uTorrent

[bob_smyth]

I have been using utorrant for quite some time now, but the last wee or so I have had problems with my modem disconnecting and reconnecting???

I thought it was a software problem so I tried it on another PC same thing everytime I use utorrant my connection gets booted.

have virginmedia decided that they wont allow the use of torrants?

Nothing has changed (yeah I know this has been said a lot) but really nothing has.

[moaningmags]

Which modem do you have?

I use Utorrent with no problems.

[bob_smyth]

ER the grey one from ntl years ago, as I said not had a problem up until about a week ago, I have even used an older virsion of utorrant on a completly different PC same thing

[Axegrinder]

Look on the underside of your modem, should be a model no. there, either Ambit 100, 120 or 200.

[broadbandking]

You need a new modem the old modems cnt handle many connections and torrent can use a lot of connections

[bob_smyth]

its an ambit 100 and I have tried limiting to 200 connections, why would this just suddenly apply? I think it has to do with the fact I changed my services for a lower rated one, and VM have shafted me

[Axegrinder]

Yes that modem is age old, you might be better ringing VM up and asknig for a new one.

[bob_smyth]

Well I have sent three emails now to virgin media three!!!!!! one a week, for three weeks my connection has been intermittent I have no phone so I cant call, its not utorrent cos it still does it even when its not running, I am quitting VM now I have had enough, I have been with them from the beginning when it was ntl, i HAVE JUST HAD ENOUGH, THERE CUSTOMER SRVICE STINNKS

[moaningmags]

Well I have sent three emails now to virgin media three!!!!!! one a week, for three weeks my connection has been intermittent I have no phone so I cant call, its not utorrent cos it still does it even when its not running, I am quitting VM now I have had enough, I have been with them from the beginning when it was ntl, i HAVE JUST HAD ENOUGH, THERE CUSTOMER SRVICE STINNKS

Use the newsgroups, you'll get a reply within 4 hours.

[broadbandking]

Aint you got a mobile they can ring you back, don't just give up

[kingbuxton]

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12/33639581-utorrent-problem-page-3.html#post34730818

As a matter of intrest, make sure your ports are Green (I assume you know how to do that in uTorrent) and that the www in general is running OK.

http://www.linuxmint.de/downloads.html

Grab the 1st Torrent file and see what happens. Cos that flew in for me every time I tried it, and yet anything else I tried was slow or just dead. I still think VM where blocking based on Trackers (maybe a sign of things to come?)

[graf_von_anonym]

You may be overwhelming your upload now that your package has been reduced. There is, to my knowledge nothing prohibiting the use of torrents (save the law and the like) within the Virgin Media network, at least cable side.

The response time for email is longer than that for telephone. The newsgroups may be a better bet, but I'll wager a buck to a loonie that you're getting traffic managed now, and when the penalty kicks in you are saturating your connection to the point of collapse.

[bob_smyth]

what's the point of having broadband, if they are quashing it? no point at all, I am glad I don't have a higher package I would be well annoyed!

[Impz2002]

Virgin DO NOT block torrents / trackers. Fact

[psyfur]

Hi,

Can I recommendend that you ditch peer to peer and try usernet (newsgroups) I swapped last year and will never go back. Max speed and no issue with 'letters' being sent... :/

[graf_von_anonym]

what's the point of having broadband, if they are quashing it? no point at all, I am glad I don't have a higher package I would be well annoyed!

What's the point of owning a Ferrari under insurance that doesn't let you take it to track days? What's the point of owning a Ducati in Scotland?

You could look at this as part of the tragedy of the commons. Effectively STM enables Virgin to prevent a subset of their users from inconveniencing many of their other subscribers. When the 50mb rollout completes it's alleged that the faster packages will get bumped onto the newer infrastructure (Docsis 1.1 and all that jazz), and that'll do some I suspect to change the way things work.

[bob_smyth]

Just in case you are wondering the problem was solved by VM, if you are having the same type of problems you need a new modem, it solved the problems right away!

[kingbuxton]

I have a 250 and was having the same issues as you. That week VM where doing something. People can tell me they don't/won't/can't shape traffic based on Trackers till they are blue in the face.

Did you try to grab one of those legal Torrents and see what happens? Don't assume the new modem sorted it, it may well just be that whatever it was they where doing, they stopped doing it. Mine has worked fine for the last six weeks and I haven't changed anything.

Anyone I know that uses Torrents is on BT, I sent links to Torrent files I couldn't even get a connection to, they try it, works as it should! So it was either VM or me, there is no other explanation, being as I could get legal Torrents at over 1Mb/s with hardly any seeds/peers, it would suggest it wasn't me.

So if VM weren't doing it, then the only explanation is that my PC/Router/Modem broke for no reason, was broke On/Off for two weeks, the fault only occured on illegal trackers, and then it fixed itself. If you think that can happen, then that is what it was.

Cos I didn't do anything to it. Neither to break it nor to fix it.

What's the point of having broadband, if they are quashing it?

It's not so much the fact they quash it with me, it's the fact they don't admit it. You can't really complain that you can't grab the latest blockbuster from a BT site because it is being limited so that somene can watch Eastenders on iPlayer. Just admit you are doing it though.

Proof of the pudding....................get rid of BitTorrent, lets see how many dive on 50Mbit and after that, lets see if Broadband in general continues at the pace it has done since 2003. I am not going 50Mbit. 25Mbit is fine. And if they do start to interfere with BT then 25Mbit is of no use to me, I will simply drop to the cheapest one they do.

[broadbandking]

I am on 50Mb and a couple of days my torrents wasn't connecting and I suddenly pointed the finger at shaping, couple of hours later the speeds was great and I was connecting to all the trackers.

[bob_smyth]

I hate to say this, but when I was using 4OD (channel 4 on demand) I was having the same problems.

It does make me wonder what would happen if they stopped you from downloading a few types of things altogether... such as Porn, music, movies, porn, games, porn, software and yes more porn, face it anyone who has a stonkingly fast connection is downloading most of what is listed, if they stopped that, these fast BB connections would not be used,

I only have the 1 MB (I say 1 as its supposed to be 2 but most of the time its 1MBit) anyway i find this more than adequate as torrents can be generally slow anyway unless you are downloading a lot at once.

[kingbuxton]

I am on 50Mb and a couple of days my torrents wasn't connecting

You have to expect that sometimes the "Network" will go down, there are loads of reasons why that can happen. But you know when that is the case, as everything is effected by it. Not some sites are dead and some load as normal.

When you are on a Tracker, and after an hour you have managed to connect to a few seed/peers - your speed is 5k - you try another and another and another and they all do exactly the same thing (and they are all KNOWN sites) you have to wonder what is happening. When you grab a Linux distro and you are connected 20 seeds/peers in a matter of seconds and with only a hanful of connections the thing is complete in 15mins you wonder even more. When you link to a Torrent you can't connect to and send it to someone on a BT line and it works fine, even more. And then a week later the problem vanishes full stop never to be seen again (so far) you know so.

It does make me wonder what would happen if they stopped you from downloading a few types of things

Pirate Bay loose that court case and we may be finding out sooner rather than later. My guess is the uptake of the "New Fastest Connection" wont be the way it has been over the last five years. As you say, 1Mbit is fine, I would be happy with 5Mbit. The only reason I went to 25 ws for the 100k upload, ratios n all. Don't need it anymore. Don't really need 25 anymore, when does it ever hit 2Mb/s ordering a DVD from Play? Steam never gets close to 1Mb let alone 2Mb. I have grabbed MP3 I have purchased from Play and it never comes in faster than 500K/s

Obviously I can't speak for the rest of you, but I am deffo dropping back to the cheapest tier. But you wont be able to watch Eastenders in HD on iPlayer they will say! LOL.

[graf_von_anonym]

You do realise what Virgin Media would have to do in order to limit downloads from illegal and only illegal torrents, yes?

They would have to: identify that a torrent was being opened; identify the seed that was being torrented from; investigate the nature of the content, and determine if the seeder had rights to disseminate that information; having established that said torrent was in violation of copyright law choose to throttle that torrent, effectively abetting an act that they have identified as criminal rather than preventing it; and do so with every torrent opened across the Virgin cable network. I'm sure that that kind of Packet/Application/Routing Analysis Network Operation Inhibition Apparatus is possible, but it's unlikely that it would function without a significant whitelist or immediately evident detriment to other traffic.

Or, you know, you get what you pay for. Not in your download, I hasten to add, but the upload of whoever it is you are stealing with. Not that I mind, you understand. I used to kill the record industry with home taping.

[kingbuxton]

You do realise what Virgin Media would have to do in order to limit downloads from illegal and only illegal torrents, yes?

No I don't. Was hoping someone would explain if it could be done. In my case I am saying that if VM didn't do it then my system broke for no reason and then fixed itself, having never done it before or since, but was smart enough to differentiate Legal/Illegal, which I checked, double checked and triple checked was the case. That makes no sense at all. So I am stumped as to why it happend.

Could they not just take the position that certain mini**** type sites will be 90% illegal, and block any IP connecting to it (the Tracker address)? Cut it off at the source so to speak.

Even though there is legal stuff on these sites, who would complain? Seems like that would be the simplest method of doing it.

It's not that I care if they do or dont, just say you are if you are, then I don't waste time rebooting the PC and switching Modems/Routers On/Off which is what generally sorts it if it is a Hardware issue (at my end) or if they have been doing stuff to the Newwork.

[graf_von_anonym]

It didn't break "for no reason". You just don't know what the reason is, and, bar some educated guesses, nobody here can tell you.

What I can say is that illegal torrents tend to be more heavily used than legal ones. This extends to legal and illegal seeds. More use increases the odds of instability, and sees it shared across more users, which reduces speeds. Sometimes the weakness is in the protocol rather than the transport, and torrents, for all their supporters, are largely created by free clients that see little testing before release, often purport to generic compatibility but cannot guarantee it, and are often taxed by the use to which they are put even as they themselves tax the networks they run over. I have seen consumer routers and PCs collapse under the flood of connections opened by torrents, and its often upload that does it. It could be, indeed, I would say that it is probabilistically likely that that's what's happening. The act of resetting your modem and router also serves to interrupt these connection, and to reset the list of connections held open by your equipment.

Of course, you don't have to take my word for it. What I see as logic and reason may simply be Virgin Media's lies chopped into fine powder and cut into lines by Occam's Razor, drawn straight into my impressionable brain by the loyalons exuded from the co-axial snake.

[kingbuxton]

It didn't break "for no reason".

That's the point, it didn't break, there was nothing wrong with it, resetting the Modem/Router did nothing, I checked everything, there was nothing wrong with anything at my end, it was grabbing stuff fine, then stopped, was On/Off for a week (all well known Trackers) and it's not done it since, regardless of how many Seeds/Peers (I know what you mean though) I grab xTV show every week, it had 10000's Seeds/Peers, never an issue and never has been.

Of course, you don't have to take my word for it.

It's not a case of that, what you're saying makes total sense, and the issues you talk about do crop up from time to time, but I can spot a bogged down connection a mile away, this wasn't bogged down, it was blocked full stop.

I suppose we will have to wait until they get the 50Mbit out - get the network sorted and see if it starts to happen again, either they where trying something or I am wide of the mark, it will be one the other.

(500 posts)

[graf_von_anonym]

Well, you know, it did break, otherwise you wouldn't have noticed it had stopped working. There are actors other than Virgin Media seeking to disrupt peer to peer traffic. Without prying too far, was there any consistency in the things you were attempting to download? Beyond their illegality, I mean. I believe some rights-holders are engaging in DDOS against seeds, and Rogers over in Canada were doing something weird to peer to peer traffic.

[JethroUK]

I have been using utorrant for quite some time now, but the last wee or so I have had problems with my modem disconnecting and reconnecting???.

VM are throttling Utorrent (and Rapidshare) - it will help thjem deliver 50 meg in some areas

My connection dies within seconds of opening Utorrent

Tried 10 squillion settings - still dies

Now got new wireless router - Still dies

It used to work perfectly til few months ago (so there nothing wrong with anything)

Some people are reporting normal no throttling but it's just a matter of time for them

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[broadbandking]

You have no proof of this do you so don't just point the finger have you tested with another torrent client?

[suggsy]

Hi,

Can I recommendend that you ditch peer to peer and try usernet (newsgroups) I swapped last year and will never go back. Max speed and no issue with 'letters' being sent... :/

I use giganews and newsleecher, but i still get tm'd, now i only d/l after 11pm, but i was led to believe that VM don't tm newsgroups, but after an hour on the phone to them, i am reassured they do.

Still, i do agree with you about ditching torrents and using newsgroups, as when i d/l it's at full speed, :)

[Munkeh]

What I see as logic and reason may simply be Virgin Media's lies chopped into fine powder and cut into lines by Occam's Razor, drawn straight into my impressionable brain by the loyalons exuded from the co-axial snake.

Mr graf_vom_anonym, I just wanted to compliment you on your fine grasp of the vernacular. At "Occam's Razor" I involountarily made a little man wee, at "loyalons" the glass of cheap, red reality analgesic started bubbling. By the time I'd read "co-axial snake" I had to stop.

You sir, are a funny man!

Apologies for the interruption.. on with the thread :)

[kingbuxton]

Well, you know, it did break, otherwise you wouldn't have noticed it had stopped working

By that I meant "My PC/Hardware" not the system in general. Yeah something broke, the question is what?

VM are throttling Utorrent

They aren't touching uTorrent. It is and has been running fine for me since my issues. I was just grabbing something at over 600k/s - not that many seeds/Sat night, that is decent.

Either Graf is right (and I aint saying he isn't) read his stuff. Or I am right and they where running a test on Tracker throttling, unless that can't possibly be done, and if someone tells me how/why it can't be done then I will shut my big fat anti-razor gob :D

[Turkey Machine]

+1 on what kingbuston said, I'm currently downloading something at 250KB/sec(ish), and only the speed of seeders is limiting it, as it peaked at about 400KB/sec for a couple of minutes earlier on.

[JethroUK]

..They aren't touching uTorrent.

You mean they're not throttling yours *yet* - they're definately throttling mine and you'll be next



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[Milambar]

They appear to be throttling anything torrent related. I spent all evening pre-downloading the next WoW patch at 6kbps.. Predicted time: 2 weeks, and yes, background throttling was turned off, meaning it should have been full speed, and yes, there were plenty of peers.

Yet when I told the downloader to use a direct connection and not peer to peer, the download rate skyrocketted to over 100kbps, and sustained that for the 10 minutes the download took.

It really does seem to me, to be some kind of generic thottle on torrents in some areas.

[Ignitionnet]

Cases where people are losing all internet connectivity are not throttling. Either modem or router can't handle the number of flows BT sets up.

The WoW downloader sucks, especially as it can be set to only allow upload when the computer is idle, makes the speeds pretty unpleasant. If they are sucky it's best to restart the downloader and hope for a better set of peers.

[kingbuxton]

You mean they're not throttling yours *yet*

I just mean it isn't uTorrent specific, it will do it whatever client you use.

Cases where people are losing all internet connectivity are not throttling

You don't loose internet connectivity, I always had Internet, it was Torrents only and only from specific Trackers.

they're definately throttling mine

If it is doing now - http://www.linuxmint.de/downloads.html - grab Main Edition LinuxMint-6.iso.torrent and see how fast it runs. If that is slow, then maybe they are throttling you. I can get that at over 1Mb/s (it completes before it peaks) and with my upload set at like 60/65Kb/s

[ThunderPants73]

@ Impz2002... I love your avatar!

[Horace]

You mean they're not throttling yours *yet* - they're definately throttling mine and you'll be next



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Points to user title and nods.