Question about torrents

[Samutz]

I fucking hate torrents. But sometimes what I'm looking for can only be obtained through a torrent.

It seems every single time I download something by torrent, it gets to about 99% and then just stops for several hours. And I can't figure out why.

Currently I'm downloading a 4.7 GB iso. The night before last I got about 40% of it while I was asleep.
Then when I went to bed it was at 82%, so I figured it would be done in the morning.
It was at 93% when I woke up, so I figured it would be done by noon.
It was at 99.36% when I checked on it during my lunch break, so I figured it would be done by the time I got home.
I came home and it's at 99.96% now and not moving. Despite there being "210 sources", nothing is downloading.

Yet, I'm uploading it to others at about 20 KB/s, which is faster than it ever downloaded as far as I remember.

So I'm stuck here looking at it, needing only about 1 MB more and wondering why this keeps happening to anything I try to download by torrent.

 

[Xeijin]

How many seeds are on the torrent? Seeds are usually the number outside the brackets. 210 leechers may be all well and good, but I'm betting that most of 'em are also stuck at 99%. If there are only a few seeders or none, then its gona take a while since the seeders will be bombarded by other users or there are no seeds to do it.

If its 210 seeds, well I have no idea

 

[lagman]

Sounds like a bad torrent.

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=22858.

EDIT:

Why is my torrent stuck at 99%?
Three usual reasons for torrents to stop at 99% are:

  * There's a thumbs.db file in the folder you're downloading. If this is the case, you won't ever have a 100%: this file is a system file and change as the system sees fit, so probably even the initial seeder doesn't have a 100%.
  * some piece got scrambled and cycle.
   Force re-check of the torrent. Often the last piece finally fits after that.
  * No one has the last 1% a seeder is needed -- sometimes the case but other two should be checked first...

Azureus is a good client for all cases, as it gives information about what's left to download file by file and allow rechecking of torrents whenever you want to.

Furthermore, only 1% missing in a file isn't a big deal: unless it's a the very beginning it won't prevent you from playing it. There'll only be a glitch somewhere.



When creating a torrent of files within a folder in Windows XP an extra file maybe added to your torrent called:

thumbs.db

This additional file may cause problems with peers getting stuck at 99%.

The solution to this is to either delete this file prior to creating the torrent ~ or disabling the creation of it in the first place.



-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Stop Windows from saving the thumbnail cache (THUMBS.DB)

Intended For Windows XP only

Windows XP, by default, shows the thumbnails view of certain folders, whether you want it to or not. Even if you choose Details (or some other view) as your default by going to Tools -> Folder Options -> View tab and click Apply to All Folders, Explorer may still revert back to the clumsy Thumbnails view. It does this for any folder in which it finds the THUMBS.DB file; naturally, if you delete this file, it won't happen again.

The problem is that Windows seems to repeatedly recreate the THUMBS.DB file automatically. Here's how to stop this from happening:

In Explorer, go to Tools -> Folder Options or open the Folder Options icon in the Control Panel.

Choose the View tab, and tick the Do not cache thumbnails option.

Click Ok.

You can also change this setting in the Registry: Open the Registry Editor (regedit.exe).

Navigate to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\ Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced.

Double-click the DisableThumbnailCache value, or go to Edit -> New -> DWORD value to create a new value by that name.

Enter 1 for its value.

Click Ok and close the Registry Editor when you're done; you'll have to log off and then log back on for this to take effect.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----

Hope this helps



Credit goes to oOoopS at Digital Update.

 

[sirAnger]

Some torrent trackers require you to upload a certain amount before being able to download the whole thing. They allow you to download 99% so you have as many chunks of the file as possible to share, and will give you the last 1% when you upload your quota.

Other times it's just shitty luck. Of those 210 how many are seeds? Maybe nobody has the last .04%.

 

[Samutz]

My client just says sources, not seeders or leechers.
But the tracker says 202 Seeders, 591 Downloaders.

I'm using Shareaza to download right now because I was lazy and didn't want look for torrent client.

What's a good torrent client and can I transfer the download from one client to the other without loosing what I've already downloaded?

Some torrent trackers require you to upload a certain amount before being able to download the whole thing. They allow you to download 99% so you have as many chunks of the file as possible to share, and will give you the last 1% when you upload your quota.

Other times it's just shitty luck. Of those 210 how many are seeds? Maybe nobody has the last .04%.

I've uploaded about 2.3 GB so far according to the stats that my client spits out.

 

[lagman]

utorrent and yes.

 

[decept]

Another vote for utorrent. Best client and no bloat.

 

[Samutz]

Apparently it won't let me move it to utorrent.
Looking at what's already downloaded, there's one file that seems to contain both files provided by the torrent (an ISO and a smaller ZIP).
Then the filename has seemingly random characters followed by the torrent name (no extension):
T34J5H3234LKJH5K42J5H TorrentNameHere
Then there's a 2nd 1MB file with the same name but a .sd extension:
T34J5H3234LKJH5K42J5H TorrentNameHere.sd

And I have no idea how to get this into utorrent. But I noticed utorrent doesn't combine the files like this.

And now it's moved up to 99.97%

Edit: Found a guide on splitting the combined file. Gonna back it up and try it.

 

[imgod22222]

try Azureus. Its not banned on any private tracker, vs BitComet, which i actually prefer but is banned all over the place for "forcing seeds to download to you, tricking the swarm"

 

[fischju_original]

if you're getting slow speeds, you probably don't have your ports open

 

[Samutz]

Apparently it finished as soon as I loaded it into utorrent. Thanks for the help guys. I'll definitely be using utorrent from now on.

 

[fischju_original]

the last part was probably only on the private trackers then

 

[- Wrath of God -]

I'd recommend Azureus - best client ever.

 

[iamwhoiam]

azureus is the best client. uTorrent is too basic

 

[fischju_original]

it's µtorrent, it's supposed to be small

 

[spokenrope]

Apparently it finished as soon as I loaded it into utorrent. Thanks for the help guys. I'll definitely be using utorrent from now on.

Glad you got it worked out. I've never understood why anybody would use anything but uTorrent.

 

[Xeijin]

azureus is the best client. uTorrent is too basic

Yeah its more basic than Azures, but I don't think most people even use half the options Azures offers. I know most don't even take a peek inside the settings...just fire it straight up.

Azures is good, was my previous client. But they sacrificed performance for multi-platform-compatibility (by using Java) which in my book is unacceptable because:

1. There are decent clients available for each OS, multiplatform isn't really necessary.

2. The performance hit is not good in the context of a torrent program, as its something you likely leave on in the background for long periods of time (i.e. while seeding/downloading) so its basically being a very inconvinient resource hog.

uTorrent's simplicity means it maintains a small memory footprint which basically means, it hogs less resources, while essentially doing the same job as other clients. I mean the standalone client is only 170kb!! The installable client is only 681kb! (Though this dosen't exactly equate to better performance, it gives you an idea no?)

 

[iamwhoiam]

Fine fine, micro torrent, u torrent... whatevs

It still doesn't have the tweakability of azureus

 

[iamwhoiam]

Xeijin: That's a good point about the memory

Azureus is the worst client for that. But I guess if you've got enough memory, then having more features is a bonus. Again, you're right, most people won't use them.

 

[lagman]

Xeijin post

3-And it comes with a Tetris game