Opening Transmission "reboots" router/poor seeding

[jonah.77]

Hello. I have a persistent bit (no pun intended) of trouble with Transmission that I thought maybe someone could help me with. (I couldn't find a thread that seemed to address this specific problem, though I apologize if there is one.)

Here are the relevant stats/info:
Running - OS 10.4.11
Transmission - have tried _both_ 1.54 and 1.34
Router/wireless modem - 2Wire 2701HG-B

I _have_ successfully manually opened the relevant port, 51413. This does not seem to be the problem. Most of the time, Transmission's preferences tell me the "port is open."

The problems-- and maybe they are connected--are two:

1) Whenever I open Transmission, it seems to reboot or cut off my router. That is, when I first launch the software after turning my Mac on (or after having quit the app earlier), the "DSL" and "Internet" lights suddenly turn red, and it takes roughly a minute for the router to reboot and find its bearings--just as though I had manually unplugged the router and plugged it back in (!). This is _not_ coincidental; it happens nearly _every time_ I open Transmission. Eventually (after a minute, maybe two), the green lights return and I can use the internet (including downloading via Transmission) again. Has this happened to anyone else? What could explain this?

2) Very poor/intermittent seeding. Even when I know that I am one of very few seeders of a particular torrent, and that there are several, even numerous leechers, I rarely seed consistently. A few peers might "flash" in the Transmission window, I might seed at 8.0 KB/s for a second, and then it dies away. I have reviewed the Q &A at http://trac.transmissionbt.com/wiki/SlowSpeeds and none of the issues raised there seem to be the source of the problem, at least not obviously. Even when I can seed, I _never_ see more than one torrent seeding at a time, and never at speeds higher than 80 KB/s (this although speed tests show that my upload speed is potentially around 600 KB/s).

One piece of possibly-relevant info: when I check one of the tracker sites that I routinely use, I see that I am seeding numerous files, however, I also see the message, "protocol error 1 - no/erroneous BT client listening or misconfigured router."

Now again, my router is configured with the correct port open, and once the router reboots after being "knocked out" by Transmission, the port is typically open. If I go to http://www.canyouseeme.org/, I get a "Success" message.

I am completely at a loss; if anyone has any intuition on this, I would greatly appreciate the help.

[jonah.77]

Thanks for the suggestion. My preferences are actually configured as in the screen grab you provided; unfortunately it doesn't seem to help matters.

A related problem, which I only hinted at above, is that I seldom seed more than one torrent at a time. Let's say I have 100 torrents available, and at least eight of them have several leechers and not many seeders (this is the case right now). Although several peers will "flash" in all of these torrents in Transmission, almost without exception only _one_ will actually successfully leech from me at a given point. So I can never get upload speeds of any real size.

Is this a case of the ISP throttling BT traffic and simply not owning up to it? Frankly, I wouldn't put it past them ("them" being AT&T).

The bad seeding is, unfortunately, a common problem. The thing with Transmission "rebooting" my router is stranger; has anyone encountered this?

[jonah.77]

Thanks so much for those links! Will look through them carefully when I get off work...

Would a VPN potentially help this problem--it would seem that adding an additional layer of security would actually complicate it, no?

[jonah.77]

Before I forget, it would be a good idea to change the password for your router settings access.

Any particular reason, or just as an additional troubleshooting measure? (Thanks, by the way, to everyone for all the advice.)

[jonah.77]

Thanks again for everybody's help. I changed PWs around as per the last suggestion.

I think I have a better bead on the issue (as it stands right now): I can't seed more than a single torrent at once. Even if there are clearly leechers waiting to DL 10 or even 20 of my torrents, they'll do no more than "flash" for a moment while a single torrent is leeched at, max, 50 to 60 KB/s. If the single torrent being uploaded seeds at, say, 10 KB/s max, well, then I'm stuck seeding at 10 KB/s.

And this isn't simply because there are too many seeders on the torrents in question. It seems like Transmission, or my router, or my ISP, or some combo of these things, won't or can't handle more than one steady upload at a time. This is not the case with DLs at all. And I've checked the relevant settings in Transmission (indeed, I've set them in accordance with the suggestions above).

As a result of all this, my tracker ratios threaten to go all out of whack unless I wait weeks between downloading (possible but undesirable).