Bluetooth "tether" connection keeps dropping

[larsp13]

Hi I can't find any reference to this issue in the forums so I am starting this thread - please help if you can. Transmission is great and it works fine on my MacBook when I am using a wi-fi connection or plugged directly into a modem with an ethernet cable. However, at home my connection to the internet is achieved by "tethering" my computer to my cell phone with bluetooth. Using email programs, browsers, ichat etc. this is a reliable connection. When I use Transmission, however, the connection is almost always dropped - the up/down load speed drops to 0 and when I try to load a page on a browser it shows that I am no longer connected to the internet. Sometimes I can get the connection to last much longer by running a program that uses the optical disk drive, for some reason. Sometimes the connection wont drop, but more often than not I lose my connection within minutes of opening Transmission up. Again, this never happens with wi-fi or direct modem connection with an ethernet cable. Just when I use my cell phone as a modem with a bluetooth "tether". That "tether" connection works just fine with other programs, but as soon as I start Transmission the connection is usually lost within minutes! Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Lars

ps-this has been a problem with every build i have used. I generally download the dailies but the "stable" builds have always had the same problem.

[livings124]

I doubt a bluetooth connection can handle the demands of a bittorrent client.

[larsp13]

Hi thanks for your reply - I don't have a lot of technical knowledge about the whole bittorrent/client etc. thing, but I will say that sometimes it works fine with the bluetooth connection, especially if I have the optical drive running for some reason. for instance if i fire up Transmission and then get a game running that requires a disk to be in the drive, it can maintain downloading for hours, although sometimes this doesn't work. sometimes it seems to work fine without even doing that, but more often than not the connection gets dropped. I want to stress that it will download for a while or longer sometimes, i.e. it does work for a little while at least. i connect with peers, and the download and upload speeds are good for my connection, and then after a little while it drops the whole connection. if i am downloading something from a browser this usually never happens. could you fill me in a little on what exactly the "demands" are you are talking about? and can you think of any settings i could adjust to correct this problem in any way. Thanks again I really appreciate your help.

[livings124]

BitTorrent is a very demanding protocol - you have a lot of peers connecting to you all at once. All of those connections into a phone and over bluetooth are too much for the connection to handle, which is why it's being dropped.

[larsp13]

so would it help at all if i limited the number of torrents running and/or the number of peer connections allowed?

[livings124]

so would it help at all if i limited the number of torrents running and/or the number of peer connections allowed?

Yes, that should help significantly. Still, BitTorrent without a highspeed internet connection won't get you far.