Gaytorrent.ru is running on dedicated servers. All money donated is used to cover the cost of the server farm.
Why do I occasionally get PHP or SQL errors? Should I report them?
This can happen if an admin happens to be working on the database or the code at the time you are browsing the site.
Generally you do not have to report these errors, just wait a few minutes and things will most likely be back to normal.
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.
Can you rename my account?
No!
We do not rename accounts. The only possibiliti is to first delete your old account (Use
this form to delete your present account.) But keep in mind that after you delete your old account there is a waiting time of 60 days
until you can create a new account
Only after that time you can create your new account!
But keep in mind that after you delete your old account there is a waiting time of 60 days
until you can create a new account
So, what's MY ratio?
Click on your profile, then on your user name (at the top).
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).
When are accounts auto-pruned?
We have three classes of accounts, which are deleted from our database after different times:
Type of account
deleted after xx days
Banned accounts (also accounts which used delacct.php)
60
Unused accounts (UL and DL = 0)
90
Used accounts (UL and/or DL not = 0)
180
Currently we don't support an account parking feature because all used accounts now have the 180 days time frame.
Why is my IP displayed on my details page?
No IPs are displayed over the whole System any longer.
Help! I cannot login!? (a.k.a. Login of Death)
This problem sometimes occurs with MSIE. 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. We implemented the Passkey System so after that, even if the IP changes mid-session,
the seeding or leeching will continue and the statistics will update without any problem.
Why am I listed as not connectable? (And why should I care?)
The tracker has determined that you are firewalled or NATed and cannot accept incoming connections.
How do I add an avatar to my profile?
First, find an image that you like, and that is within the
rules. Then you will have to upload it into our BitBucket.To Show the Picture in your Profile, copy the URL you were given when uploading it to the avatar field in your profile.
What's a 'passkey'?
A passkey is a key associated with your account that uniquely identifies you as a gaytorrent.ru user.
When a .torrent file is downloaded from your account, the passkey is automatically added to the announce URL in the .torrent file. Therefore whenever that .torrent is used the tracker will associate it with your account, no matter what IP you are connecting from.
Make sure you keep your passkey and .torrent files private at all times.
Do not give .torrent files you downloaded at gaytorrent.ru to someone else, do not upload it to other websites! Everybody connecting to the tracker using your .torrent file will leech from your account!
How do I reset my passkey?
Go to your page and request a new passkey.
Note that by using this you will invalidate all the .torrent files that you may have previously downloaded, and will have to download them again.
What's your .torrent/passkey sharing policy?
In order to prevent our .torrents from being uploaded to public sites (in effect turning this into a public tracker), there are a number of security measures in place. First among them is the following: if, at any time, there are more than 5 distinct IPs simultaneously using the same passkey with the same torrent, the account associated with the passkey will be automatically get a new passkey. This will also invalidate all your previously downloaded torrents!
You may still seed/leech the same torrent from several PCs as long as you are careful not to exceed this limit.
Note that this takes into account simultaneous connections only. If you have a dynamic IP and have to change it 100 times while downloading a torrent that it will not trigger this mechanism. (As long as you exit your client properly, there will only be one peer/IP at any time.)
Why do you have different user classes?
Currently there are 6 user classes, which we'd like to introduce here
This is the user class every newly signed in user belongs to.
PowerUser are user who have a good ratio and who are fair sharers
VIPs are user with a high reputation at our team
Moderators are members of the working class on our site
SysOps may work on all topics, which the admins do not fancy doing
Admins correct all those things, they forgot to do properly before, but only if they do not have any sysops
How to ascend toward another user class
The ways are slightly different depending on your aimed destination
Sign in
-->
This promotion is the easiest one, it works automatically.
You can imagine this promotion like birth, only it doesn't take as long and it is much more painfree for all
involved. No midwife holding you up head down while patting your backside more or less gently (even though this
thought has something appealing if one of the admins will take the role of a midwife -- but they won't do that)
-->
This step is automated as well and even more easy if you have managed to reach the following three conditions:
You have to be a member on our site for at least four weeks
You must have an upload greater than 40 GB
You must have reached a ratio of at least 1.05 (read better = greater)
-->
This Step does not come automatically, it comes like a present. But there is at least one way not to
reach this goal: apply with an admin for this promotion.
-->
If you are really sure to open this can of worms, apply for it. Have a look at our forums or our home page, you'll
find a short job description. Send a short application to a mod you trust and prepare for a "mod interview". You'll have
to wait for the staff to decide if your abilities are what we need for our system.
-->
So so, you've got not enough work yet? You'd like to supervise the moderators and control and order them?
You are very welcome to apply for that with the team. Of course they will be extraodinary glad and support
your application fulheartedly and unanimouly.
Or you only want a better salary? To clear up the last question just now and here: salary? What is that supposed
to be??? As a sysop you pay your (admitted: bigger) salary to the admins. Otherwise you have to be quite knowledgable
(about five years work as a server should be enough) to start in this position.
But even then: don't hold your breath after an application.
-->
Brrruuuuaaaahhhh, it's quite rare to have such a good laugh over an application. When do you want to get sober again?
And what do you dream if/when/while you sleep???
Naaaaw, naaaaw, stop dreaming - Just forget it. This Job is occupied since and for some time, without chances for a newbie applicant.
What meaning have those weird icons beside my username in my profile?
There are some of them. We'd like to introduce them to you. At first a positive Icon, we're sure all of
you will be fond of and strive for geteting it (hint hint )
This icon is given to a donator - that is a member who donated some money to GayTorrent.ru and got
a certain upload amount in return for his donation too.
Now come the negative hints. You should care about these signs if you would not like to get into
deeper troubles.
The system gives away this warning after it determines you don't do enough for your ratio and/or don't fancy
sharing. You really have to get used to giving away parts of what others give away to you for free.
Besides you'll have to deal with an annoyed system (not to mention an annoyed staff) if you don't care and
change your view.
Seeing this icon shows you what an ignored ratio warning (see above) will bring you: Your download rights are taken
away and all your downloads are disabled on our tracker. This is the last opportunity for you to immediately think about your
sharing-behaviour on our site, and read our rules once again thoroughly. This marker does not say
your account is banned. You have your now your last chance to increase your ratio to the minimum required level in order
to get your download rights back.
Seeing this icon should bring you to immediately think about your behaviour on our site, and read our rules
once again thoroughly. BTW: Additionally to any warning you get a PM too, containing even a reason why you were warned. Please read the reason! (We assume your are able and willing to read this PM and adhere to the content.) Might be you want to print out the rules - not to put them under your pillow and sleep even more
softly but to have them handy whenever you log in at our site. Because: If you are caught breaking another
(even worse: the same) rules again the next step of a system waning gets active - leading to banning your account.
Admittedly this is also a possibility to get rid of your account, but there are more easy ways to do that.
Another note: While this system warning is active, your download rights are automatically disabled. You can do nearly everything on our site (upload, seed, visit the forum, chat, browse, search, read rules and/or the FAQ,
whatever) - but not download any torrent file! Your download rights will be re-instated automatically after this
system warning has expired (unless it is for arbitrary time) and the length of this warning is also in the content of
the PM we mentioned before. Additionally: On top of your details page a system warning and the expiration date will be shown.
If you can see this icon in your account, all alarm bells should go off and keep ringing! This hint pronounces
the rapid arriving sudden death of your account! In fact it means at least another account has been created
from the same IP. All accounts marked with this sign are banned from our team without further warning!
There are several reasons, how this icon might intrude your profile, some of the most used lame excuses are:
I use a proxy
That is your Problem. Details to this topic you can find in this FAQ.
I created a 2nd account for testing
The only thing you can test with a double account in fact is how long it takes our system to catch you
and nail you down and ban all accounts with this IP.
I have a bad ratio on my other account
LOL - an even lamer excuse as the first one, but again: Your problem! It was not our team to drive
your ratio down after all. A member which only downloads, wanting to have all alone and doesn't even care
to give back 35% of the video he got as a present before can't count on much sympathy with our team.
I live together with my BF/in a flat share/...
If you live with other people you should be used to sharing. With one IP you have to simply share one
account and not create a seperate account for each one. Sharing is the key word here.
Besides: If you are able to live with your BF (I wouldn't bet in celibacy) you should be able to talk about a
common account at GayTorrents.ru.
FLORISCH GOOOAAALLL!!! BALLYHOOOOOO YOU LOST!!! You managed it finally - your account was banned. If you think
about creating another account - you should have another thought coming. We can promise you that won't work -
our system is that clever since a long time.
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, exept these banned Clients:
µTorrent (below versions 1.4)
BitComet (below version 0.69)
Bitlord
ABC
Bitspirit
TorrentStorm
Burst!
BitBuddy
XBT
TurboBT
The tracker now updates the stats correctly for all capable 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.
Furthermore we recommend not to use so called multiprotocol clients like Limewire, Shareaza, Ares, Free Download Manager and whatever there is available in that category.
Those clients are usually only good for one protocol for which they were originally programmed and support BitTorrent only rudimentary, sometimes with wrong stats or reporting one download finished a lot of times.
Use such clients at your own risk. We will answer support questions for them only with one sentence: uninstall that client and use a decent and capable BitTorrent only client!
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.
(The only way to completely stop foreign torrents from showing in profiles is to forbid users without
an individual IP from accessing the site. Yes, that means you. Complain at your own risk.)
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 Gaytorrent.ru users in the LAN
You should use the same Gaytorrent.ru account in 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 (they will be listed as such, 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 Gaytorrent.ru users in the LAN
At present there is no way of making this setup always work properly with Gaytorrent.ru.
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?)
First, create the .torrent file in you favourite client. Consult the client's manual in case of questions/problems. Read the Upload-Guide.
Then browse the "Upload" page (menu on top of the page) select category, upload pictures and then select the .torrent file to upload. Specify some basic information like the name to be displayed and a comment. Then click on upload.
After uploading the torrent you created, you must download your personal torrent file containing the annouce-url with your passkey. Otherwise your won't be able to seed! Detailed instructions are given on the upload page.
Now open your personal .torrent file (the one you downloaded, not the one you created!) in your client for seeding. The client will check the files integrity, which may take some time, and then contact the tracker. If this contact succeeds, the .torrent is read for others to download. You might want to check the "Download" page and look for your torrent, just to be sure.
What bandwidth do I need for seeding a torrent?
If you are the first seeder of a new torrent, make sure you dedicate as much bandwith as possible to upload this torrent. The bandwith for a new torrent should be at least 20kb/s, the more the better of course.
Please stop all other up- and / or downloads.
Especially when uploading a big torrent, make sure you have enough bandwidth to seed at least one full copy in a decent time. It does not make sens to seed a 1GB file on a 56k connection as it would take forever to spread the file!
If you are unsure about what you can upload, ask a moderator first. They can help you to find out the right file-sizes for your internet-connection
How long should I seed a torrent?
If you are the first seeder of a torrent you uploaded yourself, you must seed the file at least until three
complete copies (as seeders) are listed on the "Download" page of the tracker! Do not stop seeding a torrent before that time as this will result in a dead torrent!
Don't forget: There is no easier possibillity to push up your ratio than to let a torrent stay seeding in your client,
as long as other clients want to have a piece of that cake.
What kind of torrent should I upload?
Anything Gay related. Do NOT upload any Blockbuster Stuff from Cinemas released within the past 3 years (eg. I Love You Phillip Morris)
How many torrents should I seed at the same time?
If you're the first seeder, please make sure that you can spread the torrent uploaded as fast as possible. To archive that, do not upload more than 1 big torrent at the same time, stop seeding of other torrents and dedicate all your upload bandwidth to the torrents you want to spread.
What is “Seed Bonus”, how is it computed and how do I improve my Ratio using it?
Our ‘Seed Bonus’ is a way of encouraging our members to seed files. Very simply put, after you finish a download, leave it on and it will continue to ‘seed’ to other members who are downloading (leeching) the file. You are therefore seeding!
The bonus is computed on how many hours you leave any files on ‘seed’. For every hour you have a file (or multiple files) seeding you get .5 points for every hour. In other words you get ONE point for every TWO hours you seed!
The bonus you get depends on your choice. There are three levels of ‘bonus’ (the bonus is the number of GB’s that will be added to your “Total Upload” number. The three levels you can choose from are:
Seed Bonus Points Upload GB Bonus
100
1.0 GB
200
2.5 GB
350
5.0 GB
YOU chose when and at what level you want to get your Bonus Points, just click on the “Seed Bonus” and it will allow you to select to use your points to improve your ratio.
Are there specials rules for uploading collections?
Yes, there are.
Of course all of our upload rules (forbidden content, no duplicates...) do apply also for collections. We just ask for some special rules to make our work to approve collections a bit more easy so also collections can be approved in a reasonable time.
Please watch the following conditions for uploading collections:
Limit the size of your collection to 2 GB. Exceptions to this rule are complete TV seasons and(or site rips.
Break your collection down into parts if it exceeds 2GB, upload those parts as separate torrents.
Use the same main title with different part names (collection title - part 1, collection title - part 2... or a date like Parties Oct/2007, Parties Nov/2007...).
Do not upload collections of full length films.
List the file names contained within your collection in the Torrent-Description.
No external compressed (zip, rar, ...) video files. Neither single videos nor in collections!
Is there something special to consider when uploading a DVD?
Not really, when you keep in mind we have a lot of members. Not all of our members have the latest computer equipment
and you are interested in sharing your DVD with as many members as possible.
What are the special topics then?
There are different methods to rip a DVD
an Image file (.iso, .img ...) and
a DVD folder structure
Uploading an image file:
Image files seem to be the most simple method to rip a DVD - but beware: an image file is a single file which will be
easily greater than 2 GB in size. As mentioned before - such big files can easily make it impossible to download such
a file because of some (older) file systems are not capable of handling files greater 2 GB in size. That is the reason
we do not like image uploads at all.
There are some programs which can split a big image file into smaller parts (size 1 GB) or so named file.I00,
file.I01... but that is also not a real good solution because you need a descriptor file to describe the complete
ISO image (named file.MDS) and special programs which are able to burn a DVD from such a descriptor file and all
accompanying split image parts.
Uploading a DVD Folder structure
This is a much simpler option. You just have to take care of some naming conventions:
Create a folder named like the DVD. This will be the folder to create the torrent from (like the root of the DVD).
Inside this folder must be at least one other folder, named
VIDEO_TS - (the video content of the DVD) - all DVDs have another empty folder:
AUDIO_TS - this folder is not used for Videos though but only for Music DVDs.
in the VIDEO_TS folder there are the video files starting with
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.VOB *
(describing the structure of the (different) titles on the DVD like Main feature, Bonus features, ..., the file
VIDEO_TS.VOB may be ommitted in some cases)
and the real Video files
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.VOB *
VTS_01_1.VOB
... up to
VTS_01_9.VOB
for the first video title on the DVD and the corresponding next title files are named
VTS_02_x.IFO/BUB/VOB for the second title ...
May go up to VTS_99_x.IFO/BUP/VOB
* also here the VTS_xy_0.VOB file might be missing in some cases, depending on the menu structure of the DVD.
Now a word about the file extensions:
the IFO files are information files and contain important tables about where each title is located on the disc,
chapter points, age restrictions and a lot more. These IFO files are necessary to play a DVD and must be included! They are so important
that there are backup files for them on each and every DVD, the .BUP files. Those are simply backups for the IFO files
and will be used by the DVD player in case they get a read error in the IFO file. Also they must be included!
The VOB files are the video content - they are essential too of course.
Now we have the complete structure for our upload:
Title_folder for the DVD
AUDIO_TS (*1)
VIDEO_TS
VIDEO_TS.IFO
VIDEO_TS.BUP
VIDEO_TS.VOB (*2)
VTS_01_0.IFO
VTS_01_0.BUP
VTS_01_0.VOB (*2)
VTS_01_1.VOB
...
and this structure is mandatory to burn a playable DVD from the download.
*1 : the AUDIO_TS folder is usually empty
*2 : files may be missing due to the structure of the DVD
So we ask you to rip this structure from a DVD, move (or directly rip) it in a folder named like the DVD itself and
create a torrent from the folder "Movie-title".
There are some ripping programs who create a top folder named DVDVOLUME. Please rename such a folder to the correct
DVD-title. In case there are two uploads with a root folder DVDVOLUME - and you want to download both of them - the
content of your first download will be unavoidably overwritten (same is valid if you upload only the folder VIDEO_TS,
because this folder occurs on each and every DVD and is always named VIDEO_TT
We will disapprove DVDs with missing *.IFO and/or *.BUP files (containing only *.VOB files) and will ask you to create
a new structure when you don't adhere to the structure we described here.
There may be three reasons for this:
(1) The torrent may have been out-of-sync with the site
rules.
(2) The uploader may have deleted it because it was a bad release.
A replacement will probably be uploaded to take its place.
How do I resume a broken download or reseed something?
Open the .torrent file. When your client asks you for a location, choose the location of
the existing file(s) and it will resume/reseed the torrent.
Why do my downloads sometimes stall at 99%
The more pieces 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.
What are these "a piece has failed an 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. 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" option is turned on
to minimize the extra downloads.
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.
Gaytorrent.ru 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 include, but is not neccessarily limited to, the following:
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 2.0.7.0 or higher, use a single port for all torrents, while most others use one port per open torrent. The size
of the range you choose should take this into account (typically less than 10 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 am I listed as not connectable? 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.)
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 couple of 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.)
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.
My ISP uses a transparent proxy. What should I do? - Top
Caveat: This is a large and complex topic. It is not possible to cover all variations here.
Short reply: 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 am I listed as not connectable even though I'm not NAT/Firewalled?
The Gaytorrent.ru 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 www.Gaytorrent.ru: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 Gaytorrent.ru. 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.
Does this apply to other torrent sites?
This section was written for Gaytorrent.ru, a closed, port 80-81 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? - Top
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.
