Seeding rarely works in qBittorrent
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This isn't a new problem. I have no problem downloading anything, but once I've completed a download, it's extremely rare for me to get any positive ratio out of them: they simply don't upload the vast majority of the time.
To be clear, I am port-forwarding. If I use an "Is my port open?" utility, I get confirmation that it is unless my VPN is running. I'm told you're supposed to be able to use a VPN with a torrent client successfully, but if I try to update my port-forward to match the VPN, I'm denied because the connection isn't within my subnet.
Currently, the VPN is paused, and nevertheless, nothing is seeding. On my torrent with 53 seeders and 23 leechers (100% downloded all the files in the torrent), which should give me some potential to seed, I'm sitting still. The majority of my torrents have multiple leechers, but they don't connect to me for more than a split-second.
If it look at the Trackers -> Status on any given torrent, DHT, PeX, and LSD are always "disabled for this tracker." There are always six entries below them, only one is listed as working, and that's the one that explicitly states my existing port-forward. Four report as unreachable at all times. Only three of the six reference actual IP addresses, and I don't know how to parse the other three. One of the 3 actual-IP addresses always reports as not working, citing an unreachable host.
Out of the six entries, the two other actual IP addresses are pretty much academic because I've combed through qBittorrent's settings, and I've found no way to designate more than one port. This is relevant because my router will not let me create more than one port-forward entry pointing to that port, so I can't create exceptions for those IP addresses, even if that's what I want to do.
I found a pinned "[Tutorial] Optimize your settings for seeding" post here that specifically references qBittorrent, and my settings match the screenshotted ones in that post (although I designated a different port number.) My router port-forward entry is also set to TCP/UdP. I made some additional setting changes to match that post tonight, but they haven't made a difference.
I'm watching peers connect, then disconnect without downloading anything from 100% completed torrents.
When I started using this site, my ratio was around 2, and it's steadily declined ever since, no matter how long I've let things seed for, no matter how many peers there are. It's clear I far from the only person having this problem. Given that I'm using qBittorrent, what else can I try?
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@chainyank I have noticed that problem with Qbittorrent also. It does not SEED very well, and often, you must manually FORCE a torrent to start downloading.
Utorrent has different problems, including locking up - a lot. I think that is because Utorrent is a 32 bit app, and they refuse to compile it as a 64 bit app... resulting in running out of memory. When memory allocated to Utorrent runs out, the program seizes up.
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@chainyank said in Seeding rarely works in qBittorrent:
Given that I'm using qBittorrent, what else can I try?
...another client?
I am the person who wrote the tutorial you mentioned, it only optimizes your client to prioritize seeding, it has absolutely no impact on other peers' ability of contacting your client.
How peers are able to contact each other is affected by various factors, including bandwidth, geographical proximity, client choking algorithms, port forwarding rules, user firewall, ISP firewall, etc.
When is it an issue
In some cases ISPs will rely on CGNAT to save costs, that is, multiple clients share one single public IP address. That can make peers unable to establish inbound connections, even if you set port forwarding connections properly. In this case you don't have a public IP that others can reach directly, the IP that the tracker "casts" to other peers as being yours, is the CGNAT IP. So when you start an outbound connection with peers, they are able to connect, but if it is the peer initiating the connection, the request is purged by the CGNAT IP, because your ISP has no way of knowing to which of their clients the request was made. One way to mitigate this shared public IP issue is by using a VPN that offers dedicated IP, making your PC directly reacheable for incoming peer requests.When it is NOT an issue
No one wants to be negative, everyone is seeding and being mindful of what to leech. The outcome is: torrents will always have way more seeders than leechers. There's nothing you can do if there is too few people requesting the torrent pieces, and more often than not there will be no leecher at all.Also, have in mind that when you start a torrent, you will see a list of peers connecting immediately. They are not neccessarily leechers! Your client prompts a connection to the tracker, and the tracker proceeds to connect you with other peers, for various reasons like checking the swarm health, or trying "optimistic" connections to see if those peers are responsive. Since no one is missing any piece, the connections are dropped.
There are very few settings you can tweak in your client that will effectively impact peer affinity. Fixed Upload Slots will make sure that your client is able to upload to a predetermined maximum number of peers. Setting it to Upload Rate Based, on the other hand, reduces the number of available slots based on your current available bandwidth, so your client might reject peer requests.
Same thing for Choking Algorithm, both Round-Robin and Anti-Leech actively denies peer requests based on peer behavior. Setting it to "Fastest Upload" will ensure that you'll always upload to the peer with the best bandwidth, regardless of other conditions.
None of these settings will make you have priority over othe seeders in the swarm, though. When you download a torrent that already has a high number of seeders, you are wasting your ratio, you're extremely unlikely to seed it enough to reach 1.0 and recover the amount you downloaded, let alone go beyond 1.0 and start "profiting". The only way to ensure that new seeders with lower ratio are "prioritized" in the swarm would be by creating a new tracker algorithm.
Start uploading and only download huge torrents if they are freeleech, that's the only way of increasing your ratio.
