ratio, but a way used to help get rid of warning or improve ratio just a little bit. person with 1000 points gets 1GB of upload credit for exchange, and even those seeding many torrents accumulated many points having say 1TB uploaded will not see any ratio raise ever on 10K points, just increasing their uploads to 1010GB.

for quite a few points you will soon be able to receive free download spree time, when all your downloads will turn into awards, so no ratio change. (not yet active)

in the awards center of yours, you can exchange immortal points for other awards, as UPLOAD credit, that you can apply to your account to increas your ratio.

be on the lookout for more sweet things coming to be traded for immortal points!!!

Why do I see messages saying "you have award that will expire soon"???

that is because you have pending awards that have expiration date and if you don't use them, they'll simply disappear in a few days. awards are given for a few reasons, and are supposed to help you with your ratio or just give you some fun. for warned users, awards can be a good way to get rid of the warning. there are a few types of awards:

UPLOAD credit - your total reported uploads ::up: increased by specified amount

DOWNLOAD debit - your total downloads ::down: decreased by specified data amoung

IMMORTAL boost - award is given as a number of immortal points

4warnedusers - there will be 1-2 kinds of awards specially for warned users, but this will become active when warned users start showing interest in that.

What is "Tribalmixes Lottery" and what is it for?

tribalmixes Lottery is a daily drawing of certain described prizes available to all users of any status, even warned. all prizes will use "awards" system, so they will all be redeemable, not auto-applied. this lottery is designed to give active users more fun here, no monetary prizes either.

Lottery drawings will be initiated and prizes randomly assigned only 1 time a day, at 12 noon, GMT00, server local time. there will always be only the most recent drawing results available online, all preceeding drawings are erased from db asa new one comes in.

each user will be able to claim 1 FREE ticket per daily drawing, each additional ticket will cost your immortal rating 1 immortal point, up to 100 tickets. if you're yet willing to get more, each one (that is over than 101 total tickets) will be exchanged for 5 of immortal points. but you must claim your ticket personally, you will not be entered into the drawing automatically.

prizes will be issued per 5000 tickets, so if less than 5k tickets are in the game for this current drawing, than some of the rarest prizes may not even pop up. and vice versa, if say about 10k tickets are taken today, than prizes frequency will be doubled (and the rarest will come up 2 times).

since immortal points can be exchanged for upload megabytes on awards page, there will only be 1 grand prize of each of 3 kinds (upload credit, download debit and immortal boost), and more prizes of just less immortal points. other prizes will be explained.

and the prizes in the lottery will be ::

megaPrize : IMMORTAL boost megaPrize[ 1 in every 7000 tickets] :: plus 2000 Immortal points

grandprize : IMMORTAL boost [ 1 in every 5000 tickets] :: plus 1000 Immortal points

grandprize : UPLOAD credit [ 1 in every 5000 tickets] :: plus 1GB up

grandprize : DOWNLOAD debit [ 1 in every 5000 tickets] :: minus 2GB down (or user's down, if less)

IMMORTAL boost : 5 of 500 points (1 in 1000), 10 of 100 points (1 in 500), 100 of 25 points (1 in 50)

as soon as new raffle is done in first 15 minutes past noon GMT, lottery info will be updated and awards will be assigned at that very moment. enjoy...
click this link to claim your free ticket, if you haven't yet picked it up today!!!

Everything you ever wanted to know, but have never felt comfortable enough to ask about awards...

this is going to be a little quick Q:question1, A:answer1 f.a.q. inside the Main F.A.Q. well, answers might seem a little big sometimes, but if you do want to get your warning off or simply improve your ratio much, you need to know all this things, so please take a little time and read, and a lot of good times later is guaranteed!@

Q: where do i find my awards?
A: click this link, bookmark the page, if needed.

Q: how do i get an award?
A: to receive awards you can either download everLife torrents or take part in the Lottery, donating also gives you awards, but in a sense of auto-applying them.

Q: why my ratio is changing when i download everLife torrents, which are supposed to be ratio-free?
A: because those torrents sizes are re-applied back to your acount on completion of the downloading process in a way of download debit awards, which you have to process yourselve manually from the Award Center.

Q: i've downloaded an everLife torrent and am seeding it right now. but i haven't received my award for it! where is it? a.k.a. Missing Awards
A: a few different situations could produce such an outcome (better, produce no outcome), some of them are caused by the user side, some are accidently created by server side.. in any way, simply open details on that torrent, if your name doesn't showup as one of the snatchers, and message below there says you haven't downloaded this torrent, you might be eligible for a download debit award... simply go back to torrent you think award you're missing, and look at the snatchers list. if you have reported some downloads on this torrent, there will be an explanatory table with link to claim the missing award.

Q: i've downloaded only several files out of an everLife megapack torrent, can i still get some award for that?
A: as a matter of fact, YES, you can, at any state of completion you can simply go to torrent details and look for [claim award] link in there. awards on any torrents can only be claimed just once, so please do not claim your award before all downloads are reported, only do it if your award wasn't issued to you after download completion.

Q: i've downloaded an everLife torrent, and my name is on the list of snatchers, but i've never had any award for this torrent! a.k.a. Award Disappeared??
A: for security reasons, awards for successful undead snatches are issued for the time period of 7 days when you can simply click the awards link anywhere and claim these awards by clicking on them. however, if you do not have time to check back, forget about awards or for any other reason you do not use any awards, they are permanently removed from the database, leaving you with nothing here, only strong experience.

Q: why did i receive download award for an everLife torrent twice less than the torrent size? a.k.a. how awarding mechanism works.
A: while downloading a torrent, something might happen, that causes your peer to stop updating its stats with the tracker, but it doesn't stop downloading, and might even finish without you knowing it's been off. if you were seeding and seed got rejected, then your further uploads won't be counted if seed stops updating it's info, but then your ip won't be given to anyone, so it's not a big loss for your account stats, if such happens. and tracker itself keeps record of your stats being updated, and then later if you report such a torrent completed, it will give you maybe, just 10% of the filesize that you downloaded and reported before seed was rejected/forgotten... thus tracker doesn't know what happens to your seed, and removes it from the database, preventing from the future stats updating. the main idea of this passage: whatever you report downloaded on a torrent (i.e. whatever downloads you had applied to your accound), will be returned to you as award if snatched torrent happens to receive such status. and again, if you didn't update the 'completed' part with the tracker, you can still do so and claim your award, most likely a part of it.

Q: i get tired of clicking award application links, what can i do to ease my life?
A: simply wait till you have more than 5-6 awards of same kind, you will see links allowing you to summarize them several awards into one by award type. there will be no auto-award-applicator added to the website's repository.

Q: i forgot/never had time to use the award i've recently received, and now i cannot see it. how can i get it back?
A: sorry, you simply can not. unused awards are deleted from the database whenever their life-time expires (usually 1 week), and there's no way to get back such an award.

Q: can awards help my ratio? can the lottery do so?
A: they both sure can. and are located on the same page. first check what awards you have on top of the page, use them, if you have some listed there, then look below for quick lottery info, and enter the daily drawing with at least 1 (free) ticket. one lucky win of the mega awesome GrandPrize is worth about 2GB upload credit, which would pretty much fix anyone new...

What is the idea of the "info types"? All these numbers on Control Panel are confusing..

"info types" is a new feature, more like an upgraded version of the "info scroller", the one that was (and is) (supposed) to scroll and show few messages and 10 ratio-free torrents. now this scroller can change information, up to 9 different types of data can be shown in the scroller (and scrolled along, of course). each of the little buttons with numbers 1 through 9 in the middle of Control Panel will load (or re-load) info into the scrolling area if clicked. keep your mouse pointer over each button to see what info-load it will trigger onclick.

this is the original set up, it has a few messages from the system to our new users, reminds about awards and lottery, and of course has the list of the latest (as in freshest) 10 ratio-Free torrents. we call these Ratio-Free torrents "fresh", because our superior staff manually assigns some of the new freshly uploaded torrents to be that way (torrents of our local djs, from our radio, etc)..

not all torrents that become Ratio-Free are fresh, some of them may be weeks old (on-line) before reaching this Undead Status, Ratio-Free being just one of the benefits of it. System does this itself, it searches for torrents to make them Ratio-Free according to 150 snatches achievements. Also if staff manually turns torrent Ratio-Free 24hrs after upload time - that torrent will be reported here as well. for more reports on such "late" Ratio-Free torrents can be found in this forum topic.

the remaining 7 of these quick info types buttons represent somewhat a selection of several categories from our Newest TOP 20 Torrents CHARTS. these charts deal with torrents only, have 15 categories that combine in 7 groups, thus 1 category of each group was placed onto the Info Types Section in the middle of the Control Panel. that was done for easy and fast access to this data, as long as to promote more downloads on hottest torrents. enough said, this 3rd button will show you Top 20 Best Seeded Torrents, that were uploaded and shared on the tribalmixes dot com within last 10 days.

this 4th button shows Top 20 Most Active torrents (24 hrs old max), thus only the freshest torrents will get into this chart.

here you will see Top 20 Most Discussed Torrents which were brought about to the site within last 10 days. the measure of success in this category is simply the amount of comments that users post on/about torrents.

this is one of the easiest categories in the Charts, and it reads simply Top 20 Most Downloaded Torrents (shared within last 10 days).

a bit harder to explain, but still quite easy to comprehend, this category is made by torrents receiving ratings from users, each rating can be from 1 to 5, and the total sum of all user-ratings given to the torrent can compete in this Top 20 Torrents by Total Summary Rating, again in this case for any torrent shared on the site within last 50 days. just a few more words will explain this and the next categories' importance. comparison of torrents by their average ratings is nice and possible, but will not consider all torrents in it... how can we decide which torrent's rating means better and gives more info: a torrent with 10 ratings of 5 (max rating), or one with total of 51 ratings, where 50 ratings are 5s and one rating is 4, which makes average rating less than 5, so such a torrent must have a lesser position in Top 20, but it was rated by 51 people, isn't that much better than just 10 people, the 10 of the biggest fans that will give 5 most likely to any of the dj's mixes? this can turn into a long debate, that is why it was decided not to bother with average ratings, but to involve this Total Summary Rating and the next one.

this one is alot easier to understand, it represents Top 20 Torrents selected by Total Number of Ratings, basically it shows how many downloaders have rated this torrent, not depending on the rating itself. also adds up to total popularity, right?

and here comes the Main rating (well, 3 of them - in 24hrs, 10 and 50 days, but here we only show 24 hour version), whose only existence is based upon ALL other ratings. to put it in two words: all TOP 20 CHARTS (including this one and its brothers) give points to torrents for just being listed in such "hot twenties", most for 1st spot, gradually less for lesser spots. well, these points, summarized, give us the GLOBAL POPULARITY RATING, which observes virtually any activities associated with torrents and counts and gives points and adds them up, and here you go - check out the most popular torrents on tribalmixes in last 24hrs. very useful.. =) more info on how these charts work can be found here.

and don't forget, we're always ready to expand these charts, add new ones, so don't hestitate to contact us, if you have a great idea!!

USER INFORMATION

I received a

Warning... What to do NOW???

ok, you were unlucky, forgot to read rules on signup, didn't care about your ratio, didn't expect website to be good, and another hundred more of your explanations why you end up without downloading rights. there's only one thing you need to accept and understand : it is all your own fault. everything is done by staff to stop you from receiving a warning: you cannot download more than 3 files at first, rules are sticking from everywhere, and still many users do not care to read them...

well, cheer up, as this is a full and complete text on how to get rid of your warning asap. if you follow these steps, you can get back to downloading new music in no time! also included few "strategy" steps, that could definitely help you boost your share ratio UP!!!

step0 :: before you go ahead and read steps below, please find part about AWARDS and read it throughly.. it will help a lot! in most cases you could probably remove your warning right away!

step1 :: click your ratio number on the control panel above - you will see some first-hands info. it says how big of a ratio you need and also lists all torrents that you have so far downloaded and have access to...

step2 :: download all those torrents - and open them in your client for seeding, if you have removed them from there already. when opening torrents in the program, make sure to point your client to save to existing files and folders that appeared when you downloaded these torrents before. you will probably see each torrent first report "checking : XX%" and then "seeding" or "queued".

step3 :: seed your downloads!!! - this is the backbone of keeping your ratio up. seeding is the best way to do it. force-start all these torrents in your client, set the max upload speed to 0 (maximum possible) and see what happens. if torrents you have are well demanded, your client will upload data and your ratio will grow.

step4 :: keep seeding 24/7/365 - users from all over the world check in here and can start downloading torrents that you are seeding any moment! let your seed be there when they do it! sometimes you might not upload any data in days, but then 1 hour will be enough to fix it.

step5 :: still keep seeding!!! - and it will give you immortal points. if you seed 10 torrents for 1 week, you will earn 10 immortal points for that, 100 torrents - 100 points. these points can be exchanged for UPLOAD credit and applied to your ratio to grow it up a little bit. this is not the best way to get rid of your warning, but it is something and will help you, although it will take longer time...

step6 :: take part in Lottery - you can get awesome prizes of 1GB upload credit, 1000 points and more! every user with or without warning can claim 1 free ticket daily and trade more for immortal points, that increases chances for lucky winning.

step7 :: read more of this F.A.Q. - find out how you can get extra immortal points, almost any activity on the website is rewarded with immortal points

step8 :: download everLIFE torrents - they are RATIO-FREE!!! yes, it is true, undead/everLife torrents give you DOWNLOAD debit award when download is complete, apply it to your ratio and it's back to where it was! but don't forget to leave torrent running in your client to keep seeding it - that will definitely help your ratio! download few of them everLives and seed them, help your ratio grow! this also gives you highest immortal points...

step9 :: FEATURED DJs torrents - same as above, since they are everLIFE, you get a download award for getting them too!

stepA :: read more - and reading will help you find ways to help yourself! read forums, f.a.q., rules, everything that is readable, and you will definitely succed!

What is 'Total Silence' mode? How does it work?

'Total Silence' mode was introduced in July 2009 to serve as means of user's access closure to many specific vital website function dealing with expressing one's opinions. what functions exactly does 'Total Silence' mode cover? well, pretty much all oral (typed) communication... when SysOp places a user into such a mode, this user CAN NOT (loses ability to):

comment on torrents or quote comments of other users

start new forum topics, post new posts or quote other posts

submit public or private shouts in ShoutBox

write Personal Messages to others, forward or reply PMs of other users

rate downloaded torrents, [e]-records (DJs, shows, radios, etc)

report other users' activities or suspicious torrents to SysOp

upload new pictures into SkinMaster, as much as use this tool in general

Who can silenced? Rather, What are the Reasons someone can get silenced by SysOp?

excessive advertising of unrelated or competing websites in shoutbox, forums & torrent comments

multiple comments or posts containing little sense or intellectual value, most likely only smiley faces or thank-you-s

continious use of bad language, public cursing, as well as persistent use of any languages besides english in public areas of the website

SysOp reserves the right to silence any user if "the better" of the community is at stake. if you think you were silenced for no reason, have any questions and or want to file an appeal - directe all mail to sysop@tribalmixes.com.

I registered an account but did not receive the confirmation e-mail!

You can use this form to delete the account so you can re-register. Note though that if you didn't receive the email the first time it will probably not succeed the second time either so you should really try another email address.

I've lost my user name or password! Can you send it to me?

Please use this form to have the login details mailed back to you. Do not contact sysop or any other staff member on this issue - noone can help, noone has access to this information.

Can you rename my account?

We do not rename accounts. Renamed accounts become unusable. Please create a new one. (Use this form to delete your present account.)

Can you delete my (confirmed) account?

You can do it yourself by using this form. We will not. We value your presense around here!!

What is Share-Ratio and why do I have to watch mine?

Look above this text, right under that banner on top we have an informational panel with your name and an info-scroller on the right. It shows you what is your numeric value for the Share-Ratio.

To make everything a bit more understandable let's clarify what is ratio itself. You ratio is result of total uploads divided by total downloads. So when you download something, you also can upload this stuff that you get to others. If you do and do well, your ratio will be close to 1.00 or above that. This doesn't mean uploading new torrents to the website, but rather letting other users get from you what you've got from them before. This is the basic core of torrent based filesharing networks.

So to happyly stay on the website you need to keep your ratio according to rules to follow. If you fail to comply with those ratio-rules, you will not be able to download torrents for as long as your ratio is not withing some regions. Sorry. We do not want consumers, but more likely brothers in passion.

and here goes the relational (download<-RATIO->upload) table. it is very simple. column 'down' means downloaded amount of data, column 'ratio' is the least ratio you can have when your downloads reach listed 'downloaded', and column 'uploaded' is just the actual minimum amout of data you need to have uploaded to still be able to download new torrents and music.

downloaded	ratio	uploaded
up to 20 GB	any	does not apply
20 GB	0.10	2 GB
50 GB	0.20	10 GB
100 GB	0.30	30 GB
500 GB	0.40	200 GB

if you ever get an error directing you here when clicking on a torrent link, it means that your ratio has fallen below allowed limits and you get into stage of not being able to download. this info will appear on your control panel as well as 'avail:NN MB', where NN will show how much data you can still download with this ratio you have. of course if your ratio is above listed values, you can download all you want until you see these messages.

as a new feature on the website, you can donate some money towards the hosting expenses on our dedicated server. in return you will get upload credit starting at 3GB per every $5 you donate; the more you donate, the bigger these credits get, all the way up to 16GB per $1 of donation. this is a little token of out appreciation. if you have donated and want that credit applied to your account, please mention it to sysop, supply your donated amount, transaction id and used email address.

also it's important to distinguish between your overall ratio and the individual ratio on each torrent you may be seeding or leeching. The overall ratio takes into account the total uploaded and downloaded from your account since you joined the site. The individual ratio takes into account those values for each torrent.

You may see two symbols instead of a number: "Inf.", which is just an abbreviation for Infinity, and means that you have downloaded 0 bytes while uploading a non-zero amount (ul/dl becomes infinity); "---", which should be read as "non-available", and shows up when you have both downloaded and uploaded 0 bytes (ul/dl = 0/0 which is an indeterminate amount).

How can I improve my Share-Ratio? NewMemberGuide...

you can be reading this in three cases: just wondering through the faq, clicked on a warning sign on someone's nickname or received a warning and clicked on the red triangle next to your nickname. just a few minutes of your attention will help you stay on the website, because warning means that you've downloaded too much and shared too little, in other words, didn't let other users download from you those same mp3s that you download from them. it is displayed in your ratio and is explained just above this topic here. so hopefully you want to stick around here, and here are some tips on how to improve your ratio if it is dramatically low. and please read your mail by clicking on that envelope at the top right of the screen. many things are explained there!

what you need to do is share those downloads you have from this website, and not really upload new torrents to the website.
first of all set your upload speed to 75-80% if what it can do. this will help download speed be highest.
then find in options and change a few options like: stop downloads when finished (uncheck, -- never stop!), stop when ratio is 1.0 or higher (if possible), number of active torrents 0 (unlimited!), allow connections to same ips (yes!), maybe option like queue->prioritize torrents with ratio below 1:1 (lets new torrents seed at better speed) and just check something else you would think let you seed better.
furthermore don't stop those torrents for a few days. whenever you download something else let others get these torrents from you.
try to become connectable. this and lots of other stuff you MUST read in this topic!! it really helps, seriously hard heavy helps!!! :)
for more experienced: check top ten page torrents part, and those torrents in demand that you've got earlier just open them in the client again.
opening torrent for seeding is same like resuming a torrent.

(newmemberguide) - good start for new users
as a general strategy for new users would be following: keep your ratio close to 1.00 or above it, which would be really hard to regain later, when you download 10-20 mixes. start with 1-5 torrents, download them, complete them, let them seed, don't stop them, then next day check your ratio. if it is above 0.40 - download more, but again leave them all open, and so on. that is in case you just joined and want a lot of music. you could be reading this after downloading just 2-3 sets with size totaling 1GB, but didn't upload nothing. you can be in situation when you will be the only one leeching a file, so try first to download files with many seeders and leechers. share, share, share! top sharers get rewarded! this website is free, and is kept running only by its users. we want to be friendly and have friendly users. and we don't ask much. and you will be banned if refuse to go with this easy way. :)

Why is my IP displayed on my details page?

Only you and the site's sysop, admin & moderators can view your IP address and email. Regular users do not see that information.

Help! I cannot login!? (a.k.a. Login of Death)

This problem sometimes occurs with earlier versions of MS Internet Explorer. Close all Internet Explorer windows and open Internet Options in the control panel. Click the Delete Cookies button. You should now be able to login.

My IP address is dynamic. How do I stay logged in?

You do not have to anymore. All you have to do is make sure you are logged in with your actual IP when starting a torrent session. After that, even if the IP changes mid-session, the seeding or leeching will continue and the statistics will update without any problem.

What are the different user classes?

user	the default class of new members. regular users would usually have to wait to download new mixes, if their ratio or data transfer are below some limits described further.
power user	power users can upload torrents. they can read info on mixes if posted. they also gain access to more graphical skins for this site. becoming a power user should be your target for the first few weeks of using the web site if you want to stick around in future.
donor	has donated money to tribalmixes.com.
[E]ditor	chosen few users of any class that have access to [e]-browser database, they can add information into the [e]ntertainment database, edit records, update stuff. if you don't see your dj or simply wan to add new name - please contact them. being part of the staff, their names are listed here..
V.I.P.	Same privileges as Power User and is considered an Elite Member of tribalmixesdotcom. Immune to automatic demotion. Can access even more skins with animated buttons, logos, picture backgrounds...
platinum user	has donated lots of money to tribalmixes.com... access level V.I.P. with many nice additions.
uploader	Same as V.I.P but also takes the part in the website staff, taking decisions on community life, and of course bringing many torrents to you.
moderator	Can edit and delete any uploaded torrents. Can also moderate user comments and disable accounts.
administrator	Can do just about anything.
sysop	slash (site owner & creator).

How does this promotion thing work anyway?

power user NEW NEW NEW 22 aug 2009	Must have been be a member for at least 8 weeks, have uploaded at least 50GB and have share-ratio at or above 2.00. The promotion is automatic when these conditions are met. Note, that you will also be automatically demoted from this status if your ratio drops below 1.90 at any time. IMPORTANT!!! these are new rules for NEW power users, while 'old' power users will still be treated by old regulations (ratio must be kept above 0.95 to stay in status). if such a power user's share-ratio drops below 0.95 - power user gets demoted into user and has to adhere to NEW rules of power user promotion described above.
	Simply donate some money, and send slash - and only slash - the details. this star will appear next to your name very quick.
V.I.P.	Assigned by moderators (and higher) at their discretion to users they feel contribute something special to the site. (Anyone begging for v.i.p. status will be automatically ignored.)
uploader	Appointed by admin/sysop (see the 'Uploading' section for requirements).
moderator	Don't ask to become one, we will ask you!

Why can't my friend become a member?

Did we reach max 50k users already? If yes, sorry, just wait for an open reg-spot. If no, then it is probably the issue of same ip-address. tell your friend to try and register from their home computer.

How do I add an avatar to my profile?

First, find an image that you like, and that is within the avatar rules. Then you will have to find a place to host it, such as Photobucket, Upload-It! or ImageShack). All that is left to do is copy the URL you were given when uploading it to the avatar field in your profile.

Please do not make a post just to test your avatar. If everything is allright you'll see it in your details page.

Why do I see strange/funny pics next to my name?

these strange pics are default avatars, and they are randomly selected each time from some number of default pictures. it was made just to spring more fun into forums and comments.. the collection will constantly grow. if you like some of the pictures that you want to make it your own avatar - just copy the locationg and post in your OUTLOOK section in the right spot. you can also set up your own avatar there if you have it stored somewhere in the net, or if not - check SKINMASTER and see how you can store small sized pictures right here on tribalmixes.com..

How to set up a multiple/dynamic avatar?

this is for an understanding user, who knows what to do, why and how, and will not ask questions after reading this section.. first of all you need to use the SKINMASTER to upload all the avatars you want to use. this feature will randomly select one of them each time your avatar needs to be displayed, so allowing as many different pictures as many posts or comments you've submitted. make sure all the files are formatted as slide?.jpg or slide?.gif, where ? (question mark) is a number : slide0.jpg, slide1.gif, slide2.gif,...,slide15.jpg,.. don't put extra 0-s. do not to miss any of the numbers. then you have 5-10 files, say 7 pics (slide0.jpg..slide6.jpg), simply click the OUTLOOK link and write [b]sliding 7[/b] in the avatar field. if you upload nothing and set up "sliding XX" it will be automatically removed by system, do not be surprised. if slide3.gif and slide3.jpg are present than only gif version will show up.

DOWNLOADING

How do I use the files I've downloaded?

Check out this guide

Why did an active torrent suddenly disappear?

There may be several reasons for this, most common of them:
(1) The torrent may have been out-of-sync with the site's rules.
(2) The uploader or a moderator may have deleted it because it was a bad release. A replacement will probably be uploaded to take its place.
(3) Torrents are automatically deleted after 105 days if have not reached everLife status.

How do I resume a broken download or reseed something?

Open the .torrent file. Drag'n'drop it into your client or double-click the file. When your client asks you for a location, choose the location of the existing file(s) or folder(s) and it will automatically try to resume/reseed the torrent.

Why do my downloads sometimes stall at 99%?

The more pieces (parts of torrent's data) you have, the harder it becomes to find peers who have pieces you are missing. That is why downloads sometimes slow down or even stall when there are just a few percent remaining. Just be patient and you will, sooner or later, get the remaining pieces.

On the other hand, there's a stronger and worse reason for this issue: bad torrent Data. It's not necessairily corrupted, but bad in the means of client's hash checks. if you do not know yet, torrents are strongly protecting their integrity with so called "hash-info". when the .torrent file is created by someone on their computer for a file called "my.mp3", their torrent client software (or torrent-making software) quickly reads through the file "my.mp3", "splits it" in many many smaller pieces and calculates hash for each one of them. later when you download this torrent, your client uses these hash sums to check each and every piece of data it downloads. if some piece's hash info isn't same as it is listed in the .torrent file, it means that something got corrupted on the way to your computer, and so this piece is re-downloaded from someone else. this is why all your downloads done through bittorrent protocol most of the time come out fast and sound, all files properly checked for the right hash sums.

Now imagine a situation when this someone mentioned above decides to change some id-tags of this "my.mp3", because he's forgotten to put his name in there, or even worse - some software does it by itself. "Real Player" has "put some library info into mp3" as one of its default options. To make this short, file "my.mp3" gets phisically changed on the uploader's computer. And what happens next? Its HASH sums become different!!! and so your client get all the "unchanged" data as it usually does, and then it reached the last piece of the mp3 that preserves the id-tags (genre, title, artist and all that stuff) right inside the mp3-file. Your client sees that the piece it received does not produce same hash sum as it says in the descriptor hash sums collection .torrent file. Yout client tries to find other sources that have the proper original data, but noone has it, because the original uploader changed mp3 and now noone at all has the proper data, proper mp3. And you will not get it in full.

There's an easy solution to this issue: stop downloading if it gets stuck at 99.8%. why? because this can only be solved if the original uploader makes a new .torrent file and shares it on some tracker once again (if you resume the download then - you'll instantly have 100%). and because you already have 99.8% of the file, so basically it's all intact except for the id-tags part, and that part usually carries no sounds, or if it does - it's usually in the end of the mp3, so maybe 5secs of 1hr of music will be bad, but the rest is fine and playable and enjoyable. The third and the most dangerous reason why you should stop the download is simply because sometimes it WILL NOT STOP BY ITSELF, your client might get looped and keep and keep trying to get the proper piece of the mp3, and other clients might keep and keep sending you that piece as well, so you end up downloading 15GB of data for this torrent overnight. good if the torrent was ratio-free, then you can request your download debit award for that, and it will probably cover all the 15GB downloaded. but what if torrent wasn't ratio-free? your ratio will suffer dramatically. so, yeah... watch out for these things... don't be blaming website later - it's all the uploader's fault.

What are these "a piece has failed hash check" messages?

Bittorrent clients check the data they receive for integrity. When a piece fails this check it is automatically re-downloaded. Occasional hash fails are a common occurrence, and you shouldn't worry.

Some clients have an (advanced) option/preference to 'kick/ban clients that send you bad data' or similar. It should be turned on, since it makes sure that if a peer repeatedly sends you pieces that fail the hash check it will be ignored in the future.

The torrent is supposed to be 100MB. How come I downloaded 120MB?

See the hash fails topic right above. If your client receives bad data it will have to redownload it, therefore the total downloaded may be larger than the torrent size. Make sure the "kick/ban bad clients" option is turned on to minimize the extra downloads.

Why does it say "Connectable - !!! NO !!!" in peer lists? (And why should I care?)

The tracker has determined that you are firewalled or NATed and cannot accept incoming connections. So you and your peer are pronounced not-connectable.

This means that other peers in the swarm will be unable to connect to you, only you to them. Even worse, if two peers are both in this state they will not be able to connect at all. This has obviously a detrimental effect on the overall speed.

The way to solve the problem involves opening the ports used for incoming connections (the same range you defined in your client) on the firewall and/or configuring your NAT server to use a basic form of NAT for that range instead of NAPT (the actual process differs widely between different router models. Check your router documentation and/or support forum. You will also find lots of information on the subject at PortForward).

Why do I get a "rejected by tracker - Port xxxx is blacklisted" error?

Your client is reporting to the tracker that it uses one of the default bittorrent ports (6881-6889) or any other common p2p port for incoming connections.

tribalmixesdotcom does not allow clients to use ports commonly associated with p2p protocols. The reason for this is that it is a common practice for ISPs to throttle those ports (that is, limit the bandwidth, hence the speed).

The blocked ports list includes, but is not neccessarily limited to: Direct Connect (411 - 413), Kazaa (1214), eDonkey (4662), Gnutella (6346 - 6347), BitTorrent (6881 - 6889).

In order to use use our tracker you must configure your client to use any port range that does not contain those ports (a range within the region 49152 through 65535 is preferable, cf. IANA). Notice that some clients, like Azureus or Utorrent, use a single port for all torrents, while some others use one port per one open torrent. The size of the range you choose should take this into account (typically less than 100 ports wide. There is no benefit whatsoever in choosing a wide range, and there are possible security implications).

These ports are used for connections between peers, not client to tracker. Therefore this change will not interfere with your ability to use other trackers (in fact it should increase your speed with torrents from any tracker, not just ours). Your client will also still be able to connect to peers that are using the standard ports. If your client does not allow custom ports to be used, you will have to switch to one that does.

Do not ask us, or in the forums, which ports you should choose. The more random the choice is the harder it will be for ISPs to catch on to us and start limiting speeds on the ports we use. If we simply define another range ISPs will start throttling that range also.

Finally, remember to forward the chosen ports in your router and/or open them in your firewall, should you have them. See the Why does it say "Connectable - !!! NO !!!" in peer lists? section and links therein for more information on this.

What's this "IOError - [Errno13] Permission denied" error?

If you just want to fix it reboot your computer, it should solve the problem. Otherwise read on.

IOError means Input-Output Error, and that is a file system error, not a tracker one. It shows up when your client is for some reason unable to open the partially downloaded torrent files. The most common cause is two instances of the client to be running simultaneously: the last time the client was closed it somehow didn't really close but kept running in the background, and is therefore still locking the files, making it impossible for the new instance to open them.

A more uncommon occurrence is a corrupted FAT. A crash may result in corruption that makes the partially downloaded files unreadable, and the error ensues. Running scandisk should solve the problem. (Note that this may happen only if you're running Windows 9x - which only support FAT - or NT/2000/XP with FAT formatted hard drives. NTFS is much more robust and should never permit this problem.)

What does "everLife" mean? How do Ratio-Free torrents work?

here we have a new 'type' of torrents, which have their time to live for ever, and that is until mod/admin/sysop or owner/uploader deletes them. otherwise no timelimits specified. usually it will be a mix by one of our featured djs, or it can be a very popular torrent, which was so in-demand, that sysop decides to let it live longer. if you really fill your torrent deserves to live forever - let us know.

everLIFE or Undead or Ratio-Free torrents are going to be with us here for ever, until one of staff or owner decides to remove it. torrents also become undead if they reach 150 (currently only 100) snatches. that shows that torrent is really demanded and that people coming much later will see it and want it and be able to download it also. if you have read prevois sections of this document you could also notice facts such as :

everLIFE torrents are RATIO-FREE downloads, which is gained in rewarding snatchers by decreasing their total downloads by "the reported download amount" of those undead torrents. this happens through awards mechanism. don't forget to apply those awards when you receive them, it's a manual process! while downloading your ratio will drop a little, though, but later you restore it from that award.
featured DJ torrents are everLIFE torrents as well, not to mention the quality of music there, yo! :)
everLIFE torrents reward you post-factum i.e. you will get a download debit award for torrent you've downloaded 2 weeks ago, if this torrent goes undead today.
everLIFE torrents only give you DOWNLOAD debit award on FIRST SNATCH, meaning you lose mp3s and download them again - no award is given!!
everLIFE torrents give their owners 20 immortal points when they achive this status.
one everLIFE torrent will give you about 700 immortal points if you seed it for 1 year, 100 of them - 70.000...

UPLOADING

Why I can not upload and share new torrents?

at some timepoint, in march 2006, we had about 4000 users and new torrents were appearing as mushrooms after a summer rain (which should be very very frequent and often). so after some debates and discussion, we - the staff - decided to close and limit uploads, clearly to restrict uploading to power users and higher in class, which leaves users without uploading priviliges. most of the users would just try to raise ratio and not provide good and quality new music, reupload old mixes they've got from here. this is inacceptable and bad. so no more user uploads. :(

for those who will still be uploading, the rules about mistakes are still in power. if your upload is removed from website by someone from staff, - you lose upload privilidges for at least one month. this is done to protect the website and all the users from somebody who doesn't read faq and rules, but wants to upload and share, not knowing what they're doing. remember, your action counts as a mistake in case a torrent you've uploaded is deleted by someone from staff. There are 3 types of mistakes:

Light mistake (1 month uploading privileges revocation): given for wrong torrent name format (read what's written on the uploading page, it has some vital info), rebroadcast (unnoticed by uploader - still uploader's fault)..

Mild mistake (3 months revocation): given for uploading a double torrent (always check if your torrent already exists, it's easy and safe), a fake torrent (sometimes you get fakes on the net, always try to compare and see if it's genuine mixing, not some backdoor metal bucket banging...)

Hot mistake (complete revocation of uploading rights): given for uploading something illegal/commercial, something that doesn't belong to a free-for-all site like tribalmixes.com, also it is given out when uploading rules are harshly and deliberately broken.

these mistakes are avoidable. first of all, read website rules and then the special additional uploading regulations that show up when you click the upload link. equiped with that knowledge, you will never make any mistakes. although if something happens and a "bad" torrent slips through into tribalmixes, - nothing is yet lost!! in case of light and mild mistakes the website staff will point it out for you as soon as it's noticed. there will most likely be a comment on your torrent saying that it's going to be removed in a few hours (usually happens with light mistakes, so that uploader could edit torrent according to rules) or why this torrent must be deleted (mostly for mild mistakes, so that uploader could remove torrent on their own). in case something like this happens, swiftly bring your torrent to allowed standards or remove it completely, - this way you do not suffer any consequences. but if a staff member removes a torrent (for hot mistakes removal is instant, without any prior notifications) - then you're in trouble, facing at least 1 month of no-uploading.

the website's staff is trying to work with everyone and help everyone, understanding their personal situations, needs, power outtages, etc. but we cannot allow faulty torrents to stay online for more than a few hours, that is why it is crucially important to come back 2-3 hours after the upload time and check on your torrent, see if someone found something wrong with it and reported... if no response is seen from the uploader within first few hours of mistake notification, torrent is removed by staff. we do not like to do that, but we have to. and since it's not our favorite time-spending activity (giving out revocations aka fixing other's mistakes), we've added a progressing ladder of punishments, which basically means that each new offense (of the type that already happened before) will double, then triple your uploading priveleges revocation period. and so the 4th Mild mistake you make will stop you from uploading for 1 whole year (4th Mild offense = 4 * 3 months = 1 year)!

What criteria must I meet before I can get the Uploader rank?

You must be able to provide dj mixes and releases that:

include a proper nfo, description and track-list

are genuine clubmusic-scene releases or personal recordings,

are not older than 2 months,

have all files in original format (usually mp3, use no archives but rather folders),

also these are required technical issues:

you MUST be able to seed or make sure your uploads are well-seeded, for at least 24 hours.

you should have atleast dsl/cable connection or equal with upload bandwith at least 40-50KB/s (300-400kbps).

you MUST be Power User in status, there will be no users making into uploader team without being a power user. this is to make sure you know what you are doing and you can seed your torrents.

you MUST have 30-40 torrents online!!! noone will become uploader without having quite a few torrents already online.

If you think you can match these criteria do not hesitate to contact one of the administrators or moderators. Remember! Write your application carefully! Be sure to include your upload speed and what kind of stuff you're planning to upload. all messages will be considered and reviewed.

Can I upload your torrents to other trackers? Do I need to credit the source?

Yes and No (to the first part of the question). We are a closed, limited-membership community. Only registered users can use the tracker. Posting our torrents on other trackers is useless, since most people who attempt to download them will be unable to connect with us. that is included that all our torrents are made "private", thus noone will be welcomed to connect to and download from our community members. even those trying to use DHT to avoid such restrictions will still fail, unless they're using some tweaked clients..

However, if you decide to upload and share our mixes on other trackers, you MUST credit the source where you have taken this mix and the original uploader. If someone is noticed to do this and consume all the credit for themselves, they will be expelled (banned) from tribalmixes!

What kind of uploading material is legal and what can I upload?

only full length dj mixes recorded from radio or live at the arenas and clubs are allowed here, as well as personal products, such as demos/promos/etc. this means, that any kinds of official releases (including albums produced by djs) will momentarily be deleted from the site. that is due to a strong wish of the site admins to stay legal and to live a long life. please do not request any albums to be posted here and do not do it yourself even if you own the cd and made a copy of it in mp3 format. still that doesnt allow you to share this intellectual property with others.

site's administration reserves the right of the final judgment on anything that looks even remotely illegal.

STATS

Most common reason for stats not updating

The user is cheating. (a.k.a. "Summary Ban")
The server is overloaded and unresponsive. Just try to keep the session open until the server responds again. (Flooding the server with consecutive manual updates is not recommended.)
You are using a faulty client. If you want to use an experimental or CVS version you do it at your own risk.

Best practices

If a torrent you are currently leeching/seeding is not listed on your profile, just wait or force a manual update.
Make sure you exit your client properly, so that the tracker receives "event=completed".
If the tracker is down, do not stop seeding. As long as the tracker is back up before you exit the client the stats should update properly.

May I use any bittorrent client?

Yes. The tracker now updates the stats correctly for all bittorrent clients. However, we still recommend that you avoid the following clients:

� BitTorrent++,
� Nova Torrent,
� TorrentStorm.

These clients do not report correctly to the tracker when canceling/finishing a torrent session. If you use them then a few MB may not be counted towards the stats near the end, and torrents may still be listed in your profile for some time after you have closed the client.

Also, clients in alpha or beta version should be avoided.

Tribalmixes.com recommends uTorrent client as a really light weight, strongly functional, fast and easy to use.

Why is a torrent I'm leeching/seeding listed several times in my profile?

If for some reason (e.g. pc crash, or frozen client) your client exits improperly and you restart it, it will have a new peer_id, so it will show as a new torrent. The old one will never receive a "event=completed" or "event=stopped" and will be listed until some tracker timeout. Just ignore it, it will eventually go away.

I've finished or cancelled a torrent. Why is it still listed in my profile?

Some clients, notably TorrentStorm and Nova Torrent, do not report properly to the tracker when canceling or finishing a torrent. In that case the tracker will keep waiting for some message - and thus listing the torrent as seeding or leeching - until some timeout occurs. Just ignore it, it will eventually go away.

Why do I sometimes see torrents I'm not leeching in my profile!?

When a torrent is first started, the tracker uses the IP to identify the user. Therefore the torrent will become associated with the user who last accessed the site from that IP. If you share your IP in some way (you are behind NAT/ICS, or using a proxy), and some of the persons you share it with are also users, you may occasionally see their torrents listed in your profile. (If they start a torrent session from that IP and you were the last one to visit the site the torrent will be associated with you). Note that now torrents listed in your profile will always count towards your total stats.

To make sure your torrents show up in your profile you should visit the site immediately before starting a session.

Multiple IPs (Can I login from different computers?)

Yes, the tracker is now capable of following sessions from different IPs for the same user. A torrent is associated with the user when it starts, and only at that moment is the IP relevant. So if you want to seed/leech from computer A and computer B with the same account you should access the site from computer A, start the torrent there, and then repeat both steps from computer B (not limited to two computers or to a single torrent on each, this is just the simplest example). You do not need to login again when closing the torrent.

How does NAT/ICS change the picture?

This is a very particular case in that all computers in the LAN will appear to the outside world as having the same IP. We must distinguish between two cases:

1. You are the single tribalmixesdotcom user in the LAN

You should use the same tribalmixesdotcom account on all the computers.

Note also that in the ICS case it is preferable to run the BT client on the ICS gateway. Clients running on the other computers will be unconnectable (their ports will be listed as "---", as explained elsewhere in the FAQ) unless you specify the appropriate services in your ICS configuration (a good explanation of how to do this for Windows XP can be found here). In the NAT case you should configure different ranges for clients on different computers and create appropriate NAT rules in the router. (Details vary widely from router to router and are outside the scope of this FAQ. Check your router documentation and/or support forum.)

2. There are multiple tribalmixesdotcom users in the LAN

At present there is no way of making this setup always work properly with tribalmixesdotcom. Each torrent will be associated with the user who last accessed the site from within the LAN before the torrent was started. Unless there is cooperation between the users mixing of statistics is possible. (User A accesses the site, downloads a .torrent file, but does not start the torrent immediately. Meanwhile, user B accesses the site. User A then starts the torrent. The torrent will count towards user B's statistics, not user A's.)

It is your LAN, the responsibility is yours. Do not ask us to ban other users with the same IP, we will not do that. (Why should we ban him instead of you?)

For those of you who are interested...

Some info about the "Anatomy of a torrent session".

How can I improve my download speed?

The download speed mostly depends on the seeder-to-leecher ratio (SLR). Poor download speed is mainly a problem with new and very popular torrents where the SLR is low. (Proselytising sidenote: make sure you remember that you did not enjoy the low speed. Seed so that others will not endure the same.) There are a few things that you can try on your end to improve your speed...

Do not immediately jump on new torrents

In particular, do not do it if you have a slow connection. The best speeds will be found around the half-life of a torrent, when the SLR will be at its highest. (The downside is that you will not be able to seed so much. It's up to you to balance the pros and cons of this.)

Make yourself connectable

See the Why is my port listed as "---" section.

Limit your upload speed

The upload speed affects the download speed in essentially two ways:

Bittorrent peers tend to favour those other peers that upload to them. This means that if A and B are leeching the same torrent and A is sending data to B at high speed then B will try to reciprocate. So due to this effect high upload speeds lead to high download speeds.
Due to the way TCP works, when A is downloading something from B it has to keep telling B that it received the data sent to him. (These are called acknowledgements - ACKs -, a sort of "got it!" messages). If A fails to do this then B will stop sending data and wait. If A is uploading at full speed there may be no bandwidth left for the ACKs and they will be delayed. So due to this effect excessively high upload speeds lead to low download speeds.

The full effect is a combination of the two. The upload should be kept as high as possible while allowing the ACKs to get through without delay. A good thumb rule is keeping the upload at about 80% of the theoretical upload speed. You will have to fine tune yours to find out what works best for you. (Remember that keeping the upload high has the additional benefit of helping with your ratio.)

If you are running more than one instance of a client it is the overall upload speed that you must take into account. Some clients (e.g. Azureus) limit global upload speed, others (e.g. Shad0w's) do it on a per torrent basis. Know your client. The same applies if you are using your connection for anything else (e.g. browsing or ftp), always think of the overall upload speed.

Limit the number of simultaneous connections

Some operating systems (like Windows 9x) do not deal well with a large number of connections, and may even crash. Also some home routers (particularly when running NAT and/or firewall with stateful inspection services) tend to become slow or crash when having to deal with too many connections. There are no fixed values for this, you may try 60 or 100 and experiment with the value. Note that these numbers are additive, if you have two instances of a client running the numbers add up.

Limit the number of simultaneous uploads

Isn't this the same as above? No. Connections limit the number of peers your client is talking to and/or downloading from. Uploads limit the number of peers your client is actually uploading to. The ideal number is typically much lower than the number of connections, and highly dependent on your (physical) connection.

Just give it some time

As explained above peers favour other peers that upload to them. When you start leeching a new torrent you have nothing to offer to other peers and they will tend to ignore you. This makes the starts slow, in particular if, by change, the peers you are connected to include few or no seeders. The download speed should increase as soon as you have some pieces to share.

Why is my browsing so slow while leeching?

Your download speed is always finite. If you are a peer in a fast torrent it will almost certainly saturate your download bandwidth, and your browsing will suffer. At the moment there is no client that allows you to limit the download speed, only the upload. You will have to use a third-party solution, such as NetLimiter.

Browsing was used just as an example, the same would apply to gaming, IMing, etc...

My ISP uses a transparent proxy. What should I do?

Caveat: This is a large and complex topic. It is not possible to cover all variations here.

And a short answer to your questions: change to an ISP that does not force a proxy upon you. If you cannot or do not want to then read on.

What is a proxy?

Basically a middleman. When you are browsing a site through a proxy your requests are sent to the proxy and the proxy forwards them to the site instead of you connecting directly to the site. There are several classifications (the terminology is far from standard):

Transparent	A transparent proxy is one that needs no configuration on the clients. It works by automatically redirecting all port 80 traffic to the proxy. (Sometimes used as synonymous for non-anonymous.)
Explicit/Voluntary	Clients must configure their browsers to use them.
Anonymous	The proxy sends no client identification to the server. (HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR header is not sent; the server does not see your IP.)
Highly Anonymous	The proxy sends no client nor proxy identification to the server. (HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR, HTTP_VIA and HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION headers are not sent; the server doesn't see your IP and doesn't even know you're using a proxy.)
Public	(Self explanatory)

A transparent proxy may or may not be anonymous, and there are several levels of anonymity.

How do I find out if I'm behind a (transparent/anonymous) proxy?

Try ProxyJudge. It lists the HTTP headers that the server where it is running received from you. The relevant ones are HTTP_CLIENT_IP, HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR and REMOTE_ADDR.

Why is my port listed as "---" even though I'm not NAT/Firewalled?

The tribalmixesdotcom tracker is quite smart at finding your real IP, but it does need the proxy to send the HTTP header HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR. If your ISP's proxy does not, then what happens is that the tracker will interpret the proxy's IP address as the client's IP address. So when you login and the tracker tries to connect to your client to see if you are NAT/firewalled it will actually try to connect to the proxy on the port your client reports to be using for incoming connections. Naturally the proxy will not be listening on that port, the connection will fail and the tracker will think you are NAT/firewalled.

Can I bypass my ISP's proxy?

If your ISP only allows HTTP traffic through port 80 or blocks the usual proxy ports then you would need to use something like socks and that is outside the scope of this FAQ.

The site accepts connections on port 81 besides the usual 80, and using them may be enough to fool some proxies. So the first thing to try should be connecting to tribalmixes.com:81. Note that even if this works your bt client will still try to connect to port 80 unless you edit the announce url in the .torrent file.

Otherwise you may try the following:

Choose any public non-anonymous proxy that does not use port 80 (e.g. from this, this or this list).
Configure your computer to use that proxy. For Windows XP, do Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings, Use a Proxy server, Advanced and type in the IP and port of your chosen proxy. Or from Internet Explorer use Tools, Internet Options, ...
(Facultative) Visit ProxyJudge. If you see an HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR in the list followed by your IP then everything should be ok, otherwise choose another proxy and try again.
Visit tribalmixesdotcom. Hopefully the tracker will now pickup your real IP (check your profile to make sure).

Notice that now you will be doing all your browsing through a public proxy, which are typically quite slow. Communications between peers do not use port 80 so their speed will not be affected by this, and should be better than when you were "unconnectable".

How do I make my bittorrent client use a proxy?

Just configure Windows XP as above. When you configure a proxy for Internet Explorer you're actually configuring a proxy for all HTTP traffic (thank Microsoft and their "IE as part of the OS policy" ). On the other hand if you use another browser (Opera/Mozilla/Firefox) and configure a proxy there you'll be configuring a proxy just for that browser. We don't know of any BT client that allows a proxy to be specified explicitly.

Why can't I signup from behind a proxy?

It is our policy not to allow new accounts to be opened from behind a proxy. one of the reasons - registration of multiple accounts.

Does this apply to other torrent sites?

This section was written for tribalmixesdotcom, a closed, port 80 tracker. Other trackers may be open or closed, and many listen on e.g. ports 6868 or 6969. The above does not necessarily apply to other trackers.

Why can't I connect? Is the site blocking me?

Your failure to connect may be due to several reasons.

Maybe my address is blacklisted?

The site blocks addresses listed in the (former) PeerGuardian database, as well as addresses of banned users. This works at Apache/PHP level, it's just a script that blocks logins from those addresses. It should not stop you from reaching the site. In particular it does not block lower level protocols, you should be able to ping/traceroute the server even if your address is blacklisted. If you cannot then the reason for the problem lies elsewhere.

If somehow your address is indeed blocked in the PG database do not contact us about it, it is not our policy to open ad hoc exceptions. You should clear your IP with the database maintainers instead.

Your ISP blocks the site's address

(In first place, it's unlikely your ISP is doing so. DNS name resolution and/or network problems are the usual culprits.)
There's nothing we can do. You should contact your ISP (or get a new one). Note that you can still visit the site via a proxy, follow the instructions in the relevant section. In this case it doesn't matter if the proxy is anonymous or not, or which port it listens to.

Notice that you will always be listed as an "unconnectable" client because the tracker will be unable to check that you're capable of accepting incoming connections.

What if I can't find the answer to my problem here?

Post in the forums, by all means. You'll find they are usually a friendly and helpful place, provided you follow a few basic guidelines:

Make sure your problem is not really in this FAQ. There's no point in posting just to be sent back here.
Before posting read the sticky topics (the ones at the top). Many times new information that still hasn't been incorporated in the FAQ can be found there.
Help us in helping you. Do not just say "it doesn't work!". Provide details so that we don't have to guess or waste time asking. What client do you use? What's your OS? What's your network setup? What's the exact error message you get, if any? What are the torrents you are having problems with? The more you tell the easiest it will be for us, and the more probable your post will get a reply.
And needless to say: be polite. Demanding help rarely works, asking for it usually does the trick.

last edited 2009-04-27