bad torrent or bad timing?

[jgf]

First, I'm not one of those scrolling through lists of torrents with an "I want this. I want that" attitude. I'm usually seeking a particular file, do a torrent search, click on a result, select Pirate Bay (they're at the top, almost always have what I want, and give decent information), and look at the stats for that torrent before getting it. If zero seeds are shown I go back and try another; also read comments, if any, to see if others had any trouble (though these are all too often people requesting a different, similar, file to be uploaded).

So, after trying to be practical about what torrents I select, I've still amassed quite a few that either never start or never finish. I get 35%-98% of a file and, no matter how long I leave the download active, never get the rest. I've considered that by foul coincidence I'm never online at the same time as whoever has the rest of the file (I usually leave bitcomet running all night, occasionally for several hours during the day). And, of course, it could just be a bad torrent. Is there anything I've overlooked in the selection process, or is there some way of determining a bad torrent before wasting all that time, and bandwidth, on it?

[greywizard]

If there are no comments for that torrent there is no safe way of determining if its contents are valid or if it's a fake except for downloading it.

As for the reason why they never complete, there can be several answers.

A few are these:

1. there are no peers for that torrent anymore therefore the torrent is dead (you can check that in the tasklist);
   
2. there is no aggregate or complete copy of the torrent among the connected peers of the swarm (you can check that on the Summary tab);
   
3. the torrent is a poisoned one and it will never complete (because it was intended not to).
   

Sometimes stopping the task and performing a manual hash-check helps you out of the problem.

Or you could install PeerGuardian and run it for a while since it blocks some known IP of agencies known to poison torrent downloads by feeding rubbish data into the swarms.

But other than that, there is no fail-safe way of getting it to complete. Your best bet in a case like that is to search for the same content in another torrent.

[kluelos]

The number of seeds and peers shown at TPB is a snapshot of a moment somewhere in the past, and often long past. All that matters is how many peers there are right *now*.

"If there were none, then there will not be any" is a logical fallacy, as much as "If there were many, there will be many now" is. The numbers are somewhat more reliable only in the very recent past. The further out you go the less relation to reality they bear. The only way to know is to look.

That or use a tracker which notifies you about recent activity or is more vigorous about pruning unseeded torrents. You might try joining Demonoid, for example. The index informs you when the most recent seeder activity occurred and what the *current* status of torrents is.

[jgf]

Have d/l'd PeerGuardian, read the FAQ (not very informative), but will peruse their forum before trying it. Any more information you can provide is appreciated.

In some cases I've tried getting the torrent from a different source, but when I load it bitcomet tells me I already have it. Other times I find files so widely divergent in size that the only option would be to d/l all of them and see if any is what I seek.

For one file I've been trying to get there are plenty of peers (as many as 70 once) but apparently we all have the same 60% of the file since there is never any activity in either direction.

Other times I'll see a couple of seeds and several peers listed for a new addition to my tasklist but there is no download.

How do I perform a "manual hash check"? And what will it tell me?

As for Demonoid, apparently I must be invited to join.

I read somewhere that you can occasionally tell a bad torrent by looking in the torrent file itself. Any truth to that?

[greywizard]

When I said a different torrent, I meant a torrent with a different info-hash. If you got that message from BitComet then you were trying to download a torrent with the same info-hash, hence the same one.

A manual hash check does exactly what its name says, it hash-checks all the pieces already downloaded against the hash values from the .torrent file, to see if any of them is corrupted.

You can do that by stopping the task, right-clicking on it and choosing Manual Hash Check from the context menu.

As for the .torrent file, yes and no. Yes, you can see if a .torrent file is garbage, by looking at it in the case when it doesn't contain the usual stuff it should. It may be empty instead or contain some error message from the HTTP server where it was downloaded from.

But if it contains all the right stuff inside, then you can't tell from the .torrent file if that task is going to complete or not.

For any task where you see no activity, the first thing to check is if there are any peers detected for that task. If there are any, the second thing to check is the Peers tab where you can see if you are connected to any of them or not.

If there are peers detected, you can give it some time (a day or two). If you still can't see any activity, then it's pretty much safe to delete it. (Of course this assumes that you have a green light and all your other settings in order, so that you make a desirable peer).

[kluelos]

Demonoid periodically and often prunes its membership list, then has a period of open signups until it gets back to maximum.

When I decided to try to join, I just checked the site twice daily, and I hit an open signup period in less that two weeks. An invitation isn't really necessary, a little patience works just as well.

[jgf]

Demonoid periodically and often prunes its membership list, then has a period of open signups until it gets back to maximum.

When I decided to try to join, I just checked the site twice daily, and I hit an open signup period in less that two weeks. An invitation isn't really necessary, a little patience works just as well.

Thanks. Only took a couple of days. But, on their site I read:

"Please do not use BitComet, BitLord and its derivatives. They cause your ratio to be misreported, and cause transfer troubles."

???

[kluelos]

This was an unfounded rumor started by the forum moderator of rival client who decided they could get traction by libelling the then-leader.. No one, challenged to produce data, to actually demonstrate that BitComet reports X when it should have reported Y, has ever been able to do that. Nevertheless, unfounded rumors have flourished even after being disproved.

Tracker operators who are amenable to reason are asked to investigate this for themselves, to either satisfy themselves that it isn't so, or to tell us what they think BitComet does wrong so that the developers can fix it. They generally concede that this isn't the case, and allow BitComet as a client. A couple have actually admitted they'd been wrong, but we settle for just not being arbitrarily banned anymore.

Those who won't, are not amenable to reason. Be careful not to get into an argument with one of them, because they aren't amenable to reason. Some of them refuse to even discuss the issue. What can I say to that? It's best to avoid such trackers.

I have been using BC on Demonoid for years with no problems and no complaints. I haven't bothered to challenge the request because the actual site operator knows better, and has not banned the client. Demonoid is a great tracker, but Deimos, and the current operator, did not/do not involve themselves in the daily operation of the site. Much is done in their names that I doubt they even know about.

Ignore the message. No one's ever said a word to me about using BitComet, and I've been there for years.

[cassie]

Ignore the message. No one's ever said a word to me about using BitComet, and I've been there for years

Ditto, for my case, as well.