Big Problem - Ratio limit only kicks in when completed

[Alaska Jack]

I"m having a big problem with Transmission that I hope someone can help me with.

The ratio limit only seems to take effect once the download is completed. In other words, lets say I'm downloading slowly, but there are a bunch of leechers I'm uploading to at the same time. Transmission only seems to check the ratio when downloading stops. And by that time, I'm FAR past the 1.25 limit I usually set. Like right now, one large movie file is at 2.69!

What I want Transmission to do is CONTINUOUSLY monitor the ul/dl ratio -- not just close the door after the cows have left the barn, so to speak. Is there any way to do this? Or do I just need to use a different client? I'd rather not -- I really like transmission.

[livings124]

This is the intentional behavior. It will only pause seeding torrents, not downloading torrents.

[Alaska Jack]

Thanks for the reply. I'm not sure what you mean, though, about the pausing. Could you clarify that a little?

[livings124]

You set a ratio limit so that the transfer will be paused once the ratio is met or surpassed. This is only applied to seeding (non-downloading) torrents.

[Alaska Jack]

You set a ratio limit so that the transfer will be paused once the ratio is met or surpassed. This is only applied to seeding (non-downloading) torrents.

I love Transmission, but let me respectfully point out that the behavior you describe is completely contrary to what a reasonable user would expect.

Ask a user the following: "You set Trans. to download a 500mb movie overnight. You set the ul/dl ratio to 1.5. In the morning, what do you expect the bandwidth usage to be?"

Response: "That's easy: 500mb download, 750mb upload, of course."

Imagine that user's surprise when he sees that he actually used 3.5Gb of his monthly bandwith allotment because, while he slept, Transmission was busily uploading and uploading and uploading, only bothering to check the ratio once the download was complete.

I sincerely appreciate your efforts as a developer, but sadly I can't continue to use Transmission if there is no way for me to know in advance how big a hit any given transfer will put against my bandwidth allotment.

- AJ

[livings124]

This is the behavior most users would expect, and is the behavior applications follow as well. If the app doesn't upload, the chances of it downloading anything are much much lower.

[essiw]

since I have seen many of these kind of threads, wouldn't it be a good idea to implent some feature where you can give the max upload and download in total? (so people won't go higher then their bandwidth) I don't need it but I think others would [maybe it is already implented in 1.6x but I can't use that]

[livings124]

I haven't seen many of these threads...

[essiw]

I haven't seen many of these threads...

well I did see many threads where people asked something that could make it so they could make torrents act so they wouldn't go higher then their bandwitdh ;) (they were all a bit different, but the problem was the same. that they went above their bandwitdh)

[Alaska Jack]

Yeah, what he said. My cable provider starts charging me additional $$ after 5gb bandwith usage. Obviously, I can't use transmission if I have no way of knowing how much of that cap a given file is going to use up.

This exact scenario just happened to me the day before yesterday. I wanted to download a 700mb file overnight, but I wake up and boom, I've just eaten up half of my entire month's allotment because it turns out that when Transmission says "1.25" it doesn't really MEAN "1.25". In my case, it turns out that when Transmission says "1.25" it actually means "2.95"!

Love Transmission, but when that little pop-up says 1.25, well, I expect it to conform to that.

[Weaselboy]

If you download torrents that already have more than one seed or so, this will normally not happen. Usually if there are a few seeders you will DL faster than UL and the problem will not occur. If it is a new (just posted) torrent with only the original seeder, the behavior you describe is common.

A work around would be to set a very low upload rate if it is a torrent like this you intend to leave overnight.

[ionice]

~2 year old bump~

Hi, just wondering, is the option available now?
I don't think your average user really cares about bit exact matching against the ratio limit, so really, some leeway is fine.
To me, it seems possible to implement some slowdown once a certain ratio is hit, either against the downloaded amount, or against the total amount to download (for example, with the 700MB file above, and a ratio of 1.5, after 1050MB has been uploaded, cap the upload rate to a user specifiable amount; alternatively, if against downloaded amount, then if 350MB has been downloaded of this 700MB, and more than 525MB has been uploaded, slow the upload rate down, and speed it up again if the ratio drops below the threshold).

If this isn't possible, and not likely to ever be added, then I guess I'll have to write a script which polls transmission and tries to implement what I said above. Seems silly for something which I think should be in transmission itself, but it's probably quicker and easier to do that than me trying to understand all the source code.

Thanks.

[lazybones]

This is how bittorent works, as you download you upload and share it is a primary part of bittorent. Seeding after is optional and thus has a limit however most suggest that you do it.

Reduce your upload speed and upload slots if you want to share less. Not that the less you share the less likely you will get data from other hosts.

The upload ratio limit works the same in othe major bittorent clients from what I recall.

[ionice]

Thanks for the explanation lazybones.
I'm quite aware of that, but sometimes, it's more important to preserve bandwidth than it is to try and pull downloads through at a maximum rate.
Also, your statement is not entirely correct (or rather, the reverse isn't contrary to your statement). Higher upload can mean less bandwidth allocated to you for download (depending on how your connection is shaped). Having a higher upload doesn't necessarily mean you have a greater chance of getting data.
The thing that triggered my post was mainly a torrent which was uploading at 4+MB/s and I was downloading at 9KB/s. Really, I don't think my download would've suffered if I reduced my upload limit to 1% of that figure.

I don't know much about other clients, but I was only hoping this as a suggestion (I don't see why you'd have to take examples from other clients anyway).

Thanks again for the explanation.

[ionice]

For anyone interested, here's my quick and dirty (and crappy) PHP script which tries to implement what I want.
If you actually want to use it, edit the configuration at the top of the file, and run the script on a cron, say, every one minute.

Yeah, PHP, weird language, but I'm familiar with it. I know there are issues and whatnot with it, but it was simple to write up and suits my purposes.

Hope it helps at least someone other than myself.

http://pastebin.com/NMUHYuAv
[won't let me upload as attachment]