Torrents discontinue seeding

[jeevey]

So I am a dork who pretty much likes to keep my U2 torrents seeding forever. But lately, after a period of seeding I get an error message in the status bar of Utorrent, saying either Files missing from job or System cannot find the designated pathway. Does this have to do with me, or with someone changing the file on U2torrents?

 

[trainmaniac]

U2torrents is currently down, that's why

 

[jeevey]

Thanks for the info, but it's been happening for more than a day or two!!

 

[VintagePunk]

Two things - I assume you're not moving files around at all? If not, I would maybe change torrent programs. I changed computers a year ago and when I was installing new stuff, I was told that uTorrent is now crap, and loads a bunch of bloatware, etc., and that I should switch to qBittorrent. I did and I've never had a second of trouble with it. The interface is the same as uTorrent, so it's super easy to make the change.

qBittorrent official website

 

[DaveC]

I use utorrent and find that if you just pay attention during the installation and don't just automatically press accept on all the screens, it's pretty easy to get it to not install any bloatware. There's always a "No Thanks" or "Skip" button on all the "offers" it wants to install - I think there were 2 when I last downloaded uTorrent about a month ago.

I get the same message if I download a movie, watch the movie and then delete the file. It just means the program can't find the file that it's trying to seed. Did you delete or move the files that you download?

 

[jeevey]

If I leave the torrent where it is in the 'downloads' folder but move the music itself to music, is that a problem?

 

[Galeongirl]

It could also be that the actual torrent is screwed up, had that happen a few files.

With uploading, it means either you have moved items from the complete torrent (so for instance, if it has a cover photo along with the songs, and you deleted that it will mess up), or the trackers have changed (the original torrent) and you don't have all up to date files anymore. So if you want to keep seeding, just redownload the tracker information and it should start again.

 

[DaveC]

If I leave the torrent where it is in the 'downloads' folder but move the music itself to music, is that a problem?

Yes. This is your entire problem right here.

Once the download happens, the torrent file itself is meaningless. A torrent file is simply a set of instructions telling your download program what tracker to connect to to find the users who have the file available for download.

When seeding starts, other people use the torrent file to connect to the tracker, which you're already connected to because you used it when you were downloading the thing in the first place. Your computer starts sending the actual music file to the other person directly. The torrent file is useless at this point as your computer and the person you're seeding to are now directly sending/receiving the file to/from each other.

The client (utorrent or whatever else you use) knows that it downloaded the file to C:\Downloads and that if someone else's computer connects and says "hey send me that file", the client goes to C:\Downloads and says "here you go". But if you move the file, the client goes to get it to send it to the other user, and it's no longer there where it left it. The program doesn't know where you moved it to, so the message you're getting is your client saying "I don't know what the hell you did with this file but I can't send it to anybody because it isn't where I expect it to be".

Hope that explains it for you.

 

[jeevey]

Super. Thanks so much.