"Torrent File Opening Failed!"

[jparkhill555]

After several searches, I can't figure out why BitComet continually gives me this error message?

"Torrent File Opening Failed!"

That's all that happens and reinstalling the software did not help.

[greywizard]

Is is a legitimate .torrent file, you're trying to open?

Or do you get this error for any .torrent file?

[kluelos]

This is almost always because what was actually received wasn't in proper format.

Open a known good .torrent file using notepad or a similar simple text editor. Don't edit the file or save it, just look at it. It is human-readable, text, punctuation and numbers.

Now download, save to disk and look at one of the .torrent files you're having this difficulty with. Chances are it's not just a little bit different, it's WAY different, not even close to the correct format. I've even seen database errors printed out instead of the correct file.

When this happens, there's not much you can do about it. If it happens a lot at a particular site you can try to tell them so, or just don't use that site.

[jparkhill555]

Is is a legitimate .torrent file, you're trying to open?

Or do you get this error for any .torrent file?

I'm going to attempt to check the Torrents...I downloaded three objects and they all responded the same way. Sorry to say I didn't think to check the Torrent format.

[greywizard]

You can simply open the files in Notepad and look inside. A real .torrent file uses a specific BEncoded format inside.

You should be able to see among others, file names, directory paths, and a lot of gibberish that stands for SHA1 hash codes.

If all you see is a URL or some text advertisement then you haven't downloaded a real .torrent file.

If you find that the .torrent files are legit then you can upload them here so that we can try them and confirm that they work well.

[epdm2be]

After several searches, I can't figure out why BitComet continually gives me this error message?

"Torrent File Opening Failed!"

That's all that happens and reinstalling the software did not help.

May I ask you if you did the following? Because I have the excact same problem. Whenever I click on a magnet link it, bitcomet gives this error. It used to work fine until i did the following.

After clicking on a magnet link, bitcomet opens a download window. In that window is a drive-folder displayed (in my case it was d:/torrents) but there is also a check-box (I think in advanced section) to not show that window anymore and use that folder as default from then on. After that it won't open magnet-links anymore when I clicked on a link.

You probably did the same.

I wonder if there's a way to reset bitcomet to it's default behaviour ? Perhaps a setting in the options screen can be created for this purpose?

This only happens with magnet links (because it's on that window that I checked that item). Torrent-links still work (and show the download-window). I tried with EZTV because it gives both magnets and torrentlinks. I tried with v1.29 and v1.31. Cleaned my registry with CCleaner, re-installed, removed again, re-cleaned and put 1.31 on my Windows Xp SP3 machine to no avail.

For now I reverted to uTorrent which works correctly as bitcoment used to work i/t past.

Edited January 30, 2012 by epdm2be (see edit history)

[epdm2be]

This is almost always because what was actually received wasn't in proper format.

Open a known good .torrent file using notepad or a similar simple text editor. Don't edit the file or save it, just look at it. It is human-readable, text, punctuation and numbers.

Now download, save to disk and look at one of the .torrent files you're having this difficulty with. Chances are it's not just a little bit different, it's WAY different, not even close to the correct format. I've even seen database errors printed out instead of the correct file.

When this happens, there's not much you can do about it. If it happens a lot at a particular site you can try to tell them so, or just don't use that site.

It happens with to me with links that used to work and now suddenly they don't. It only started after I checkmarked an option to always save in a particular folder and hence not show the 'save-' window anymore.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

It happens with to me with links that used to work and now suddenly they don't. It only started after I checkmarked an option to always save in a particular folder and hence not show the 'save-' window anymore.

This tells me your browser is corrupting the files, or if you have your browser set to let bitcomet handle http downloads, try changing it to let it handle the torrent download, then open the torrent in bitcomet.

[twTweeterAye]

Hey guys, I did that very same thing today!! ... getting a magnet from TPB as they did away with the old torrent system and sick of seeing that box pop up I clicked YES to make it go away forever... and now when I try to grab a magnet .. Torrent File Opening Failed! Tis making me crazy! I'm using Bitcomet ver.1.29 and up to date ver. of Opera as my browser...

Guardian Eagle, I tried to do what you said, but really couldnt figure it out!

jparkhill555 and epdm2be were you able to resolve this issue?

Cheers guys

[epdm2be]

@ twTweeterAye: No.

The only thing that does work is 'save' the magnet-URI to disk, then double-click on that saved file. Which is as inconvenient as having that save box in the first place. It's probably some registry- or .ini-file setting but in the end I just didn't bother. I'm using µTorrent now.

[twTweeterAye]

oh goodness, ur kidding.. that's the best option?!! Does not anyone at Bitcomet know how to correct this seeing as it is bitcomet that has created the problem?? I have been using bitcomet for like 7 years! and in that time I stuck with the program even when it was banished off a lot of trackers, had lots of buggy probs i had to work through alone, and now this... I dont want to change to another program.. i love my bitcomet.. but if i cant use TPB anymore then I will flip to utorrent too... :(

thanks for trying to help me out epdm2be, I really appreciated it

[kluelos]

*I* don't have this problem at all. I don't need to save the magnet link to disk, I just open it directly into BitComet.

But if you are trying to open a magnet link as if it were a torrent file, that isn't going to work.

[greywizard]

Opening magnet links works fine for me too.

Nonetheless, this topic seems muddled with confusion. Everybody seems to assume they know exactly what the other person is talking about but no one cares to explain exactly what they mean.

Remember that if an issue can't be reproduced it can't be fixed.

The first user started "implicitly" talking about .torrent files.

Then epdm2be came along and said "wait, no it's about magnet links".

Then he came along later and spoke about "saving the magnet link to disk" which is at the very least weird since magnet links are just that (URIs or "links" in plain English) not files. Unless a laborious process of actually copy-pasting the link into a text file or whatever is used, I can't imagine how you can save a magnet link to the disk directly.

So, in the end we're here having no idea what every single poster above is talking about, since there's a lot of confusion floating in the air.

I can understand someone's frustration when a thing doesn't work as it's supposed to. But unless one of you guys takes a second, sits back and clears his head then comes with a detailed and complete explanation of the issue, there's little we can do unless we'll stumble upon the issue ourselves (which we didn't so far).

Here's a simple guideline for a proper report.

1. BitComet version and browser version

2. On WHICH type of links it happens: magnet links (which are plain links themselves) or on torrent links which are actually links towards a .torrent file residing on the index server, and which will be downloaded by your browser prior to passing them to your BitTorrent client for opening.

3. The detailed steps of what you're doing and the EXACT moment you encounter this (I'm assuming it's something that happens every time).

[michael_harper4]

hey guys reading this and signed up just tell you how i fixed this issue. i was able to download torrents and magnets until i reloaded the program and i could still download torrents but not magnets so the fix for this with firefox is

1.open firefox

2.Tools and then options

3.click on the applications tab

4.Find magnets on the left hand side

5Then on the right column or "action" i saw that it did say bitcomet but when i checked to see another program there were 2 bitcomets programs for some reason so i clicked on the other Bitcomet and restarted fiorefox and magnets and torrents work fine now.

Let me know if this worked for anyone else.

Mike

[HenrythegameMiz]

hey guys reading this and signed up just tell you how i fixed this issue. i was able to download torrents and magnets until i reloaded the program and i could still download torrents but not magnets so the fix for this with firefox is

1.open firefox

2.Tools and then options

3.click on the applications tab

4.Find magnets on the left hand side

5Then on the right column or "action" i saw that it did say bitcomet but when i checked to see another program there were 2 bitcomets programs for some reason so i clicked on the other Bitcomet and restarted fiorefox and magnets and torrents work fine now.

Let me know if this worked for anyone else.

Mike

HE IS RIGHT, I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM AND THIS FIXED IT FOR ME.

[kluelos]

I did have this happen to me today, that BitComet and Firefox would no longer handle magnet links properly, throwing errors like "can't find the file" and "Can't open torrent file".

Getting Firefox back to handing magnet links off to BC involves going into your profile folder in %appdata%, and deleting the prefs.js and mimetypes.rdf files. Make sure that Firefox is shut down before you do this. Make very sure, because if you see a file named parent.lock in that directory, you've likely still got an instance running that you will have to find and kill first. (If you can't find it or kill it, then just reboot and delete those two files before you run FF at all.)

Now look at your BitComet preferences. Under Integration, check "Always Associate with Magnet URI". You should be good to go, but check the duplicate entry error above, it definitely shouldn't be that way and you should get rid of the duplicate. Deleting the mimetypes.rdf file SHOULD have accomplished this, but check anyway, it can't hurt anything.

[The UnUsual Suspect]

Thanks Kluelos for posting a work-a-round to resolve this, which is a firefox issue, not a bitcomet one. Although I haven't witnessed the problem myself, it's obvious that bitcomet handles torrents and magnet links properly when they are either opened in bitcomet, or properly handed off to bitcomet by the browser.

It's also amazing to see so many members making vague claims to having the "same problem", when no clear problem was described. Please be thorough when describing a problem. You don't have the knowledge of a computer engineer, if your a novice, then explain it in simple terms, exactly what you do step by step. It might take a few mins and seem annoying, but if you leave out how your doing something, we'll assume your doing it the normal way and since it works for us, we can only dismiss your report. If you have found a way to use bitcomet that causes it to not function, we'll reproduce the problem and submit it to development, but more often then not, it's user error, or in this case, the web browser settings that are causing the problem.

[rado841]

I know it's an old topic but since I had this problem until 5 minutes ago I'll post here my solution anyway.

Kluelos' work-around is not an option because by deleting the preferences file you actually trash all the settings you've made on your Firefox addons. So I found far more simple way to fix the problem without deleting any files. First I set the browser to use BC to open magnets and torrents. Of course there was this error message, so I did this:

• Set BC to be default app for magnets and torrents (there's a drop down menu which contains the words "application by default" in rounded brackets; select this).

• Open BC and remove the checks from checkboxes about default torrent client and about magnet URI. Click APPLY, then OK. No need to close the settings dialog window.

• Put the checks back on the checkboxes about torrents and magnets. Click APPLY again, then OK.

Try to open a magnet or a torrent link. It will work.

Basically what I did whas to force BitComet refresh its settings and it worked. And no files were hurt in the process. :D

[gtitaniumbronze]

hey guys reading this and signed up just tell you how i fixed this issue. i was able to download torrents and magnets until i reloaded the program and i could still download torrents but not magnets so the fix for this with firefox is

1.open firefox

2.Tools and then options

3.click on the applications tab

4.Find magnets on the left hand side

5Then on the right column or "action" i saw that it did say bitcomet but when i checked to see another program there were 2 bitcomets programs for some reason so i clicked on the other Bitcomet and restarted fiorefox and magnets and torrents work fine now.

Let me know if this worked for anyone else.

Mike

Thanks Michael_harper4, your solution worked for me as well! I suggest everyone that posted in this forum try this solution

[aprilg1]

I had this happen to me also where bitcomet stopped opening the files. I just took the easy way and when I go to download the torrent file I just right click on the magnet link and choose, copy link location, then it opens in bitcomet and downloads fine, although it takes a few extra seconds to load file information but it's better than having to reconfigure everything.