Error: invalid or corrupt torrent file

[jimford]

I've just started using transmission-daemon in my NSA320 network server, using ffp. It appears to be working fine with torrents from some sites, but on one site in particular I get 'Error: invalid or corrupt torrent file' with any torrents I try to use.The site is one that I have been using with transmission-gtk and other clients with no problems. If it helps, the torrents have the extension '.ts'.

I'd be grateful for any help here, please!

Jim

[rb07]

extension '.ts'

Those are not torrents.

They are probably "Transport Stream", which is a video format.

[jimford]

extension '.ts'

They are probably "Transport Stream", which is a video format.

I know what you mean but in fact they are torrents that you can copy and paste into a torrent client. They work fine with the graphical interface transmission (and other clients such as utorrent), but they're not working in transmission-daemon + transmission-remote. I've used these '.ts' torrents from the site for years in various gui clients.

Jim

[jimford]

Try adding the .torrent extension.

It didn't work- as I expected. Linux doesn't rely on a file extension to determine what sort of file it is.

Jim

[jimford]

Open the torrent file with a text editor. If the piece size isn't a power of 2, Transmission can't open it. Other aspects of a torrent file can get corrupted as well.

I guess by "piece size" you mean the second character, which is '8' for the torrents (the first character is a 'd'. So it's a power of 2.

I probably haven't made it clear previously that it isn't just one file on the site that the transmission-daemon says is corrupt - any file I try gets the same response. All the files work OK in transmission-gtk, so it's not a issue with a genuinely corrupted file. It appears to be issue that the torrents are compatible with transmission-gtk, but not transmission-daemon + transmission-remote.

Jim

[rb07]

they are torrents that you can copy and paste into a torrent client

Copy and paste?

You're still describing something that is not a torrent file, perhaps its a link to a torrent file?

If you are in fact using links, perhaps the problem could be the difference between opening with a local application, and opening it with a remote application. The site where you get the link could have authentication added to the link, in such a way that only a local application (actually the IP) can download whatever the link points to. On the other hand, the remote application: the daemon, is getting an error page, or something else that is not a torrent.

you mean the second character, which is '8' for the torrents (the first character is a 'd'

This part is describing a torrent file, even if you have no idea what it means (i.e. the start is "d8:announce", meaning data, size 8, colon, 8 characters "announce").

So there seems to be 2 descriptions of different procedures and maybe "torrents".

What about testing the file with something like:

Code: Select all

$ transmission-show test.torrent
Name: test.avi
File: test.torrent

GENERAL

  Name: test.avi
  Hash: b12...........................................744
  Created by: Transmission/2.77 (14031)
  Created on: Mon Apr  8 19:41:52 2013
  Piece Count: 1696
  Piece Size: 256.0 KiB
  Total Size: 423.8 MiB
  Privacy: Private torrent

TRACKERS

  Tier #1
  http://test.test.org:8118/announce

FILES

  test.avi (423.6 MiB)

[jimford]

Lots to digest there and leads to work on!

Thanks 'rb07' and 'x190'.

Jim

[jimford]

Well it looks like the 'transmission-daemon' is very picky about torrents sent to it via 'transmission-remote'.

I'm now using the web interface, and previously rejected torrents are being accepted. The odd thing is that several show in the activity downloaded pop-up 'information' window that they are corrupt, even though the downloads have been completed and the videos play OK. The very odd thing is some of them show exactly the same amount of corruption - 262.1 kB!

Still, although the mystery remains, it's working!

Thanks to all that offered advice.

Jim