TribalMixes torrents not connectable (everything else is)

Hey all, recently TribalMixes torrents seem to have become not connectable, but all other torrents are fine (so I don't think it's a configuration issue on my end).

Given my stats seem to be ok for all the torrents I've downloaded lately, I think it might just be at certain times of day (i.e. during the day), but every time I log into the site I see the 100% not connectible warning and in my torrent client it shows 0 seeders and 0 leechers.

As far as I'm aware nothing has changed on my end - my torrent box is the same as ever. Though who knows what my ISP might be up to

Anyway, just wanted to mention it, cause it's a little annoying, but since my ratios seem fine I'm not too bothered about it.

I got absolutely no problems, so it's really very likely, that it's a configuration-problem on your site. I don't know about 0 seeders and 0 leechers, but your torrent client probably has something like a "network-status" indicated by a red, yellow or green symbol in the bar at the bottom, better take that as an indicator.

Have you already tried to download one of the non-working torrents again, and did it maybe work then? Did you maybe change something about the firewall? Router still the same?

And from what do you get, that you're not connectable? The site showing 100%, ok, had that too and was never able to figure out why, but what's the difference shown in the client from the tm-torrents to the normal ones?

I don't really have problems...my share ratio is fine so it is uploading at some time...but for some reason it looks like it's not working a lot of the time.

The thing about 0 seeders/leechers is that while I'm downloading torrents there are more than 0 seeders/leechers, but as soon as it gets to seeding the numbers go to 0, but only for TribalMixes torrents! Seems a bit odd to me, but I'm no expert

As far as my client is concerned everything looks fine - it thinks I'm connectible and there is no difference between TribalMixes torrents and any other torrents....except TribalMixes torrents don't seem to upload all the time.

Interesting that you had the 100% not connectable thing on the website as well.

Anyway, it's not a big deal - just annoys me is all

( and annoyingly everything seems fine right now...maybe it's all just fixed itself?)

about connectability, it'll just resolve itself eventually probably..

about zeros, - right now is the slowest time on the site in years, downloader wise, not music, - we have an abundance of music that is way more than last years... it';s the people.. maybe it's all over the internet right now? i have over 22k torrents in my client, about 2000 of them are from moview trackers, and about 20k from tribalmixes. and even with those ridiculous numbers, i rarely maximize my upload, which is set at 500kb/s..

When someone downloads something from me, my upload easily maxes out at the 400 kb/s I specified. I write that, because I don't know how you mean that your upload doesn't max out. I still remember, that you use some very low number for either maximum global connections or connections / torrent, that could be a reason for others to have problems connecting to you. I don't understand this fully, and I know that you know what you're doing, but as I understand it, if you i. e. allow 500 possible maximum global connections, the tracker sends you 500 peers every time. If you share 22k torrents, that means, that only 500 will have exactly 1 connection, 21.500 will have 0 connections.

I know, that this is more complicated, but I found, that even though there are massively more peers, my client only connects to a very small number / torrent, like 1-3, I seed 600 torrents and allow 850 global connections, so that fits. I know that from when I added the torrents. When I had 10 torrents added, everyone would show 20 peers, and the more I added, the more I lost peers. It makes a massive difference, if I i. e. put a torrent on the #1 position and restart the client, then that torrent instantly connects to all available peers before any other torrents are considered, and like that I not seldomly get max. download speed instantly, while I would need to wait minutes to hours otherwise, and then still would only be able to connect to a low number of peers.

I'm not sure, but it could simply be, that the torrent is made inactive by the client, once it finishes, as there are no downloaders to which you could seed. I don't know about your situation, but as written in the post before, I seed 600 torrents, but I only allow for 10 uploads to be active at the same time (client-setting) , so when somebody wants to download, I can offer him at least 50 kb / s. That means, that 590 torrents must be not active, and as the connections are also limited by the settings, I could imagine, that the client simply saves wasting any connections on the torrents, to have them for the active ones. If you i. e. start a new, healthy torrent, it's np., that that torrent alone will cost you 50 connections. If you have a slower connection that me, your global limit will be lower, maybe at 500, so download 10 torrents, and all of your connections will already be used, this forbids, that any connections are maintained on any other torrents. Ofc. this changes, as other torrents may become active, but your client first has to be informed, that someone is trying to download, then your client makes a specific connection to that other user. If your client would connect to peers without having a reason, it would waste connections.

The process of this happening can take several hours as I found out btw.. Here on TM, I someone privately shouted to me, that he was trying to seed me a torrent, I made a re-seed-request for. It took somewhere between 2 and 4h, 'til my client connected to him. I read from Slash, that the "tracker" sends only a certain number of peers to client at every time, and it takes up to 30 minutes for the tracker to refresh. It probably simply took 8-10 times, 'til the tracker send me the data for the connection to that specific user.

Completely apart from that, I need to agree on something that Slash wrote: I primarily thought, that my connection-settings weren't correct, because I always sat at 0 kb / s upload every time I looked. After seeding about one month, I looked at the transfers again and found out, that only a small fracture of the torrents I seeded (maybe 1/10th of 600) had transfered anything at all. Learned, that even though I seed torrents of very great DJs that must have lots of fans (i. e. James Zabiela, James Holden, Sasha) , there simply is a very low demand for these torrents after the initial first days. If one looks at the total number of downloads of a torrent, many torrents only get downloaded about a 100 times, 200-300 times for some maybe. 80% of those downloads happen in the first two weeks, if you seed torrents that are on this site for over a year, it might take several months for the situation of someone requesting a torrent that you seed. I unfortunately currently cannot offer a history of my upload, because I moved away from uTorrent, and qBittorrent doesn't offer one afaik but look at my facts, the site says that I uploaded 113 GB during my whole time. I know for certain, that at least 70-80 of those GB, I bought over the community-system, so I know almost for certain, that the total data I 'really' transfered is between 30-40 GB over a time of 6 months. Maybe I even bought more, then I would have effectively transfered even less, let's say I transfered 30 GB over 6 months, that means I transfered 5 GB / month! 600 torrents at 100 MB each means, that I only transfered 1/12th of them back. Having in mind what I wrote before, that the most traffic occurs during the first two weeks, and with me actively downloading a lot of fresh torrents too, this says a lot about the demand for "normal" , so older torrents.

it's called force-start in utorrent.

when i say "can't max out" means my upload is NOT ALWAYS maxed out, sorry, should have clarified. in my head things are ok when my utorrent upload at 500kb/s at every moment of every minute of every hour.

i explained before, i keep small number of connections so that i wouldn't have more than 10-20 torrents concurrently uploading data, this way each of the uploading-data-now-torrents will receive at least 20-30kb/s upload speed, this allows downloader to see that something is going on, music is coming, and it also allows each peer to be done faster, freeing room for new downloaders. besides the fact that i consider this more comfortable and really comforting, this setup i have, i mean; besides that, it is also about maximizing data connection. with lower number of CURRENTLY ACTIVE (uploading data) torrents you need lower side-show data exchange, aka confirmations of proper packets, hash checks, requests to resent, etc, etc, all the background data communications that still exist BESIDES the actual torrent data transfer. this sometimes can go up to 10-15% of my upload bandwidth (when downloading very fast or uploading many simultaneously). with lower number of torrents uploading, less satellite data needs to be thrown back and forth, which also maximizes the usability of internet connection.

Seraiel, don't get me wrong, bro, but i would recommend trusting in my experience and trying out my setup, if you actually ask for it, for my advice. first of all, makes me feel like i didn't waste time explaining. second - you will see change for the better, it is not because i am smart or sneaky or whatnot. no. this is because of YEARS OF TORRENTING, 1.5 decades of experience, of try and try and try and re-try..

try search google for "not connectable", - my FAQ is first result results. why? again, because i know this shit, bro, i am surgical with torrents. i am not boasting, this is just that - i am and there's no arguing with that... so... don't doubt me, bro, just do as i say.. =)

you're incorrect. connection between you and "that guy" was solely your and that guy's business. i already told you and will repeat so that you memorize correct data (and this is how it happens on ALL torrent sites): when ANY peer announces (either starting download or seeding) with A tracker, that tracker does what it needs to do, and then replies to the peer WITH A LIST of existing peers on that torrent. here different trackers behave differently, but this is how BitTorrent protocol is set: announce gets rewarded with list of peers for that torrent (this is also correcting your earlier words about 'why would seeds waste bandwiudth connecting to seeds?' well, they do, check, check again, and stuff, just watch any of your torrents, chances are you'll see peers connecting and disconnecting, cause nothing to do, some seeking to upload, it's in clients behavior too).

anyways, tribalmixes tracker sends up to 20 peers (if available) to an announcing peer. thus with your earlier situation, tracker was sending you "that guy's" ip and was sending "that guy" your ip whenever you or him announced with the tracker. finally, that situation was fully and completely your and "that guy"'s fault, spent hours were not related to tracker IN ANY WAY.

please, there's no need to accuse tracker of things it's not responsible for.. it has to send other-peer IPs to a new peer and has to store this new peer's IP to send to other-peers. THAT IS ALL. tracker's core functionality is limited to these 2 actions.

i am just clarifying these things sp that you, Seraiel, would continue on with proper knowledge of right ways.

Seraiel, i want you to understand all this because you're one of those guys who will share this knowledge elsewhere, and i just want you to have the correct knowledge, don't want you to refer to some data you picked up on tribalmixes and that data would be utterly wrong and others would laugh... at me.. pretty much...

and finally, connectability is a very, very subjective notion. in case of tribalmixes, a peer is deemed connectable if (on initial announce only) it replies tracker's ping within 5 seconds. other trackers can determine connectability in any other way they see fit.

to ectotropic: Seraiel is still right in many ways, for example, yes, most activity happens on rather fresh torrents and (ageless) mega-packs and videos. although that is unrelated to connectable issue you saying. try download some fresh torrents and see what the tracker says and how things go after completion.

you think tribalmixes is wrong, since other trackers work fine. and we think you're wrong, since most users are fine. you seeing my drift?

try read this FAQ for utorrent not connecting, trusted by 100-s of thousands of people around the world, most trusted by google for "not connectable" search string for several years running! i am not showing off, just stating facts..

Ok, so then I ask you for recommended client-settings .

Currently I use the following:

Maximum global connections: 850
Maximum connections / torrent: 250
Global number of upload-slots: 80
Upload-slots / torrent: 8 (not ideal, would like to use more when less torrents are active, but qBittorrent doesn't offer that setting like uTorrent does. I thought about changing the setting to 16, because then, the upload-slots could max out with only 5 active uploads, but that is more ideal as it is less ideal. In any case, 8 upload-slots should be more than needed for most torrents on tribalmixes.com ) .

Upload-limit: 400 kb / s
No use of uTP
DHT, PeX and LDT disabled

Queue settings: 50 max. active downloads, 10 max. active uploads, 60 max. active torrents

Advanced Settings:

Refresh Transfer-list every 2.5 minutes
Max. half-open connections: 50


qBittorrent as far as I can understand offers a very interesting feature, of using multiple outgoing ports. Setting is disabled by default. No idea, if changing it would have any positive effect on downloads, as I'm able to max. out download speed without any problems, so no idea what this setting means or why it's there. I can ask in the qBittorrent support forum, if anybody is interested.

I btw. just got an idea about what ectotropic wrote: What's the difference between normal torrents and tribalmixes torrents? Tribalmixes-torrents are private torrents, so DHT, PeX and LDT don't work! What, if the other torrents would only be working, because of those features?
Also, I don't know why, but I somehow have the suspicion, that the problem are his firewall settings. I recently set up my system newly, and found out, that qBittorrent i. e. is too dumb, to register a correct firewall rule. I had to write 3 incoming and 3 outgoing rules manually to make it work, they're "Allow TCP traffic for qBittorrent.exe" , "Allow UDP-traffic for qBittorrent.exe" and as I want qBittorrent only to be active while I'm connected via VPN, I needed to allow those two for open Networks, while writing another rule to "block all protocolls for qBittorrent.exe in private and domain networks" .

Woah - lots to read!

Thanks for all the input people! Much appreciated!

Ok, I think this is all getting a bit confused. I probably should have been clearer, but I honestly didn't really even expect much of a response!

For the record - my torrent box has not changed hardware, software, or settings in...I can't remember how long, but I'm pretty sure it's the same as it's always been for TM and the "issues" I was experiencing are/were new. Also, I only keep new(ish) torrents around (less than a 3 weeks old in most cases) - once they've reached the seeding goal or have been around for a while they are removed. Currently it's only some TM torrents that are not reaching seeding goals, but it seems that's just because there are few people interested in them by the time I get them. Anyway, I never have many torrents active at any one time and don't think I ever reach the connection limits in my client. (It's not an ideal setup, but it's as good as I can make it at the moment.)

Although it seems fine right now my main issue was simply that the website kept telling me I was 100% not connectible (no matter which torrents I was downloading), which annoyed the OCD part of me! I've had it before for short periods, but till recently it'd only been a day at most. Till yesterday it'd been a permanent feature of my TM for a number of weeks. Obviously the day I mention it is the day it seems to have sorted itself! Still, I didn't realise tracker connectivity was so subjective, since that's the case I can completely accept that I've maybe just been unlucky with the connectivity messages on the website (as long as all my seeding numbers stay within the limits I happy!).

Anyway, when checking to make sure I was connectible, I noticed that TM torrents behaved differently to other torrents - which is the 0 seeders/leechers part of this. For all my downloads as soon as the torrent is finished downloading it (obviously) switches to seeding mode, for other trackers this results in different information displayed than for TM. For other trackers I still get a number of seeds and leechers the torrent has (along with the number to which I'm connected, which might be 0), for TM all the seed and leech numbers seem to drop to 0 - so it looks like I'm the only seeder and there are no leechers. For example, for TM I get "0" seeders for other trackers I might get "0 (231)" seeders (even when a torrent is stopped because it's reached the seeding goal I still see the number of seeders/leechers in the swarm for other trackers). Of course, that might be perfectly normal behaviour (come to think of it I could totally understand if it was something to do with the "private" flag), but I don't know enough about trackers to say. Just that combined with the not connectible status it seemed suspicious.

I also noticed that although I was 100% not connectible all the time in the website my stats seemed to be ok - which seemed a bit weird, especially since my uploaded percentage was quite high given I apparently had no leechers connected to me each time I checked. Obviously since my torrent box is on all the time I must just be uploading at times I'm not watching it, but it just seemed strange that it never uploaded when I was looking!

tl;dr: a couple things that were annoying me a little but that based on feedback it seems like are probably nothing to worry about.

Sorry!

Zeros for seeds are a thing.. Those numbers are received via scrape script, and NOT announce. So maybe your client doesn't handle scraping as it should... Our maybe it expects peer numbers on announce, and sets zeros if not received.. Does it show nonzero numbers while leeching? Also, what's the name and version of your client?

I'm using qBittorrent v3.2.4 (which is not great, but the best I've been able to find since uTorrent became ).

Yeah it shows non-zero seed numbers while leeching - the second it finishes though they go to zero (I've watched it happen - several times).