How to Bring Dead Torrents Back to Life

[olddays1]

How to Bring Dead Torrents Back to Life  http://torrentfreak.com/bring-dead-torrents-back-to-life-081023/
Written by enigmax on October 23, 2008

Eventually, particularly when trying to download old torrents, most BitTorrent users find themselves with a transfer which stops due to the swarm having no seeds, not enough peers to cover the full release, or the tracker going down. btReAnnouncer is a handy site which could prove vital in reaching that magic 100%.

“I’m stuck at 49.1%, seed please!!” or similar comments are fairly commonplace on BitTorrent sites. Normally the case on older torrents, essentially all the full 100% seeds have gone, leaving people all stuck at the same amount completed. Without a seed reappearing, or many other users that between them have the remaining 50.9%, the download will not complete, which is pretty frustrating.

Of equal annoyance, is a new torrent which the user knows is well seeded, yet for one reason or another it is impossible to connect to the tracker in order to complete the download. Maybe the tracker has gone down or is simply too busy to accept the connection - either way, the download isn’t getting very far without it.

The good news is that with a little perseverance it’s possible to resurrect a seemingly moribund torrent. The key to bringing the torrent back to life is the hope that an identical release is available on another tracker, and in that swarm there people that have enough data to complete the download. But how is it possible to find the same release on other trackers?

There are manual solutions involving Google, but quick and easy is my preferred method and btReAnnouncer offers just that. The site is really easy to use, so, although it is well seeded, here is a walk-through to find more trackers tracking Michael Moore’s ‘Official’ ‘Slacker Uprising’ torrent - the same technique can be used for any release, especially ones with tracker or seeding issues.

First of all I downloaded the .torrent file from The Pirate Bay onto my PC and uploaded it to btReAnnouncer. Within a few seconds the site displayed the current primary tracker - http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce. However, it also displayed a list of 17 other tracker URLs identified as tracking the same torrent - any one or combination of which could help you to complete a stubborn download. Note that it doesn’t make sense to add more than one tracker from the same url (e.g. thepiratebay.org) because they often track the same peers.

At this stage it is possible to select a new primary tracker for the torrent by ticking the checkbox and pushing the ‘ReAnnounce’ button. Then check any of the other trackers in the list to be used as an alternative and click ‘ReAnnounce’ again. To finish up and start downloading the .torrent, download it by clicking on the hyperlinked text underneath ‘Download ReAnnounced Torrent…’ and import it into your favorite client, not forgetting to point it at your previously incomplete download.

btReAnnouncer can also be used to find public sources for otherwise private torrents, just don’t forget to remove any passkeys etc from the announce URL in the torrent. If your BitTorrent client doesn’t allow you to edit or add trackers manually, this can be achieved by using another online service, TorrentEditor.

[death]

wow that looks cool... Anyone try this yet?

[olddays1]

 A bit more on this issue:

aXXo Issues Anti-Piracy Warning
Written by enigmax on February 10, 2009
http://torrentfreak.com/axxo-issues-anti-piracy-warning-090210/

Some say he can encode a stack of DVDs in seconds using only his teeth, and that he can command an army of millions with just one NFO. All that we know is he’s called aXXo and he/she/they have some security advice for the worshippers.

The relatively silent aXXo has appeared during the last few days. Speaking with the users of Mininova, he outlined some advice to help mitigate the effects of what he believes to be a potential security risk. The problem could cause downloads to slow down or even worse, he warns.

Not so long ago we posted a technique to bring dead torrents back to life. Basically it involves adding new tracker URLs to an existing torrent so that it’s possible to track the same content on multiple trackers. However, it seems some people have been adding other trackers to new aXXo torrents as a matter of course (probably to try and speed up downloads), with some unpredictable results.

“I’ve seen on the mininova’s comments section some users telling each other to add trackers to a torrent. To add trackers to a torrent that are not included in the original release is the worst thing users can do,” said aXXo commenting on one of his latest releases. “Those trackers don’t know which are the real chunks of the file nor who have the right ones, the information they send to the clients is wrong and the download will be fucked up.”

If it’s not quite clear what aXXo is driving at from the above, it becomes clearer later on. He explains that other tracker URLs that people add to torrents may not be tracking exactly the right content. Peers there could deliberately send bad data in order to hinder people’s downloads, a tactic favored by anti-piracy companies such as MediaDefender. Their effectiveness with these methods on various torrent sites became public last year.

“..there are ’specialists’ manipulating torrents out there,” says aXXo while mentioning no names, warning, “ISPs nice letters are ready for those peers who follow that ‘technique’.”

“That’s my advice,” says aXXo. “Take it or leave it.”

[chip!]

“I’ve seen on the mininova’s comments section some users telling each other to add trackers to a torrent. To add trackers to a torrent that are not included in the original release is the worst thing users can do,” said aXXo ...“Those trackers don’t know which are the real chunks of the file nor who have the right ones, the information they send to the clients is wrong and the download will be fucked up.”

ummmmm.... wtf is this guy smoking?  ? ?


if the torrent client that the USER uses... downloads a bad chuck from some bad peer, THEN the client will block downloading from that peer..     so 'yes, the information sent is wrong, but the download is NOT fucked up'.    hello hash.

seriously... wtf?

you CANT download a corrupted torrent using a decent torrent downloader like utorrent.

i dont care about the argument of whether you should add new trackers to existing torrents (if you WANT to, go AHEAD... the torrent client has an option to USE these extra trackers from other users.. OR NOT!).

his argument doesnt make sense. no tracker would know anything more legit than another tracker.   if the fake tracker itself is added by the 'specialists'.. then the users torrent client might have a problem finding valid peers for a while... but its not going to ruin the download.  nor should that be ANY reason for a user to not add another tracker.   if a torrent is on demonoid, and you want to share it with piratebay users.. then do it. 

ok, lol...  there has to be more to this story cuz it doesn't make sense.



im kinda buzzed, but olddays, your thoughts?

[olddays1]

Hell chip you would know better than I!!

[Synbios]

This is why the Initial-seeding function in uTorrent (or equivalents in other clients) is so necessary. Initial-seeding allows the peers to download different chunks from the seed, diversifying the amount of chunks in the swarm. So in an example, if there is one seed and two leechers, and the seed disconnects, one leech will have the first 50% and the second leech will have the second 50%, thus together they have a completed torrent; rather than both of them having the first 50%.

Now if only more seeds used this feature (Initial seeding must be implemented on the seed's end). They should have it in uTorrent so that initial seeding is automatically enabled when it is detected that you are the only seeder.

Also, I always enable peer exchange and DHT on poorly seeded torrents (and those on public trackers) in order to maximize the number of peers.

If you're having this problem on a private site, well if you're ranked high enough you should be able to request a re-seed anyways.