Daily Tracker Problems

[HFJuon]

I've decided to use this thread to log all of my tracker problem events. Today I lost about 700 MB in UL credit at a time when I thought the tracker was working properly.

Here's what I've been able to deduce:
1) The tracker only updates your quota when there is an error-free close of the connection. That means no timeout, no addr failure, no problem whatsoever. There can't be a problem on your end or the tracker's end.

2) It's nearly impossible to tell when the conditions are right for an error-free close. It would be nice if in the welcome box that appears on ev page there was a color-coded tracker status. Green - problem free connection, Yellow - tracker either timed out or lost connection, Red - I have yet to locally attempt a connection.

Short of something like this I've come up with an idea I hope works.
I believe that as long as the torrent still shows peers the tracker will re-attempt to connect to any connections that are timed out or encountered a problem. If that's true then from now on I will start up another torrent & use it as a tester to see if the tracker updates.

It's the best I can think of in trying to prevent further losage of seed credit.

Today's loss was about 700 MB. http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=15186
All total I think I'm close to 4 GB in loss credit. But I haven't given up ;)

[HFJuon]

http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16463
Ok. Here's the story on this one. I seeded about 170 MB. I saw a timeout to the tracker about 10 minutes ok. I cleared the message. I waited for 10 minutes & saw
no client messages. I decided to close the client connection.
I got robbed. My UL did not update. :X

I must be cursed :(


I know the policy is to not re-imburse credit based on screen prints & such
but I was wondering about reputation points. In the spirit of the Christmas
season is not giving without receiving the very essence of being a solid HF
citizen? Certainly mods & admins can understand the kindness of seeders
who continue to seed for the sake of the community knowning full well
that there's a high probability they won't get any credit for it. Just a suggestion to keep the spirit of uploaders alive. ;)

[HFJuon]

02:45 PM http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=15184
The tracker is not responding. My client is trying to re-connect every 5 minutes. It continues to report timeouts on the connection attempts. I'm still able to seed to multiple peers despite the timeouts.

One of the unknowns in this is whether it's game over after the first timeout. I certainly hope not. I'm going to attempt to use a 2nd client connection on the same torrent to check if the tracker is responding. This might serve as a good litmus test to decide when's a good time to close a connection.

03:37 PM
If you have a color status client app then you can look at that when deciding
to close a torrent. If it's not green you risk losing your UL quota for that connection. Presently my status for both HF torrents I'm seeding is blue.
Blue means connected to peers but not connected to the tracker.

The color status table:
grey - checking local file data for torrent
black - connecting to tracker
red - connected to tracker but no peers
yellow - connecting to peers
blue - connected to peers but not tracker
green - connected to peers & tracker

Note: connections are not related to one another. Just because you are green on one doesn't mean you will be green on all & likewise for the inverse
scenario.

I can only hope it will go green soon ;)

[Frosty]

It does get a little annoying, doesnt it. Think so far I've lost 1-2 gb, never really bothered to track it. But now that my ratio is in the red, cant help but take note. Will be interesting if you manage to figure out a failsafe method to get the counter updated.

[HFJuon]

01:04 AM bad news. It never re-connected. I lost about 300 MB UL.
http://www.hongfire.com/redirect.php?url=http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=15184
After being in this state for well over 10 hours I just decided to shut it down.
About all that can be said is that if a timeout does occur on the tracker it's best to just shutdown the connection, accept your losses, & re-start the seed or pick another.

Code-wise when it comes to any type of peer connections over any network
a high frequency of timeouts usually means there is too great a load for that
port. Perhaps there is a non-code solution to this problem here at HF. Presently there is only one tracker port set up for HF torrents. Why not try
setting up multiple ports based on category's?
For example:
Hentai Manga & Hentai Anime could use port 2711
Manga & Anime could use port 2712
everything else could use port 2710.

That should certainly help with a greater distribution of the tracker load.

It might help to know that there were messages logged by the client indicating connection reset by peer during this time.

Summary:
If you're seeding a torrent & you can't get to green you probably won't get credit.

[HFJuon]

02:19 AM http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16463
There were peers wanting this so I started up a seed. The status never reached green. The farthest it got was blue. But I did notice that in my list of uploaded torrents the fact I was seeding it did register.

One more interesting aspect of this seed session is that the number of peers keeps changing. It started out as 4, then 3, then 2, & now 1. HF still shows 1 UL, 3 DL. I wonder if the peers are experiencing timeouts as well. I've only being seeding long enough in the session for about 4 MB. I'll check back an hour from now & update this post with the results.

02:42 AM The client app reports a timeout to the tracker. It probably did it
earlier but that was the latest one I've noticed. The status never transitioned from blue to green so at least we can say the status is reliable.
I'm going to shutdown the connection, re-update the torrent, & re-upload it to HF to see if that brings about improvement.

[HFJuon]

03:34 AM Damn frustrating! :(
I've presently got several torrents seeding:
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16747
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16746
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16745
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=5259

http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=2159

The only one in a green status is 2159 & that has a REMOTE tracker.

Yet despite being only in a blue status, I was able to get 2 MB UL credit.
This occured when I created a new torrent but then realized a mistake & shut it down right away. For those who don't know it turns out the directory name is key to how the torrent appears in the torrent listing when you upload a torrent with multiple files. It doesn't matter what you name the thread or the torrent. It's going to display it in the torrent list based on your local directory name for where you stored the files.

I'm not sure if that torrent ever went green though. Which brings me to the big question:
has any one experienced a green status connection with the HF tracker?
I think this is the key to improving the tracker. My newest upload has 20 peers peers & yet it remains in a blue status.
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16747

[Frosty]

Not sure if this thread is meant to be a personal monologue, but in case you really wanted a bit of feedback... Yes I've green status connection with the tracker but it also often drops to blue then back again. The server being flaky I guess

[HFJuon]

Not sure if this thread is meant to be a personal monologue, but in case you really wanted a bit of feedback... Yes I've green status connection with the tracker but it also often drops to blue then back again. The server being flaky I guess

It's definitely NOT a personal monologue. Anybody who has anything to add including their own tracker problems is welcome to reply. I'm just trying to reach a reliable consensus for a procedure that will better the odds for being
credited for UL quota.

I've noticed something that might help explain the blue status. ALL of my blue status connections show 0 seeds. All the green status connections show more than 1 seed. Perhaps a mod or admin could respond to how this is possible. For ex.
http://www.hongfire.com/redirect.php?url=http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16747
I just uploaded this torrent & started seeding it. Yet it's in a blue status, with 27 peers. it does not show me as a seed despite the fact that my DL = 0 & my UL = 21 MB.

Then I downloaded this torrent: http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16706
It's got a green status, showing 22 seeds & 18 peers.

What does the tracker require to register a client connection as a seed?

[HFJuon]

05:31 AM Went from blue to green .. waited for another 5 MB ... got 0 UL credit. :(
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16745
Here's what happened. I was the uploader of this torrent & it finally went to a done count of 1. Meaning I had seeded the full 86 MB to at least one peer. When that happened the status went from blue to green & the seed count registered 1. Finally
the tracker saw me as a seeder. I then waited another 5 MB of UL quota & then closed the torrent.

Nada. I got 0 credit. So being in a green status, with 0 timeout events does not
guarantee the tracker will update your quota.

My total loss for today now exceeds 1 GB. I'm giving up. I've done every possible test case scenario I can think of. What I've learned is this:
1) It appears that for a given torrent when the tracker increases the done count it then reports on seeders. It's not about when the torrent is created. I think it has to do with the last time the torrent had any peers. So torrents with low peer counts to begin with will probably result in loss of updates. When the tracker shows at least one seed for the torrent it's status goes from blue to green.

2) A green status torrent with no errors reported still might result in a quota loss for the user. There are no guarantees & apparently no procedure to minimize the quota loss.

This leads me to a suggestion I'll post in another thread.

Please share any of your tracker horror stories. I'll continue to use this thread just to log horror events but I'm done testing.

[HFJuon]

08:34 AM - got robbed of quota on a torrent that wasn't even mine :(
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16706

The blue vs green status doesn't mean anything to Madam Tracker. She's just not updating today. I've waited for green status before closing the client app. Nada. No update. I envision her as a dominatrix type.

[Rubyeyes]

this tracker problem is getting kind of annoying, i mean, cant some one just sell their soul to the devil and fix it? i mean its just eternal misery.

[[UNKNOWN]]

I have a solution to share. Well, a temporary one, anyways.

NEVER upload too much in one go. I upload at small intervals, say 100mb (approx. 2 or 3 hrs), then close the client. Then connect again, and upload some more.
That way, even if the tracker doesn't recorded it, you only lose 100mb at the most, instead of a painful 1 or 2 GB.
This method works. It's worked for the past week, my ratio has steadily climbed, slowly, but it's gone up.

I figured this method out after this happened:
Once, I left my comp on for a day when I went to school, and uploaded almost 2GB. Only it never got recorded. Yep, 2 GB upload, ALL GONE.

Anyways, I hope this was helpful. Hey, losing 100mb beats losing 2GB anyday. ;)
pls comment!

[HFJuon]

I do believe the baby step approach does work. In fact it's unbelievable. I got 4 MB worth of credit today. They all occured on initial torrents that I shut down almost immediately for one reason or another. :D

But when you are uploading a torrent for the first time you don't really have that option. You owe it to the 30-40 people waiting for you to seed it. At least that's the way I feel about it.

I have done away with the big mullti-file torrents. That's helped ease the pain some.

[starscalling]

omg
read the forum rules please
like double posting is NO
posting about the tracker HAS A THREAD use it
and dam
so what
ive lost 50+gb ul
do you see me complaining about it anywhere?
NO
another tracker ive frequented owes me a good portion of a tB
so do you see me complain there?
NO
just know that that system is flawed
and well
just do your part
and all will be well

[HFJuon]

omg
read the forum rules please like double posting is NO posting about the tracker HAS A THREAD use it and dam so what ive lost 50+gb ul
do you see me complaining about it anywhere?
NO another tracker ive frequented owes me a good portion of a tB so do you see me complain there? NO just know that that system is flawed
and well just do your part and all will be well

This was a specifically designed thread that is not like the other tracker threads you are referring to. The purpose of this thread was to generate a post for each tracker problem reported by a user with at least 3 criteria:
link to torrent, description of problem, time of event.

I have tried to respect the double post rule when possible but when one is creating event logs for tracker problems (what this thread is for) the time of the post plays an important role. It is in my nature to attack & solve problems. I simply can't ignore them. ;)

01:20 AM http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16746
I did not close this one until the tracker reported plenty of seeds.
At the time I closed it there were no errors reported, green status, 18 seeds, & 18 peers. I kept my seed open until done became > 1. At that time I had uploaded about 160 MB. The tracker did not update my UL quota.
I'd appreciate it if others who may have downloaded this torrent could post
their results as well. Thanks.

[HFJuon]

omg
read the forum rules please like double posting is NO posting about the tracker HAS A THREAD use it and dam so what ive lost 50+gb ul
do you see me complaining about it anywhere?
NO another tracker ive frequented owes me a good portion of a tB so do you see me complain there? NO just know that that system is flawed
and well just do your part and all will be well

This was a specifically designed thread that is not like the other tracker threads you are referring to. The purpose of this thread was to generate a post for each tracker problem reported by a user with at least 3 criteria:
link to torrent, description of problem, time of event.

I have tried to respect the double post rule when possible but when one is creating event logs for tracker problems (what this thread is for) the time of the post plays an important role. It is in my nature to attack & solve problems. I simply can't ignore them. ;)

01:20 PM http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16746
I did not close this one until the tracker reported plenty of seeds.
At the time I closed it there were no errors reported, green status, 18 seeds, & 18 peers. I kept my seed open until done became > 1. At that time I had uploaded about 160 MB. The tracker did not update my UL quota.
I'd appreciate it if others who may have downloaded this torrent could post
their results as well. Thanks.

01:55 PM
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=16807
At time of closing 12 seeds, 37 peers, 4+ distributed copies. I decided to pause the torrent before closing it. The tracker still did not update my UL quota. Uploaded about 160 MB.
02:23 PM
Re-started torrent, uploaded 3 MB, closed it. The tracker did not update quota. Again there was no sign of delays, timeouts, or any other load related problems. Shortly thereafter a slight database problem was reported by the site. Some queries timed out but others displayed a screen indicating slight
database problem. This lasted until about 02:38 PM.

[DirtyFinger]

hmm... i always distrusted the tracker stats but i honestly didn't care much.
what bothers me far more is that i suspect the numbers of peers isn't displayed correctly.

[HFJuon]

The site is performing much better today. It appears the problems were temporary load related ones & not systemic in the code. Arrigato :)

For the future I have the following suggestions:
1) run the tracker processes at higher priorities to shield than from load issues as best you can.
2) partition the quota portion of the database such that it is least affected by load issues elsewhere.
3) run a separate sql engine process for the tracker to insure the tracker can update even under heavy load conditions.

[Lisa Hayes]

If you may have not noticed, the gallery section has been "temporarily" removed.
I think because of that, the site has improved greatly.

Anyway HongFire is gonna be shocked when he reads this! (j/k)

[HFJuon]

Unfortunately better response time does not negate all of the tracker problems:
http://www.hongfire.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=17014
This is a new torrent I uploaded today (Naruto 113). I waited until the status became green & the tracker registered at least 3 seeds. Then I closed my connection. The tracker didn't update. I lost 179 MB in UL quota. I re-started the torrent & found the status had changed to blue & there were 0 seeds. The torrent listing indicated at least 3 seeds. Soon thereafter the client reported a timeout on the tracker at 11 min past the hour.

I would check the server to see what other processes were running at this time. There could be a backup or background maintenance process that runs then & has an impact on the tracker. The system did appear to slowdown at the time of this posting.

One thing seems certain: if you experience a timeout on the tracker don't expect it to update your quota. It seems when these timeout events occur the tracker will remain unreliable for many hours.

Despite this I will continue to seed Naruto 113 until their are sufficient seeders for the fans.

[Para]

I would love to own your posts for consecutive posting but instead I'll just warn you.
Please remember use the edit function instead of consecutive posting so many times.
Thanks.