Listening port on Windows 7

[Sinius]

Hello everybody.

I've recently updated to Windows 7 from Windows XP SP3 and even if I'm trying to do everything I can't get listening port working.

1) What version of BitComet are you using?

BitComet 1.16

2) What type of Internet connection do you have (ADSL, etc.)?

I've got ADSL

3) Do you have a modem? Do you use a router? What model? Have you forwarded your port?

I've got router. It's Pirelli but dunno the exact model. However port is forwarded and router firewall is off. (Everything was working under Windows XP SP3).

4) What version of Windows, Firewall and Antivirus do you use?

Windows 7 OEM up to date updated :-) Windows Firewall, no AV. I've tried to disable Windows Firewall, but problem persisted.

I've got only 2Mbit link with 0.14Mbit upload, but I don't have problem maintaining max download speed on some torrents. Problem is with less seeded/shared torrents where listening port would help. (or at least I belive it would help)

[greywizard]

Since you upgraded to Win 7, have you still got (the same) fixed (LAN) IP? Because if your actual IP is different (or dynamic) from the one which the router was forwarding to when you had Win XP it won't work. Have you checked that?

[kluelos]

If you turned the firewall in the router off, then you don't have anything to forward a port through. You do not need to configure the router's firewall in that circumstance. (The point of the drawbridge is to have a way to get across the moat. If you drained and filled in the moat, you don't need a drawbridge.)

This means that the firewall blocking the port is elsewhere, and probably in software. You will need to find it and configure it. This is actually a lucky break for you, since you said you tried disabling the Windows firewall. That would have left you with no firewall at all, and you would have swiftly been infected.

Never, never connect to the internet without a working firewall. If you think you might have done so, you need to thoroughly scan your system.

AVG from Grisoft - free antivirus.

Spybot S&D - Free spyware scanner

AdAware - Free adware scanner

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Free malware detector and remover

Partizan - free rootkit detector.

Yes, you need all of them, and you need to scan with the first four, once a month.

[Sinius]

have you still got (the same) fixed (LAN) IP?

Yes, port is forwarded to 192.168.1.11 and my router is giving the same internal IP to my PCs LAN card through MAC number.

To kluelos:

Even if firewall at router is Disabled I've had to configure Virtual Server (it's funny name on this router model for NAT forwarding) to get listening port working in BitComet in all my previous Windows installations.

I've installed all applications you've suggested and they haven't found any serious threat, only some tracking cookies, which I've removed.

I've got Windows Firewall always on, just turned it off to see if it was that what was preventing listening port from being active and seems it wasn't.

I'm clueless, because this is fresh installation with nothing else than drivers and BitComet installed.

I also know that the same problem was encountered by my friend who has Vista. He tried everything and couldn't get the port working. It was ok on Windows XP however.

[greywizard]

Is your modem integrated into your router? If not, try to take the router out of the loop for the test's sake, just to double-check that the problem resides on your computer. After that we'll know we have to focus only towards your PC.

[Sinius]

Router is modem also I think... I've got one program from our provider - telephone, digital TV and internet. After splitter ADSL cable runs towards the router and telephone cable into telephone. Into ADSL router is connected digital TV, my desktop and sometimes notebook through wifi. However notebook doesn't have any problems with listening port (ofc it's set up on different IP - through MAC adress again - and using different port for NAT).

I've tried to change the listening port number few times but it didn't work also :-/ It seems like there is some clutch in Windows 7 that I'm missing.

[kluelos]

I've got one program from our provider - telephone, digital TV and internet.

What do you mean by the word, "program", in that sentence?

.. it's set up on different IP - through MAC adress again..

Your IP address and your MAC address are two entirely different things. Your IP address is changeable, while your MAC address is not (unless you've installed spoofing software).

This sounds like you think your IP address is the same as it was, when it is not the same because you've conflated it with your MAC address. If that's not the case, then you need to say quite a bit more about your setup.

If you look at the back and bottom of your router, then you should be able to find the correct make and model number, which would also help.

[greywizard]

Kluelos, I believe he means that the router assigns the same IP every time based on his MAC. I've seen some routers that can do this if you choose. But I'm not sure if that's what he means.

@Sinius: Do you by any chance have an Nvidia mobo? Those come many times with a firewall among the other software and drivers on the mobo disc. If you have that installed this time this could be a problem.

Also, is your Windows Defender enabled? This is kind of stupid (since WD should have nothing to do with your connections) but some user reported that after unistalling it, his BC client started working OK. Just try and disable it and see what happens.

Could you copy-paste here the results of a ipconfig /all, too?

[kluelos]

Wiz, I have seen a few routers that IDENTIFY the connected computer based on the MAC, but that is not at all the same thing as assigning the network address that way. I have never seen a router config that allows controlling the assigned address via the MAC (or the name), which it would have to have.

How else accommodate those computers which assert an IP rather than ask for one? How deal with conflicts, especially when one computer in the memory is not online now, but might be online later? The firmware quickly becomes difficult to code: lots of exception handling needed, and with dubious benefits.

This is a much, much more simpleminded function. It queries Windows for the connected computer names as given, coupleing the name with the MAC so the customer can conveniently deal with a visible "Joe's Computer" rather than remembering 10.10.218.7 It doesn't try to go beyond that in any implementation I've ever seen.

Remember that going from XP to 7 is NOT an upgrade. It's a full reinstall. If the computer name changes, even trivially, as it very well might during this process, then any settings in the router for that old computer name might or might not be applied. it depends on how the firmware was coded, and we can't know that.

In any case, we don't know if this router does that at all. None of the Pirellis I've seen or can find do it that way, and the firmware for the different models doesn't usually stray too far from others within one make, conceptually. (All the Pirelli models call it "setting a virtual server" while all the Linksys models call it "forwarding a port".)It would be pretty surprising if his is that different. It might, or this might be a case of simple confusion. Without more information, there's no way to tell. Bear in mind that he says his router's firewall is off, AND that he has to forward a port through it to get things to work. Both can't be true.

[greywizard]

kluelos, the router I was speaking about, didn't do that by default. It just offered you the possibility to map a certain IP to a MAC address. As soon as you did that, it was removed from the DHCP pool so it wouldn't be used for other computers.

Other routers deal with static IPs by letting you customize the DHCP pool so that some addresses won't ever be used for DHCP and be available for manually setting as static IPs on some LAN hosts when needed.

The MAC approach, takes this one step further, by automatically removing the IP from the DHCP pool once you've assigned it to a MAC. That way you won't have to configure the host anymore.

It will be assigned a IP by DHCP, as far as the host is concerned, but as far as the router is concerned, that will be a static IP.

Even my router/modem does some form of that, just in a slightly different way. It uses the Netbios name of my LAN PCs to give me the possibility of giving them static IPs from within the router. But I'm not sure if maps the Netbios name to the MAC or not, since on this one I can't see/input the MACs, though.

But as I said, I don't know if that's this user's case.

[Sinius]

Ok I will be more specific:

I'm absolutly sure that "virtual server" (port forwarding) is set for 192.168.1.11 and that my desktop is connected to router with 192.168.1.11 assigned by router itself, because the router recognizes my LAN card MAC adress (that is what I was talking before when I've mentioned MAC adress). I can set up all those things myself and never ever had problem.

To be honest I'm not just somebody who has computer for a first time. I wouldn't write on the forum if the problem was something trivial like IP adress or port or firewall.

Thanks for tip with Windows Defender. I've tried to disable it, but it just didn't help even after PC restart.

EDIT: Sorry I forgot to mention that I don't have NVidia motherboard.

Oh and yeah... I'm absolutly sure it's because of something in Windows :-) Because I've also tried Warcraft 3 (you need forwarded port to be able to create game through net)

and with turned off firewall and windows defender I couldn't make it work either :-/

Now it seems more like question for Windows 7 technical forums.

Edited November 26, 2009 by Sinius (see edit history)

[greywizard]

Actually, I've formulated wrong that question. It is not only Nvidia mobos, but any system that has something from Nvidia (be it chipset or graphic card) which might have Nvidia firewall installed, since it seems to come bundled with both the chipset drivers and with the Forceware drivers.

But if you're absolutely positive that you don't have the Nvidia firewall installed then I guess you need to start fishing through your process list in Task Manager (or get Process Explorer; it's better).

Then, any process you don't recognize or know what it does (especially the non-M$ ones), you Google it and see if it has anything to do with a firewall application. It's rather painful, I know, but computing sometimes is that way. And we have M$ to thank for that, so often.

Obviously you still have an application/process acting as a firewall and blocking inbound connections, if you say you're positive that the router is properly configured.

[Sinius]

Thank you, I will work on it :-)

[kluelos]

I should point out that Windows Defender is not the problem. It isn't a firewall of any kind, and I use it myself. There's nothing you need to configure unless WD itself is giving you messages saying your bittorrent client itself is malware.

The good part about digging through all of your running processes, is that most people find an appalling number of things running that they don't want running. Cleaning that out results in a peppier system.

[Dark_Shroud]

I am a Win7 user and I'm now running 1.16. When I installed BC I right clicked the installer and ran it as administrator. This is a force of habit of mine since I've been running Vista with strict UAC settings.

Have you changed the UAC settings from the default? Did you configure BitComet to remove the listings in Windows Firewall when you close BC?

Windows Firewall will reactivate it's self if Windows doesn't detect any other 3rd party firewall. For the most part this is a good thing. Also, I would suggest installing MSE.

[Sinius]

Nope, UAC settings are at default. I haven't turned on the option to remove port on BC exit.

I've also searched through programms with task manager, but no luck. There is nothing...

[greywizard]

That's weird. We're certainly missing something here.

Do you see your public IP in the lower right corner of BC, in the status bar?

Can you post here the results of a ipconfig /all for the NIC you use on that PC?