I am just getting back my sea legs, but apparently they’re pretty shaky because I can’t get my ubuntu torrent (no seriously, it is) to download. It never starts downloading and is stuck in “stalled”. I’ve tried a number of things, but even with default settings it isn’t starting. I’m using proton VPN on Linux Mint, but even with the VPN disabled it doesn’t work.

last time I torrented was probably 15 years ago.

EDIT: i managed to get it working. As expected it was a Qbit config issue. First issue was a port forwarding issue. second one was the interface i connected it to. Apparently the interface named something with “vpn” is not the correct one to bind Qbit to, its a dummy created by the VPN that doesn’t work. I had to select one named “tun0”. If i just selected the regular physical interface I had IP leaks with the VPN enabled.

  • TheOSINTguy@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    12·
    1 year ago

    I think you are using the free version of proton vpn.

    With proton vpn you have to pay to use BitTorrent or other p2p stuff. It’s how they fund the free tier.

    It could also be your ISP blocking torrent traffic.

    You could try using quad9 dns and enable DNS over HTTPS on your system and do DDL.

    There is also ECH (very hard to get working) but is amazing at bypassing content blocks.

    Edit: unlikely that you would want to take the time to set it up but DNScrypt is amazing especially when you have annoying captive portals at a coffee shop. Requires some setup before you try to bypass.

    • DreadPotato@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      No I’m using the paid tier of proton, and already using quad9 DNS and have DNS over https enabled.

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.oneEnglish
        5·
        1 year ago

        In the bottom center of the Qbit app does the icon show as red, yellow, or green? This displays whether you are connectable or not. I’d bet it’s a port issue. If Proton offers port forwarding, find the port they assigned you and input it into the “incoming connections” port in the Qbit settings.

    • AWittyUsername@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I get the same issue with paid, running on their “P2P” profile. With the port forwarding on and configured in qbittorrent.

    • DreadPotato@sopuli.xyzOPEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      I tried switching to another port, still with the VPN disabled, but that didnt work so i switched back to the port i was using before and then it worked 🤷‍♂️

      It still stops working when i enable the VPN though

  • electric_nan@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I frequently end up with magnet links stuck at “downloading metadata”. If I convert the magnet link to a torrent, it works fine. It is a real annoyance about the otherwise great qbittorrent.

  • retrieval4558@mander.xyzEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    I had a similar problem recently on windows. Qbittorrent (version 4.5.3 ish? Don’t quote me) bound to paid proton VPN. Torrents would be added automatically by sonarr, but remain “stalled” until I restarted qbittorrent with administrator permissions. It would work for a day before it stalled out again and I had to manually restart it. Happened for months. Never figured out why.

  • pete_the_cat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    31·
    1 year ago

    Are you able to contact any trackers? Do any seeds and peers show as available? Annoying stuff like this is why I moved away from torrents long ago and switched to usenet.

  • adr1an@programming.devEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    How many seeds are supposed to be around? You should try a ‘real’ torrent with the VPN…

  • nooneescapesthelaw@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Try torrenting on another device (like your phone) to see if the issue is your network. Also try a non qbittorent client

    • BurnerPhone867@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Whats a different client for Windows 11? I use Qbit as well, and am thinking I need to jump to something else

  • UsefulIdiot@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I had a very similar problem. I found that the torrent just didn’t have many peers or seeds I could connect to!

    When I searched for “good test torrents “ I got links to Linux isos that actually worked just fine through my vpn!

  • OneCardboardBox@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    Does the user running qbittorrent have write access to the downloads directory? Any special messages in the logs?

    You might also want to try running qbittorrent through docker. I use https://github.com/DyonR/docker-qbittorrentvpn. Just make sure that you set the PUID and PGUID to match a user id + group id that has r/w access to your downloads directory.