NTL user can't download torrents

alter200

Hi,

I'm an NTL cable modem user and can't get torrents to work. I am running BitTornado 0.3.7 and keep getting an error of "Problem connecting to tracker - <urlopen error (10061, 'Connection refused')>"

Can anyone help?

thanks,

Al

Sad Professor

Try another tracker, make sure you've forwarded ports in your router/firewall. NTL are screwing around with torrents anyway so your speeds will probably be crap.

landmonster

Rubbish speeds all day today.

christophicus

landmonster wrote:

Rubbish speeds all day today.

as is the norm

The_B_Man

dunno why, but i always get perfect speeds.
i have the grey 200 model modem i think it is. big grey yoke anyway. possibly actually the 120! whatever.

i use bitcomet. im on 1mb. i set the max upload to about 6 or 7kbs.

Oh and change your "half open connections" thing to 250.

Mencius

I have no problem with torrent speeds at all on NTL.

Best way to find out if your torrent speed is actually being throttled is find a Linux distro torrent and leave it run for a few mins, I'm on the 6 MB package and normally get 400 - 600 on well seeded Linux distros.

Also if you limit your upload speed you will get crap speeds all the time.

oldboy

Sorry to hi-jack the thread but what happened to the "network shaping" stuff NTL were doing. I heard that they were limiting the speeds of torrent downloads.

I ordered BT BB based on this, should I go back to NTL ?

christophicus

I'm still expearienceing the shaping

speedy21

yeah my NTL speeds are so bad that I dont bother with torrents any more.
Where do I adjust my "half open connections" on router setup or torrent program?

Mencius

I download about 2 - 3 torrents a day with NTL and have no speed issues unless the torrent in question is badly seeded.

mollser

Right, I take it all back. Zero download speeds tonight.:mad: am using a reliant tracker. In D18 if that helps, where are the people who's torrents are ok??

Drapper

read the otehr thread on NTL torrents .....

http://torrentfreak.com/how-to-encrypt-bittorrent-traffic/

christophicus

I am supprised that that worked for you, it works for a few seconds for me thats all.

mollser

christophicus wrote:

I am supprised that that worked for you, it works for a few seconds for me thats all.

Agreed, same here.

FreudianSlippers

I use Azureus and it usually flies... now if I could just stop getting those letters from NTL saying I have exceeded my daily download amount.

Can you tell us what your settings are then ?? I cant get this working at all. Im gutted.

dathiultaigh

Dre as in Dray wrote:

Can you tell us what your settings are then ?? I cant get this working at all. Im gutted.

You need to give a more details of what is not working. The only thing's i have found that really needs to be setup on azereus to get it working is to open a port for use (you can test this in the azereus client) and setting up port forwarding correctly your router if you use one. Dont forget to allow communication for azereus through any security/firewal software you have.

Try the FAQ's for azereus as its always best to learn at least the basic operations and setup for the client SW.

http://www.azureuswiki.com/index.php/User_Guide

Also take a look at http://www.portforward.com/ if you use a router. You can also use UPnP if you dont want to use port forwarding.

More tweaking which is not necessary - use cable nut software : http://www.cablenut.com/ (Before using this maybe benchmark your speeds before and after)

TheJoker

I recently switched from eircom to NTL. Previously with eircom is was regurlarly getting 230 ish kb/sec. With NTL on day 1 I some how managed to reach 380kb/sec with the 3mb line, since then, and for the last week and a half or so, it has been never gotten about 20kb/sec. :mad:

I think I'll be doing a U turn and going back to Eircom!

landmonster

Torrents work fine in the mornings/daytime. Once it goes to evening they're slow slow slow for me.

Anti

You need to forward ports with ntl, and set half open connection to around 65,000 as it was before sp2. I use vuze with 6mb ntl and often hit 700kB/s on private trackers. Most of you are using public trackers, so you can expect **** speeds. Also when you check the peers list of any torrent and come across any botcomet users, ban their ip perminatly. They are the ***** that **** speeds up, as bitcomet reports to the tracker that it constantly has 0% of the files, so it trys to force connect all super seeds to upload to it.

Also, any of you not using vuze(azerues) or utorrent you should drop your current client, and move to the two i mentioned, you will get much better speeds if you forward ports correctly.

mollser

Anti wrote:

You need to forward ports with ntl, and set half open connection to around 65,000 as it was before sp2.

Huh?? What does any of the above mean?? Half open? SP2??

How does one forward ports on the small purple ntl modem - 250 I think it is? I've never found a straightforward narrative to do this...

Aquos76

I am on NTL 3mb package and never have any problems downloading torrents. Usally download an episode of 24/lost/heroes in about 10-15 mins (350mb)

CiaranC

Downloading seems ok for me (Mostly kick them off late in the evening), but seeding is a disaster. My ratios are all getting screwed up on the private trackers.

JPA

CiaranC wrote:

Downloading seems ok for me (Mostly kick them off late in the evening), but seeding is a disaster. My ratios are all getting screwed up on the private trackers.

Ya seeding is screwed up. I don't know whats happening with NTL. :mad:

falteringstar

I dont think its a port forwarding issue. I just got NTL installed, and I cant download anything, even very well seeded Linux distros.

The modem I have is a Motorla, and I googled it too see how to forward the ports, to find out that there is no firewall on the modem in the first place it provides a direct connection to the internet, so there's no ports to forward!!

I cancelling it and getting Eircom. Am I gonna have to pay a cancellation fee?

cast_iron

falteringstar wrote:

I cancelling it and getting Eircom. Am I gonna have to pay a cancellation fee?

Check the contract you signed. I'd say you signed a 12 month contract (as I think that's compulsory). If so, multiply the monthly charge by 12, and that's your cancellation fee.

DemonOfTheFall

If its within 30 days of your order can you possibly cancel as cooling off or something ?

The_B_Man

Half Open Connections:

I use BitComet. This is set in the BitComet settings. simple as that. Nothing is done on your router or modem.

Sponge Bob

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/08/vigin_nationwide_throttling/

Virgin Media ( thats NTL s new name in the UK since mMarch ) has quietly rolled out bandwidth throttling nationwide, after successful technical trials in the North West, which the ISP says means a group of heavy users will sacrifice high speeds for the benefit of the majority.
Speeds on the cable network will be limited between 4pm and midnight for traffic which Virgin considers "potentially abnormal". Virgin says the top five per cent heaviest downloaders among its three million customers will be affected - about 150,000 broadband users across the country.

Virgin has criticised rival ADSL providers for their "unlimited" marketing, where opaque fair use policies can mask a monthly GB download limit. It made it clear that national bandwidth throttling would be needed for its network, however, but argued that this increasingly common practice would be fairer than an unpublished monthly cap. Under its new regime, Virgin subscribers will not face restrictions on the amount they can download, but on the speed.
Customers on the "M" package will be throttled from 2Mb/s to 1Mb/s download speed and 128Kb/s upload once they have downloaded 350MB during the eight hour period. "L" subscribers will be allowed to run at full 4Mb/s speed until they hit 750MB, when downloads will be capped at 2Mb/s and uploads at 192Kb/s. Premium "XL" punters, paying £37 per month for 10Mb/s broadband, will be rationed to 3GB at full clip: anything more will come downstream at 5Mb/s and go upstream at 256Kb/s.
Virgin is in the process of upgrading the cable network for its top-paying subscribers to allow downloads at 20Mb/s. Theoretically, this speed would exhaust the 3GB limit in just 20 minutes.
While most now accept that technological limits mean bandwidth throttling is a necessary measure to ensure equality of access, Virgin customers have been getting in touch to criticise the limits for being too low. "M" customer Chris wrote: "I am on their 4Mb/s tier and it looks like I will be throttled as soon as I have downloaded 750MB, which in today's internet is next to nothing - not even one DVD. I use Skype with 2-way video most evenings to chat to my girlfriend when she is abroad...I certainly wouldn't say I am abusing the network - but Virgin Media would."
The imminent public release of Joost could fire a bigger revolt from customers. The P2P/streaming TV application downloads 350MB per hour, and Virgin will apply the new limits across the whole of prime viewing period, meaning viewers will trigger throttling very quickly.
Virgin PR chief John Moorwood told us: "We don't cut customers off, cap on bandwidth, or charge extra for going over a set limit, so our customers would still be able to use the P2P TV service at peak times if they were to experience traffic management controls - albeit at a slower speed.
"That can't be said of some other ISPs, who would be cutting off a connection or charging extra. As ever, we will naturally keep an eye on all significant internet developments."
The firm hasn't announced plans to tell users when they are going over their limit, and instead has advised customers to download a piece of trialware called DU Meter. Critics argue this would not help a modern home with several PCs, a Slingbox, and XBox, to easily monitor its usage without decent router setup skills - not a very Virgin Media "experience". Moorwood said developing a tool of Virgin's own is "something we might investigate long term".

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/21/blueyonder_gets_throttled/

Telewest is introducing network throttling on its "unlimited" Blueyonder broadband product.
News groups and chatrooms have had complaints of bandwidth problems from NTL customers since early November.

NTL/Telewest has now admitted that it is restricting traffic. Effectively the company is introducing "sin bins" for heavy users.
Telewest sent us the following statement:

As part of our continued efforts to improve our customers' broadband experience we are introducing measures to more efficiently and pro-actively manage network traffic. These measures are currently being trialled in the Preston region, which includes Preston, Wigan and Blackpool. The measures identify traffic patterns that are deemed potentially abnormal and apply traffic management rules to ensure customers are not adversely affected. We believe this could offer a much more consistent experience for the vast majority - over 95 per cent - of customers.
These optimisation measures are only used in the evenings at peak time when the potential for abnormal traffic to have an adverse impact on our customers' experience is greatest.

Throttling network traffic is never popular with users, but increasing use of voice over internet protocol telephony, video services, and online gaming means customer demand keeps on growing.
Telewest's marketing guff makes much of "unlimited usage, unlike BT and Wanadoo" which is likely to increase user anger.

Its not personal though

Aquos76

All the above applies to the UK, all Irish traffic is routed through Holland now and is totally separate from the UK.

Sponge Bob

bit torrent / p2p is a universal 'problem' for ISPs .

falteringstar

Well as far as I am concerned, I am entitled to cancel with no penalties.

I specifically asked if torrents were blocked, I informed them I had a legitimate reason to use them, as certain college extra course material is provided by a lecturer via torrents, I was told flat out that it was not blocked.

Now I work in an area of a bank that deals alot with advertising and sale of products, and as such know alot about the consumer protection code, according to which I have been missold this product. The sales rep deliberately misled me about the products features and abilities, and as such I can cancel without penalty!?

christophicus

this does not excuse NTL at all , but the sales rep probably had no idea if torrents were blocked.

Gran Hermano

Surely it is both the individual Sales Rep and NTL's responsibility
to ensure they are up to speed on the products they are selling.
Yet another example of what a sham this company has evolved into.

I can't see any problem in terminating a contract in a situation
where a company fails to deliver a service they promised.
There is always http://www.odca.ie/cfmdocs/c_query/cable.cfm

Kernel

Mines going back, and I'm looking into Sky in order to get rid of NTL digital TV service too - gotta punish them!

If your network cant cope with the number of users and the current download speeds... build a bigger friggin' network (not that they need to, as their fibre is already massive and not fully used in Ireland).

Tusky

Ive been with NTL for 6 months. I'm on the 6mb line and have had countless problems. I have never had problems with torrents though...until today. They wont work for me! :mad:

husnia

alter200 wrote:

Hi,

I'm an NTL cable modem user and can't get torrents to work. I am running BitTornado 0.3.7 and keep getting an error of "Problem connecting to tracker - <urlopen error (10061, 'Connection refused')>"

Can anyone help?

thanks,

Al

soon

xman0r

Oh well, here comes another NTL rant.

I've been NTL customer for a year now, and it used to work like a charm - I have the MAX package with 6mb down and 512K up, but few months ago they noticeably installed some traffic shaping devices to the network and since then this broadband has been a piece of sh*t, I basically cannot do anything else than just browse the web, download speeds from web are OK excluding uploads, but I cannot use any P2P programs at all, uploads goes about 1-3KB/s and might speed up to 10 KB/s during nights, and I'm supposed to have a 512K up! Not to mention any DC++ hubs where I get constant disconnects, "connection reset by server" and "negotiation to the hub took too long". This is in Blanchardstown, D15. I'm sure this ain't a port forwarding or a client issue, I could say I've tried everything possible.

I could as well downgrade my "superior MAX package" to the cheapest package since I cannot do anything else than browse the web. Funny thing is that I've kept getting the letters from NTL "you're downloading too much" while I'm sure that I've not hit the 40 GB limit even nearly, because you cannot download anything with this piece of crap. Needless to say that I'm very pissed off, and I'm looking forward to when I'm returning to Finland in 7 months where I had 24M/1M full rate ADSL2+ for 50 euro / month, without any caps.

Drapper

i'm in d15 and I can use Utorrent! unistall your BT, reinstal Ut and change the port to a high number, also if your behind a firewall you need to change it too! I get full speeds!

Infini

Seems that all my torrents are fixed o.o

Phoned up NTL to complain about the loss in quality and they said they check the line. Within an hour my torrents were fully active again and they told me it was something to do with building work in the area. In anycase as long as they work im happy so looks like i don't need to move for the time being.

mollser

Infini wrote:

Seems that all my torrents are fixed o.o

Phoned up NTL to complain about the loss in quality and they said they check the line. Within an hour my torrents were fully active again and they told me it was something to do with building work in the area. In anycase as long as they work im happy so looks like i don't need to move for the time being.

I'm not sure if something has struck home with NTL, but for the first time since Feb I'm getting savage speeds on the torrents, using Utorrent. Only on the 2mg package and they're coming down at over 220kB/s.

Are they fixed? Fingers x'd :cool:

landmonster

Anyone else having major problems with Torrents on NTL tonight? In D6 I keep getting tracker and timeout errors. Nothing works. Nothing.

christophicus

I havent , although NTL has been down for a period of hours each day for the last 3 days for me.

Snake Plisken

Is this the same issue I've been seeing for the last week on NTL about 5-6pm each evening I can't get on any sites, can't even run a speedtest, sometimes the site will come up after time but 90% of the time it doesn't, I ran a tracer route on Amazon.co.uk and goes via the netherlands, but then it timesout at a certain point. tempted to ring Customer support but not in the mood to be fobbed off by some brainless dope.

Snake

Clank

christophicus wrote:

I havent , although NTL has been down for a period of hours each day for the last 3 days for me.

How long a period?
Where are you too?

Mines been progressively getting worse and worse for the last 3 weeks, it just loses the connection completely and there's nothing I can do to sort it.
Engineer's been out and he said(to my dad so could be wrong)something like its a secondary engineer's problem now and he has done all he can do, he changed all cables, checked the box outside,everything.

I still only have about an hour of broadband a day(i left torrents on to see if it ever connects.) and im lucky if I catch it.:mad:

christophicus

Well for the first to days it was only an hour, but on the third day it was pretty much at least 12 hours.

I am in the Waterford area, and NTL did say there where problems in some specific areas in waterford, but not mine. Everything seems to be ok now though (touch wood ).