Overview
Tracker and Torrent Error Messages
Hints and Tips
Azureus
What Do The Smiley Faces Mean?
Why Are My Smiley Faces Always Yellow?
My Ports Are Forwarded But The Face Is Still Yellow
Azureus Causes 100% CPU Usage
How Do I Download Part Of A File With Azureus ?
How Can I Stay Safe Using Azureus?
How Do I Seed Or Re-Seed Using Azureus?
What Does The Ratio Symbol Mean When Uploading?
Why Am I Getting Error Messages In Azureus?
XP SP2 And Azureus Crashing
What Is Forced Seeding or Forced Downloading ?
Why Does Azureus Show Me As Downloading When I'm Not ?
General
How do I forward the ports for my software firewall?
How do I forward the ports for my hardware firewall?
Why Is My Download Slow ?
How Many Torrents Can I Download At Once?
What Port Range Should I Use?
How Do I Manage My Ratio?
How do I make a torrent to share with others?
What is a tracker?
Where can I download torrents from?
How can I increase my upload speed and overall performance?
What is the best client to use? (in my humble opinion)
Torrents in general can be unpredictable. Torrents are only "alive" for as long as someone else is uploading it, if no one is uploading then it might be "dead". Sometimes you wont know if it's alive or dead until you've tried to download the file; sometimes you can see how many seeds or peers a torrent has before you download. If you are able to see the stats, the higher number of seeds and peers there are the better. The main thing to understand is that downloading and uploading torrents can take a bit longer than other P2P networks, sometimes it may take a while to get going. Just because you aren't getting lightning speeds or things aren't happening as you might expect it does not mean there are problems. Just give it some time and see what happens.
Trackers can also be unpredictable. They sometimes experience very heavy load and because of this the connection to them may be lost or not gained temporarily. If you think the torrent is active but your client is telling you otherwise, it's probably a tracker issue. Just give it a bit of time to see if it sorts itself out first of all. If your client has problems connecting, it will keep on retrying over and over again. Just give it time. If you have given it time or you are getting error messages then have a look at the common BitTorrent error messages seen below for a possible solution.
* Problem connecting to tracker - (10061, "Connection refused")
* Problem connecting to tracker - (10054, 'Connection reset by peer')
* Problem connecting to tracker - (111, 'Connection refused')
* Problem connecting to tracker - (10060, 'Connection timed out')
* Problem connecting to tracker - HTTP Error 503: Connect failed
* Problem connecting to tracker - HTTP Error 404: Not Found
These can appear for a number of reasons. One is that the tracker might be down for a short while (as I mentioned above, this could be for a number of reasons), another is your net connection might be down, or the torrent may no longer be on the tracker (possibly deleted). You could also be banned from the tracker in some cases (for leeching a file).
* Problem connecting to tracker - HTTP Error 400: Not Authorized
Sometimes you need to be a member of a certain forum / tracker before you can download a file. If this is the case you will usually see a web address in the problem field (or maybe in the name of the file) - go there and register to access their downloads.
It can also be because someone has uploaded a torrent onto a tracker that doesn't want to carry that type of file and it gets binned.
If you think something is wrong, you can drag and drop the torrent into TorrentSpy for more detailed information. Have a look on their site for more information and a free download.
If you are using a client such as Azureus you can set your upload and download limits. By setting your max upload limit to around 80% of capacity, you will maybe increase your speeds. Whenever you receive a piece of a file, your computer will send an acknowledgement back to say that it received it OK and another piece can be sent. If your upload speed is at maximum it will have trouble sending back the acknowledgement meaning you will have to wait longer for your next piece.
Try to pick torrents that have a lot of seeds and/or peers. Generally speaking, the more people sharing the quicker your download will be. Make sure that you have correctly configured your firewall or router if you have one. By default most firewalls and routers will block BitTorrent traffic. For more information on how to set things up correctly, have a look here.
Be wary of downloading things that aren't popular. If you download a big file which no one else is interested in you will have trouble seeding it again after. If you don't seed then your download to upload ratio goes way down and you could end up getting banned from sites.
If you are having problems downloading a file for whatever reason and can't find a solution on this site the next best place to look is the forum associated with the site you are downloading from. Ask around, explain the problem and hopefully someone will help you. If you can, maybe send an instant message or email to the original uploader.
If you download a file which then requires a password before you can open it (usually compressed files), the password can sometimes be part of the filename, especially if it has a web address in (the web address is most likely to be the password). If that doesn't work then ask around on the forum or site it came from.
The health indicator is an evaluation of how well your torrent is going.
means that your torrent is stopped or queued - your torrent wont download while on grey
means that you're not connected to any peer (including seeds) - your torrent will never download on red
when seeding, it means that you're not yet connected to any peer - give it some time to see if it changes
when downloading, it means that you are connected to some peers but the tracker is down - just wait for it to come back up
means that the tracker is ok, you're connected to peers, but you don't have any remote connection*. You may have a NAT problem if your torrents stay on yellow status all the time
means that everything is going fine.
means you have both Local and Remote connections.
means you have only Local connections.
Local connection = connection you have initiated (i.e. you have connected to them)
Remote connection = connected initiated by someone else (i.e. they connected to you)
Someone with firewall problems will only ever get Local connections, as their router is blocking all attempts from others trying to connect to them. They will ALWAYS be on yellow. This slows down the torrent for everyone.
Just because you only have Local connections it doesn't mean that something is wrong, as long as you get green sometimes then there is no problem. It's more likely that you are involved in a small swarm without many peers or seeders.
Make sure you don't have a software firewall turned on by mistake. If you use a software firewall you will have to forward the ports in that too.
There may only be a small number of peers to upload to all running on Local connections
There may be tracker connection problems.
This is often caused by updating your old Azureus or Java without COMPLETELY removing the old one first. Both Azureus and Java should be updated at the same time.
To fix the problem uninstall both Azureus and Java from your system, delete any left over program files and maybe clean the registry. Now get Azureus here, and get Java here. Now install Java before Azureus and all should be fine.
Follow: Right click on torrent > chose Show Details from menu > click on Files tab > right click on pieces you DO NOT want to download and select Set Priority > Do not download. These steps will stop Azureus downloading the pieces you have chosen leaving it to download those you haven't chosen.
When you connect to a swarm your IP is visible to everyone else in the swarm and visa-versa. To stop any 'bad' IP's connecting to you, use the Safepeer Plugin for Azureus. It imports an updated blocklist and goes some way to protecting you against any potential threat. More here.
Make sure you have 'Save to default data directory' disabled (Tools > Options > Files)
Download the torrent from the forum or tracker you have uploaded to.
Open this torrent with Azureus
Azureus will now ask you where to save the file - choose the place where the file you are sharing is located
Azureus will now realise you have the file and begin to seed.
For more help watch this visual tutorial.
This symbol means Infinity. It means you are the original seeder/uploader and therefore your ratio of upload to download is infinite.
Sometimes Azureus will give errors if the Java is out of date. It will also give errors if you have an old version of Azureus and the latest Java. Uninstall and then install updated versions of both to fix.
You might need to install the TCP Limit Fix
Download and install this to fix the problem.
With SP2 Micro$oft set the number of concurrent connections to 10, this is to help halt the spread of viruses and other nasties. It also limits your P2P connections, so use this patch to up the number of concurrent connections available and you should be fine.
Azureus has pre-determined limits for how many torrents it thinks you should run at any one time. The higher your upload speed, the more it will let you run at once.
If you go to Tools > Configuration Wizard you will be able to set your upload speed. If the limit has been reached, then you overcome it by selecting Forced Seeding/Downloading, which over-rides the presets. So if you still have to select Forced when you only have 1 or 2 torrents running, then you should use the Configuration Wizard and adjust your settings. You will be able to see the limits for each speed type displayed in the wizard.
As you will see in the image above, Azureus is showing 42 B/s download and 14.9 kB/s upload. This shot was taken when no torrents were downloading however.
Whenever you receive a piece of a file, your computer will send an acknowledgement back to say that it received it OK and another piece can be sent. This 'overhead' traffic is now shown in Azureus whereas it wasn't previously. It's not something to worry about!
The speed at which you download is determined by things such as the Seed to Peer ratio, the seed(ers) upload bandwidth and of course your available download bandwidth. Try to download torrents that have lots of seeders and/or fewer peers in order to get faster speeds.
Also make sure you have forwarded your ports correctly.
You need to upload as much as you download. It will take you much longer to upload than it will to download (usually). The more you download, the more you have to upload. You get the idea. A general rule to follow is only download and upload 2 torrents at a time.
By default BitTorrent uses ports 6881 to 6889. Some trackers don't accept connections on these ports. Some ISP's throttle bandwidth on these ports. If you want to change your ports and know how, then chose a range of 10 ports between 50000 and 60000 (i.e 50010 - 50020). If you need help configuring your ports look here.
You need to upload as much as you download. Your client should be able to show you what your ratio is for each torrent, do not stop the torrent until it has reached 1:1 or above.
If you are having trouble getting to 1:1, perhaps because no one else wants to download it from you, then try making a torrent and uploading that. This is especially effective when you use the same tracker as the other torrents you download as all trackers look at your overall ratio, not just individual torrents.
