Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Ask for help and report issues not specific to either the Mac OS X or GTK+ versions of Transmission
tag
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Jul 29, 2012 3:46 pm

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by tag »

Has this problem been fixed in the meantime? I am getting the same message (no matter what I do, including what have been suggested in this thread) and I also noticed that the same magnets work with other applications. The only additional observation I have, if this helps in any way, is that the peer listening port is closed no matter what I do.

Any idea what to do? Otherwise I have to switch to another application, which I don't want to.
Cephas Atheos
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:47 am

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by Cephas Atheos »

G'day all,

I've now struck exactly the same problem. I had half a dozen torrents downloading, and I was seeding another 10 or so just fine.

I was looking in Preferences, and enabled "Use local peer discovery" - then everything just stopped. No uploads, the downloads all stalled, and now when I add a magnet link, I get stuck at the "metadata needed" stage.

Nothing else (nothing, I swear!) has changed.

Disabling the local peer option, enabling/disabling all other options in the peers section of prefs, stopping and restarting Transmission after each setting change (since pausing and restarting the transfers did nothing), none of these work any longer.

Looks like I need a new Transmission! :)

I'm running Lion (10.7.4) on a brand-new MBP 13", with Transmission 2.61 (build 13407).

I downloaded another client (µTorrent 1.6.5), dropped the same magnet link on it, and it's downloading just fine. So this is a Transmission issue, not an external or network problem!

If you need more information, please let me know.
-Pete
Cephas Atheos
Posts: 2
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:47 am

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by Cephas Atheos »

Thanks for such a quick response!

I don't *think* it's an ISP issue - I first set µTorrent to use the same port number, and it worked right away. Then I tried randomising the port in Transmission, and that didn't do anything (that I could tell) - the transmission was stuck in neutral, as it were.

I'm glad Transmission is free, otherwise I'd be an unhappy camper! :)

To be honest, I'm quite happy with µTorrent right now - it seems to be at least as fast as Transmission, and (more importantly) it works, without having to copy stuff around and reinstall stuff.

I did uninstall and reinstall Transmission, both after copying and restoring the files you mentioned, and again a second time after deleting the files in question. Both times, Transmission seemed to work fine again - at least, it resolved magnet links again and I was able to download and seed stuff, including the last magnet link that it stopped working at. I also tried setting the prefs again, and this time it made no difference (again, as far as I could tell).

So thanks so much for your efforts. Since this does actually seem like a genuine Transmission bug, I'd be interested to see if a patch or new version includes the fix (if it's possible based on the very little I could provide).
scoobydoo99
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Oct 08, 2012 12:43 am

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by scoobydoo99 »

x190 wrote:
Since this does actually seem like a genuine Transmission bug
But what are the steps to reliably reproduce it? Transmission works just fine for 99.99% of users.
Here are my steps:

1. Use a 2011 MacBook Pro running OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 and Transmission 2.71
2. Add magnet links just like I have done a million times before
3. The magnet links no longer start downloading, showing "torrent metadata needed"

That's it.
NO changes between the time Transmission worked (last week) and the last couple of days.

Used to work perfect. Doesn't work AT ALL now. Tried all suggestions in this thread. :cry:
Smultie
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:31 pm

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by Smultie »

Same problem here.
Just tried to download an Ubuntu magnet-torrent.

This is what happens in Transmission 2.71 on Mac OS 10.8.2, PEX and DHT on!

Image

The same file in uTorrent:

Image

The difference is kinda big.
This is obvious a problem in Transmission. Please fix this, as I much prefer Transmission over uTorrent.
Smultie
Posts: 2
Joined: Wed Oct 10, 2012 1:31 pm

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by Smultie »

Changing "Randomize port on launch" (from no to yes) seems to have worked for me.
rnc000
Posts: 1
Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2012 11:59 am

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by rnc000 »

Changing "Randomize port on launch" (from no to yes) worked for me as well.
QuarterSwede
Posts: 1
Joined: Sat Mar 23, 2013 4:44 pm

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by QuarterSwede »

Smultie wrote:Changing "Randomize port on launch" (from no to yes) worked for me as well.
Awesome! That did it for me as well. Should be turned on in Transmission by default.
amplatfus
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Feb 25, 2018 12:39 pm

Re: Magnet link stuck with "torrent metadata needed"

Post by amplatfus »

Hi. I saw this very old post. But I have the same problem. Please, did you find the fix in the meantime? Thank you!
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