Deluge will not upload and most of my forwarded ports show "connection refused"

[spikyllama 0]

I've read the FAQ and nearly every thread I could find about this topic, but none of the solutions I saw worked.

I am trying to torrent some files with Deluge from a private tracker. I have purchased AirVPN to be able to forward ports so that I can seed the torrents and maintain my U/D ratio. However, I noticed that nothing has actually been uploading, and my upload amount has not been increasing. Here's my setup:

- I have forwarded 5 ports: the first four I am using for outgoing connections (which I think is for uploading/seeding): screenshot
- I have set up my Deluge settings as such: screenshot
- I have disabled every checkbox (per the tracker's rules): UPnP, NAT-PMP, PEX, DHT, and LSD
- My ISP, T-Mobile Home Internet, does not support port forwarding, but it seems router-based port forwarding is not necessary
- I have tried with and without network lock, and neither seems to work
- I have turned off all of my firewalls
- When I test port, 46419 is labeled as open, and the rest show "connection refused (111)"
- This is the issue, and what shows up every single time (this was in qBit but the result is the same in Deluge): screenshot

Any ideas? I've been wrestling with this for, I kid you not, 4 hours. I'm desperate

TIA,
spikyllama

[Staff 9972]

@spikyllama

Hello!
 

2 hours ago, spikyllama said:

- I have forwarded 5 ports: the first four I am using for outgoing connections (which I think is for uploading/seeding):

Your AirVPN account port panel pertains to inbound ports only. Outbound ports are all open by default. You need to forward only one inbound port. See also: https://airvpn.org/faq/port_forwarding/
 

2 hours ago, spikyllama said:

I have set up my Deluge settings as such: screenshot

In general binding to the VPN IP address may be a mistake: as soon as your VPN IP address changes the torrent program will no more be able to bind. Therefore you would need to change the torrent program settings every time you start a new session on a different server with OpenVPN. With WireGuard things are different but anyway keep this issue in mind and consider, if it's the case, to remove the binding to a specific VPN IP address.
 

2 hours ago, spikyllama said:

- I have disabled every checkbox (per the tracker's rules): UPnP, NAT-PMP, PEX, DHT, and LSD

Please re-enable DHT and PEX. Please re-check the whole torrent program configuration against this guide: https://airvpn.org/faq/p2p/
 

2 hours ago, spikyllama said:

When I test port, 46419 is labeled as open, and the rest show "connection refused (111)"

Perfect. The other four inbound ports don't exist in your system and connection refused means that your kernel (or a packet filtering tool) actively reset the attempted connection when receiving packets for those ports.
 

2 hours ago, spikyllama said:

This is the issue, and what shows up every single time (this was in qBit but the result is the same in Deluge): screenshot

Upload speed heavily depends on swarm requests. In well seeded torrents it may happen that bandwidth offer exceeds bandwidth demand. Additionally some peers use block lists aimed at blocking datacenter IP addresses (for example to avoid connections from copyright infringements hunters harvesting IP addresses, as they use dedicated hardware in datacenters in many cases). If you perform a speed test do you get a decent upload performance?

Kind regards
 

[spikyllama 0]

Oh, thanks for clearing up that misconception! I've tried again with DHT and PEX enabled (despite the fact that the tracker says it should be disabled) and with the VPN IP address removed nothing changes. I do get decent upload performance (I think), about 25 mbps. I suppose it's possible that no one is downloading from me, but I've been seeding for a while and I still don't have any upload.

Thanks, spikyllama