Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

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mildfuzz
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:50 pm

Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by mildfuzz »

Trying to get my transmission-daemon to pick up files from a dropbox folder, to make remote starting easier (it's a headless system).

As far as I can tell, the settings.json file is as expected, but none of the files I place in the folder get picked up.

I have checked that dropbox is syncing correctly.

Here is the whole settings.json file: http://pastebin.com/JpiX1t0x , but the relevant lines are included below:

"watch-dir": "/home/john/Dropbox/torrents",
"watch-dir-enabled": true
gunzip
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 2:12 am

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by gunzip »

take a look at your logfile, and when daemon starts you should see something like..

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.
.
Watching "/home/user1/btornado/tmp/" for new .torrent files (daemon.c:520)
Using inotify to watch directory "/home/user1/btornado/tmp/" (watch.c:73)
.
.
and when a torrent is added the log would show

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Found new .torrent file "Name.torrent" in watchdir "/home/user1/btornado/tmp/" (watch.c:141)
this would be the first things to check in your troubleshooting
mildfuzz
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:50 pm

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by mildfuzz »

Where is the log?
gunzip
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 2:12 am

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by gunzip »

mildfuzz wrote:Where is the log?
the logfile location is customizable depending on how your installation was packaged, but usually on Debian/Ubuntu the default would be

/var/log/syslog

Edit:

also you can get more verbose debugging output changing to "message-level": 3, in settings.json
mildfuzz
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:50 pm

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by mildfuzz »

It appears to be a permissions issue

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Unable to watch "/home/john/Dropbox/torrents": Permission denied (watch.c:79)
I have tried stopping the daemon ->

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sudo service transmission-daemon stop
-> changing permissions of folder using chown ->

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sudo chown -R john /home/john/Dropbox/torrents
-> restarting daemon ->

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sudo service transmission-daemon start
Same result, however
gunzip
Posts: 272
Joined: Wed May 05, 2010 2:12 am

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by gunzip »

is the user "john" the same user that the daemon is running under? i suspect not.

try stopping the service, and doing..

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sudo chmod -R 777 /home/john/Dropbox/torrents
that should give universal permission for read/write access to the torrents watch folder
mildfuzz
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:50 pm

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by mildfuzz »

I still get:

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Unable to watch "/home/john/Dropbox/torrents": Permission denied (watch.c:79)
Despite

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ls -ld /home/john/Dropbox/torrents/
returning

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drwsrwsrwx 2 john debian-transmission 4096 2012-04-09 19:40 /home/john/Dropbox/torrents/
blacke4dawn
Posts: 552
Joined: Sun Dec 13, 2009 10:44 pm

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by blacke4dawn »

What about the "/home/john/Dropbox"-folder or even the "/home/john"-folder, are they readable by the user or group that transmission is running under?
mildfuzz
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:50 pm

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by mildfuzz »

Okay, I changed all the permissions of the folder tree from the root up to the torrent folder, and now the syslog gives me

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Found new .torrent file "myLegal.torrent" in watchdir "/home/john/Dropbox/torrents  (watch.c:92)
, but it doesn't appear in the web interface, and the torrent file doesn't get deleted (my intention)
mildfuzz
Posts: 6
Joined: Sun Apr 08, 2012 7:50 pm

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by mildfuzz »

No one no what could be happening here?
TheBigYahi
Posts: 13
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2010 3:16 pm

Re: Transmission-daemon not picking up on watch directory

Post by TheBigYahi »

I had this same problem a long time ago where my Watch folder and Torrent folder were the same. Try making them different folders.
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