Tomato torrent help?

[julianex]

i'm a noob, please bear with

I recently dled tomato, and i could only dl one avi.

When i try to dl something, it doesn't say i'm uploading anything, the percentage won't go up-

is there something i need to know about peers, and seeds?

i also dled divx lately, and after i did that, i was able to watch the one avi.

any help would be GREATLY appreciated, thanks

[Jeromie]

Let me ask you a question are you using a Mac computer? I'm not really knowledgable with Mac's but I'll try answering some of your other problems.

When i try to dl something, it doesn't say i'm uploading anything, the percentage won't go up-

So you are able to download a file fine but your having problems uploading(seeding) the file? I'd say that might have to do something with the programs access to ports. Did you forward ports properly on your router/firewall?

is there something i need to know about peers, and seeds?

Peers = People that are sharing the file. (Downloading from them)
Seeds = People that are trying to get the file. (Uploading to them)

[julianex]

HI! thanks for replying!

yup, i do use a mac, though, i just got one this year, so i'm a bit noobish.

umm..

i can only upload SOME files, like only one successful download, and then the others don't upload at all- it says that there are zero peers and zero seeds..??

and then, once one started downloading, it said that it would take sixteen days. o_O !!! there's also a place where i can determine how many K/s are uploaded, but it doesn't really change the speed that it downloads onto my computer, i really don't understand it.

thanks for your help

[Ledgem]

Are you familiar with the way that BitTorrent works? If you are, you can skip my post. If not, I'll give you a brief overview that should clear this up for you (assuming you're not suffering a technical issue):

When you enter a torrent, your client has no data. It receives a list of users within the torrent (referred to as the "swarm") and begins requesting data. Clients that have the full file are referred to as "seeders" and in general they upload as much as they can to any client. Peers are clients that are actively downloading. Peers will send data to you, but generally they send more/faster if your client sends data to them. For this reason, unless a torrent is filled with many more seeders than peers, you'll find that torrents have to "accelerate" up to a good speed. You start out slowly because you have no completed data to trade; once your client can start trading, things start picking up.

What happens if there are no seeders? If all of the peers in the swarm could create the full file if they pooled their data, then the torrent will complete. What if they don't have enough data? Eventually, everyone in the torrent will reach the same percentage, and everything will stop - until a seeder, or a peer with missing data enters the swarm.

What happens if there are no peers or seeders? It's probably become evident by now that the data you're receiving comes from users within the swarm. If there's nobody in the swarm, you won't receive data. While it's possible that the torrent is empty (as is often the case with very old torrents, or very unpopular torrents), it's also possible that the tracker is having problems. The tracker is a server that keeps track of the users currently within the torrent swarm. It doesn't transmit any of the file data itself, but it transmits peer and seeder information to all clients involved. The clients can then contact each other and trade data.

Why is it that sometimes there are users, but no data is sent or received? Some users may not have properly configured their connections, and their ability to transfer data is hampered. It could also be a network issue, where they're simply unable to connect to you. It's also possible that you haven't properly configured your own client/connection.

If you're using a router, it's crucial that you ensure that you've set everything up properly. Otherwise, your performance will drastically be limited. The easiest solution is to enable UPnP support in your router, and then enable UPnP support in your client. This way, the client is able to communicate with the router and open the ports that it needs, only for as long as it needs it. It's more secure than manually forwarding ports from the router to your computer.

[Jeromie]

You could learn something from Ledgem's post, I certainly did! xD

@Julianex
According to Ledgem the torrent might not have any seeders to download from thats why your torrents don't start is that the case? If your not sure post the link to the site that has the torrent.

[julianex]

Ledgem-- thanks!

that cleared a lot up, um, a few more questions..

so right now, i should probably download stuff, so i can trade with others?

are the files that i have downloaded immediately available to other peers?

thanks a lot, ferserious.

[Jeromie]

I can answer those questions

are the files that i have downloaded immediately available to other peers?

Most BitTorrent programs work that way it basically depends on your torrent program. Remember one of the basic rules of Torrents is to share as much as you download or even more if you can spare the bandwidth.

so right now, i should probably download stuff, so i can trade with others?

In a way yes the things you download are available for all the other peers trying to download it just as long as your seeding it. Just as long as your still seeding the torrent file then your sharing it with everybody but once you remove the torrent your not sharing it anymore. It dosn't really work the same way as a P2P program that has a sharing folder where you can put files into that are always shared.

[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by julianex

so right now, i should probably download stuff, so i can trade with others?

are the files that i have downloaded immediately available to other peers?

Jeromie's replies probably answered your question, but I just wanted to expand on this one point a bit more. I may be misunderstanding what you wrote, though.

Unlike normal peer-to-peer programs, you've probably noticed that BitTorrent doesn't have an "upload" directory for sharing. That is, normal P2P programs let you share certain directories, and the files within those directories are available to other people to be found in searches and downloaded from you.

In BitTorent, the only data that matters is the data on your torrent. While there have been attempts to create BT-based P2P programs, as a rule, each and every torrent is separate from the other. How much you're uploading on Torrent A won't have any impact on your download rates for Torrent B. Additionally, there is no history involved - even if you uploaded 1 gigabyte of data to the torrent, if you disconnect and then reconnect, you'll have to do the whole "acceleration" procedure all over again (however, it'd likely be faster this time around, since your client is coming into the torrent with data to trade already).

Note that in all of this, there is only one file (or a set of files, in the case of a batch torrent), and those are the files within the torrent itself. Technically, what the clients are trading are pieces of the files.

If you've downloaded the full file(s), as long as you are on that torrent, you're sharing those file(s) within the torrent and those file(s) only. Different clients use different terminology for disconnecting from a torrent, but once you disconnect, you're no longer sharing those files. In this manner, it's different from traditional P2P networks: with the traditional networks, when you were connected to the greater network, it just meant that you could search and find files to download, and in turn any shared files could be found and downloaded by others. With BitTorrent, when you connect to a torrent, all of the clients are already automatically downloading and uploading data for a pre-designated file(s). If you wanted a different file, you'd need to connect to a completely different torrent.

A tracker may be used across multiple torrents, but don't get confused and think that means anything. The tracker keeps track of the peer list primarily, and it may chart the overall speed of the torrent, too. However, it won't keep track of what you're uploading. What determines how fast and how frequently other clients may send to you is what parts of the file you have (compared with what parts they lack), and how much you're actively sending to them. That's it.

In other words, having many files won't mean anything, because you have no way to share them. And, even if you could share them, they wouldn't influence your performance on other torrents. The only data your client trades is completed blocks (pieces) of the file(s) within the torrent.