Loss of Sex Appeal When Torrenting with AirVPN and Others

[polomintus 0]

Hi guys,

I’ve tested using multiple VPN’s (AirVPN, FeralHosting, PIA) and noticing a lack of sex appeal when connected. A lot of people go on about speed loss when using a VPN but this doesn’t seem to be an issue with me, it seems to be a case of a lack of interest even when I know for a fact there are many people wanting to download - evidence of this is as soon as I disconnect, I go from having 1-2 uploads, to around 20-30 almost instantly, almost like people have me on a shit list.

Using an external port test I can confirm my VPN port is forwarded (not forwarded in router but the actual VPN).

Router / Connection (1000mbit FTTP / Ubiquiti USG Gateway with Cloud Key)

• uPnP is disabled on the router
• No ports are forwarded

I am using qBitTorrent and the following settings:

Connection

• Peer connection protocol: TCP and uTP
• Port used for incoming connections: 35844 (VPN Port is Open - Confirmed)
• Global maximum number of connections: 999
• Maximum number of connections per torrent: 999
• Global maximum number of upload slots: 999
• Maximum number of upload slots per torrent: 999
• Proxy: None
• IP Filtering: Disabled

Speed

• Global Rate Limits Upload: Unlimited
• Global Rate Limits Download: Unlimited
• Alternative Rate Limits Upload: Unlimited
• Alternative Rate Limits Download: Unlimited
• Apply rate limit to uTP protocol: Disabled
• Apply rate limit to transport overhead: Disabled
• Apply rate limit to peers on LAN: Disabled

BitTorrent

• Enable DHT (decentalized network) to find more peers: Disabled
• Enable peer Exchange (PeX) to find more peers: Disabled
• Enable Local Peer Discovery to find more peers: Disabled
• Encryption mode: Allow encryption
• Enable anonymous mode: Disabled
• Torrent Queuing: Disabled
• Seeding Limits: Disabled

Advanced

• Process memory priority (Windows 8 >= 8 only): Normal
• Network interface: OpenVPN Tap-Windows6
• Optional IP address to bind to: All addresses
• Save resume data interval: 60min
• Confirm torrent recheck: Enabled
• Recheck torrents on completion: Disabled
• Transfer list refresh interval: 1452ms
• Resolve peer host names: Disabled
• Resolve peer countries: Enabled
• Asynchronous I/O threads: 10
• File poor size: 40
• Outstanding memory when checking torrents: 32MiB
• Disk cache: -1 (auto)
• Disk cache expiry interval: 60 s
• Enable OS cache: Enabled
• Coalesce read & writes: Enabled
• Use piece affinity: Disabled
• Send upload piece suggestions: Disabled
• Send buffer watermark: 500 KiB
• Send buffer low watermark: 10 KiB
• Send buffer watermark factor: 50%
• Socket backlog size: 30
• Outgoing ports (Min) [0: Disabled]: 0
• Outgoing ports (Max) [0: Disabled]: 0
• UPnP lease duration [0 Permanent lease]: 0 s
• uTP-TCP mixed mode algorithim: Prefer TCP
• Allow multiple connections from the same IP address: Enabled
• Disallow connections to peers on privileged ports: Disabled
• Enable embedded tracker: Disabled
• Embedded tracker port: 999
• Upload slots behavior: Fixed slots
• Upload choking algorithm: Fastest upload
• Always announce to all trackers in a tier: Disabled
• Always announce to all tiers: Enabled
• IP Address to report to trackers (requires restart): Blank
• Max concurrent HTTP announces: 99
• Stop tracker timeout: 30 s
• Peer turnover disconnect percentage: 4%
• Peer turnover threshold percentage: 90%
• Peer turnover disconnect interval: 300 s
•  

Tips on settings welcomed and any advice appreciated on this topic.

[OpenSourcerer 1416]

2 hours ago, polomintus said:

Peer connection protocol: TCP and uTP

First, change this to TCP.
 

2 hours ago, polomintus said:

• Global maximum number of connections: 999
• Maximum number of connections per torrent: 999
• Global maximum number of upload slots: 999
• Maximum number of upload slots per torrent: 999

Use Azureus settings calculator to enter more reasonable values here.
 

2 hours ago, polomintus said:

Global Rate Limits Upload: Unlimited

Set a limit to upload, or you risk downlink performance degradation with rising peer numbers downloading from you.
 

2 hours ago, polomintus said:

• Enable DHT (decentalized network) to find more peers: Disabled
• Enable peer Exchange (PeX) to find more peers: Disabled
• Enable Local Peer Discovery to find more peers: Disabled

Why? This way you must rely on trackers only, but public trackers block connections from VPN users, so you may end up with very little peers.
 

2 hours ago, polomintus said:

Always announce to all trackers in a tier: Disabled

I'd enable this.
 

2 hours ago, polomintus said:

Enable anonymous mode: Disabled

Enable. Beneficial if behind a VPN.

[polomintus 0]

  8 hours ago, polomintus said:

Peer connection protocol: TCP and uTP

Quote

First, change this to TCP.

Don't I run the risk of not uploading to users using only uTP?

 

Quote

Set a limit to upload, or you risk downlink performance degradation with rising peer numbers downloading from you.

Indeed but unable to saturate the I/O of the hard disks which are SSD NVME which I can when I disable the VPN. The calculator has me at max of 1200 global connections.

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Quote

 

8 hours ago, polomintus said:

• Enable DHT (decentalized network) to find more peers: Disabled
• Enable peer Exchange (PeX) to find more peers: Disabled
• Enable Local Peer Discovery to find more peers: Disabled

 

•  

Quote

Why? This way you must rely on trackers only, but public trackers block connections from VPN users, so you may end up with very little peers.

Some private torrent platforms forbid it. 


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Thanks for the advice. 

[OpenSourcerer 1416]

2 hours ago, polomintus said:

Don't I run the risk of not uploading to users using only uTP?

uTP in a VPN connection can unintentionally impare Bittorrent performance, both in terms of throughput and connections. This is much more visible inside a VPN tunnel.
 

2 hours ago, polomintus said:

Some private torrent platforms forbid it. 

They can be disabled on a per-torrent basis if it's flagged accordingly at torrent file creation. qBittorrent adheres to torrents disallowing them. If your private indexers don't do this by themselves, here's something you can tell them to implement.

Have you tried the wintun tunnel driver for Windows? Can you try seeding with a Linux distribution (a live CD is sufficient)?

[grovon 0]

Just had the same problem, switching from VPN over IPv6 to VPN over IPv4 fixed it. Maybe it's the fault of IPv6 inability to fragment larger packets causing package loss (which causes the UTP problems)?! (actually a problem with the MTU)

Edited ... by grovon