sheepienz's BLOG

I can't report a suspected bug to development if you don't provide even the basic info we require for a support inquiry.

Besides everything in the "READ THIS" post, you should also provide a torrent and tracker list, and I can't make any promises, but I will have it looked into.

Since you use utorrent too, please supply a torrent that you now the tracker list is valid and working, so try it in utorrent, and let us know which ones won't work in bitcomet.

TuuS

My apologies - I really should know better...

BitComet 1.13

OS: Windows XP SP3

router: THOMSON TG585v7 (wired)

The torrent where I first noticed this anomaly (don't judge me!):

http://www.monova.org/details.php?id=1530595&ref=

Trackers "inside" the torrent (as listed on Monova.org):

http://vip.tracker.thepiratebay.org:80/announce

http://tracker.bittorrent.am/announce

http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce

http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce

http://tracker.thepiratebay.org:80/announce

http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce

Additional tracker listed on torrentz.com:

http://91.191.138.2:80/announce

Actual list of trackers from the torrent Task Properties in BitComet:

http://vip.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce

http://tracker.bittorrent.am/announce

http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce

http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce

http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce

As you can see, 2 of the trackers are not listed in the torrent in BitComet. I tried downloading the same torrent in μTorrent, and *all* of the trackers (including the one added manually from torrentz.com) appear and are working.

FWIW, I uninstalled BC 1.13 and reinstalled version 1.09, and had the same problem.

I just noticed that the trackers in the BC Task Properties dropped the ":80" found in two of the Pirate Bay trackers, essentially making the trackers http://tracker.thepiratebay.org:80/announce

and

http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce

"identical", and thus, I suppose, cancelling one out. I then tried removing the ":80" suffix from the http://91.191.138.2:80/announce tracker, and it finally saved in the BC Task Properties, and now appears to be working (logged in, returning 7 seeds). So I guess I just found my own workaround? ;)

Ok, this could be helpful. The :80 is a port number. Some trackers require you use a specific port, others do not, but this should be enough for us to do some testing and figure out if we have a bug that needs to be worked up.

I personally won't be doing the testing, but they may notify me if a fix is developed, and when its introduced to a new stable release, or beta release, it will be in the release notes.

Thanks again

TuuS

Okay, thanks for your help and having this issue looked into.

FYI, I left the torrent running overnight on both my laptop (using the same router via wifi, running Vista SP2 and using μTorrent 1.8.2) and my desktop computer running BitComet. The torrent in BC is at 2.0% complete and is showing 0 seeds and 19 peers. The same torrent downloading in μTorrent is currently at 6.4% and is connected to 2 seeds and 3 peers (with the :80 ports still intact in the Task Properties). Both μTorrent and BitComet have been portforwarded correctly. Clearly, it's just a slow torrent, but μTorrent seems to be doing a little better.

You mentioned that some trackers require I use a specific port - would changing my listen port in BC settings to the port specified by a particular tracker (whether it be 80 or 6969 or whatever) speed up the torrent/connection to that tracker?

Regarding the bug. Development has located the problem, and it will be corrected in the next release. Regarding the listening port question, No, they are completely unrelated. The tracker port is how you contact the tracker, your listening port is how other peers contact you. Its best to use a listening port in the upper range of 50000-60000. These ports aren't likely to conflict with any registered port other programs use, and are rarely restricted by ISPs. The worse ports to use are the default bittorrent ports, which are often restricted by isps, and blacklisted by many trackers.

Regarding your comparison, this could be because of the trackers, but also could be purely random. The only accurate comparisons you can make would be when you control all the the peers settings, and done on a closed network. In this setting, utorrent and bitcomet will perform equally.

On slower computers utorrent might have an advantage if bitcomet doesn't have available resources, but on popular public torrents, bitcomet will often have an advantage when http/ftp/ed2k and LTseed sources are available.

Both are very good clients, but are designed for very different users.