Possible SOLUTION: Transmission Crashing Mac OS X

[MacProBob]

I have done a great deal of research on this problem. The problem of Transmission crashing my mac seems to be a fairly common one. Some people say it crashes airport. It seems to be an issue across many versions of OS X, on all types of macs.

To be clear, let me describe. If one leaves Transmission running for any lengthly period of time, it will eventually 'freeze'. It causes you to force quit transmission, and in my case iTunes, and a lot of other apps that are running. One cannot even successfully reboot. A press and hold of the power button is needed. We all know these things are bad for our macs, their file integrity, etc. I personally am shocked this problem has not been addressed by the devs.

Here's what I've tried.... Turning speed limits on and off. Setting global limits. Eliminating global limits. Running the app in 64-bit mode and in 32. Turning off all other apps while its running. My conclusions are, not of that matters. Something is afoot elsewhere. (FYI, I am connected via ethernet.)

What I'm trying.... I have made a script in automator that simply pauses all downloads, then resumes them after a few seconds. In Transmission prefs, when a download is complete, it will activate that script. It occurs to me that the problem lies somewhere in the incoming/outgoing network traffic somewhere. I think it has something to do with the cache. If I am only downloading a couple torrents, the problem is non-existant. If I am downloading a bunch (15-25 torrents), and using a lot of bandwidth (1.5-2.5 MB/sec), the problem crops up daily, at least once.

So, we'll see how it goes. I'll report on my progress.

[jesebbach]

I have the exact same problem. and thanks for exposing it so clearly

But two or three things to complete your very fine expose, and, maybe, that could give us a clue :

First, I have to reboot every time it happens, it's very annoying. And it takes an infinite time, if I dont do a hard reboot (i have to wait maybe an hour or two till my imac finally goes down).

Second, I think it may have to do with 10.6.5 or some apple update recently made. Cause I never had this problem before, and I tried every version that I could get with my time machine (it goes back to january 2009). Tried all versions, all ha the same problem eventually (plus other types of problems like "input/output error" recurring again and again).

Third, for me, it happens even when I don't have many downloads active. But it never happened yet when I had only uploading transfers (I seed a lot). So maybe it's something with the writing of data.

Anyway, keep me posted on your solution, I'd really like to know if it works.

By the way, could you send us the automator script you made ? So I can try do it too ? I have no idea how to use this thing...

Thanks a lot anyway.

[jesebbach]

Never mind about the script, I think I was able to do it after all...

But keep me posted on your results : cause the problem about this manipulation is that it will only call the script when it has finished a download : if you have only very big files downloading, it's not gonna help...

thanks anyway, i'll try to keep you posted as well.

[MacProBob]

So. Here's an update. Last night I managed to complete 13 of 30 downloads. Each file ranging from 2-5GB. This was the most number I was able to complete between crashes. That being said, the machine did crash this morning after I got up. Or shall I say, it was frozen when I got up.

Here's my theory. I think the script worked because of the number of downloads completed. The queue simply couldn't keep up and before another download completed (thereby doing another pause and restart), the machine locked up. The next logical step I think is to either increase the number of files downloading so more files get completed more frequently, or to come up with a script (other than doing an iCal plug-in), to pause and restart every hour.

A couple things I am conscious of.... I know some of you will be saying I need to decrease files in the queue to speed up completions, but I have plenty of bandwidth. (26MB down, 8MB up). I cap it at 1.5 as a starting point and so my wife doesn't yell at me when her youtube videos stutter like a high school virgin talking to a hot chick. I'll get back at you guys as things progress. Please feel free to ask questions.

[jesebbach]

Hi there. Some more info here : my last crash, I was there, working on my computer. One of my downloads had just finished — and, actually, my automator script didn't work, so I'm gonna try to fix that today — and it was just getting started on just uploading. And that's when it freezed.

FYI : the said download wasn't that big (about 2.37 Gigs) and had had lots of "input/output errors" this past two days.

Maybe something about the closure of a DL ? The writing or double checking or something (I'm not familiar with what happens at the end of a DL)... But my first thought would be a bug with the writing process.

How about you ?

[MacProBob]

So.... here's an update. I could never get Transmission to run my automator created app. I don't know how to program in applescript so I can't say that is fully tested. However, he is what I have gotten to work...

I have a 8TB RAID that I use to store all my digital video on for playback in iTunes. I was using that to write all my torrent files to. It is also residence to my time machine backups. Just for S&G, I decided to move all the active torrents to an internal 1.5TB RAID that occupies 3 out of the 4 slots in my Mac Pro.

I am very pleased to say that since doing that yesterday, not a single crash, hang, freeze or what have you. It's been chugging along at 500k to 1MB/sec with no issues. FYI, the interface on the 8TB was eSATA.

If someone has been able to construct a script in Apple Script editor, and has had good results, I'd love to hear about it. For me, these things have guesses based on my simplistic knowledge. I do not have an oblong-shaped cranium with which I can look at code in logs and say, "A-ha! There'e the culprit."

If I had to guess, this version of Transmission doesn't play well with externals and the amount of data and the OS. As my d-loads are concluding on the internal, I set-up any conversion I need to do and have the file write onto the external RAID which has always seemed to work perfectly.

Everyone have a good day!

[jesebbach]

Thanks MacProBob !

Actually, that kind of confirms my theory : there's a problem with the writing of data. Especially when the disk you use to store the dled data is also used by another app( (iTunes or anything else like that that reads a lot). I have the feeling that it's especially at the end of the dl. Well as for me, my automator scirpts works perfectly, and I have had no problems yet — even though several dl have been concluded in the meantime.

Lets see what happens next.

Hapy new year !

[MacProBob]

Please send me your script. theshrimpguy@me.com

Please be sure to zip it as Apple's firewalls will no doubt not let a script go through in all probability.

Thanks Dude!

[jesebbach]

Sent. hope that helps.

[jesebbach]

LAst night, my TRansmission froze again, and took everything with her : I had to close (or force quit) all application and reboot.

It happened just after I started downloading a big torrent. the dl speed were very low at first, but it's a multiple files torrent — and I chose just some files among them that I wanted. But it occurs to me that it means creating an new folder and building a whole new file tree — which, in this case, is quite complex. I still think all this has to do with the writing...

Did you have anymore problem ? Or did the fact that you write directly on an external drive solve everything ?

Thanks in advance...

[MacProBob]

Since I started writing to an internal disk, I have not had this issue. I am currently writing to an internal RAID as described above.

I can even have extensive operations going on at the same time. I can have handbrake converting files, iTunes streaming, MKVTools converting, etc.

To be thorough, I have the 2.8Ghz dual processor quad-core MacPro with 10GB of RAM.

I know it's a pain, dload to the internal and copy over to the external as you go until the Transmission folks correct this.

[jesebbach]

Well actually, I have always dled to the internal. But it's the disk where the OS is. Maybe that's the trouble ? As I understand, the disk you're dlding to is not the one where you have your OS installed, is it ?

[MacProBob]

That's correct. Bay 1 is the OS drive. Bays 2-4 are the RAID.

[MacProBob]

Nope. I have 1 drive in slot 1 for that's the boot drive. The other 3 drives are RAID. That's where I go.

I did have a crash last week when I tried to allow unlimited UL streams. I had 30-50 transfers going, and a 7MB up stream connection. Well, it didn't like that. Crasho! Ever since I lowered it, no problems.

[jesebbach]

Hello all !

More clues here : I just started a very very big download — 68 Go and maybe 100 or 150 files within files — and everything crashed. My theory now is this : there is a problem with writing — not writing data, but building the file tree, the arborescence... And with closing it, of course. I think the hard drive (or the finder, maybe ?) can't keep up with all the mass of data that are downloading and all the files that are created.

Seeking to prove my theory, I relaunched the same download but, this time, one file at a time (checking slowly all the files within the big torrent), and, so far, no problem.

Could it be that Transmission doesn't give the finder (or the hard drive) the appropriate time to process all the informations ?