All of my downloads are missing, help!

[alexb123]

When I open BitComet none of my downloads are in the main screen. If I do a search I can find all of the downloads in the Bitcomet download directory but Bitcomet is not picking them up. How can I get Bitcomet to pick them up?

Cheers

[benyahuda]

alexb123

First check in:

Options--->Preferences--->Task-->Download-->Default Download Path:

It must be pointed at your path. In my following examples it is G:\BitComet\Downloads

If that is correct you can look in your BitComet folder for a file named Downloads.xml. Open it with notepad or any of the other decent freeware text editors. My personal favorite is notepad++, available HERE. Another is PSPad, there are others, they're all useful.

Once opened it should resemble:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>

<BitComet Author="RnySmile" Version="0.1">

<TaskList>

<Torrent DataDownload="1298661376" DataUpload="125796352" InfoHashHex="f10f083b3728d76abe8ba7f6ce3cd3273b67b3ac" Left="3024490496"

SaveDirectory="G:\BitComet\Downloads" SaveLocation="G:\BitComet\Downloads\

The Da Vinci Code" SaveName="The Da Vinci Code" SelectedSize="4291170304" ShowName="The Da Vinci Code" Size="4291170304" Torrent="The Da Vinci Code.torrent" TorrentFile="Torrents\The Da Vinci Code.torrent"></Torrent>

</TaskList>

If your file is similar to that. And as you say your downloads do exist. Then you can look in BitComet.xml which should start out similar to this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>

<BitComet Author="RnySmile" Version="0.1">

<Settings>

<DefaultDownloadPath>G:\BitComet\Downloads</DefaultDownloadPath>

And on and on and on

If all of those conditions are met and BitComet cannot see your existing downloads I would consider them lost myself. There are others here who might have better ideas. But that is about as far as I have delved into the Case Of The Missing Downloads.

This has happened to me on occasion when I'm upgrading or trying out a beta. Sometimes there is an error in one of those XML files that I can recognize and repair. And sometimes not. The last time this happened to me I found the Downloads.xml file had some downloads on one path and was putting others on a completely different drive. I have no idea how that happened but it was an easy fix to just replace all the C:\Downloads with G:\BitComet\Downloads.

I hope your situation is something just as easy because I know how it feels to have 98% of a file and then lose it in an upgrade. Usually BitComet respects existing XML files. But in the future you might just save copies of your existing XML files in a seperate directory during an upgrade just in case BitComet overwrites them.

[alexb123]

Cheers for this will have to give it a try. Thanks for the advice :)