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Additional Vuze Settings
Introduction
These are some additional settings for features in Vuze that may prove useful. If you want information on any features not listed here, please post in the comments below and I will try to post some information.
This is a work in progress and I will post more information when I have time.
Mode
To make sure that you can see all the options referenced here you should be in Mode = Advanced.
The location for this option is at
(Windows/Linux) Tools>Options (Ctrl+,)>Mode
(Mac) Azureus>Preferences (? + ,)>Mode
- Dealing with ISP Interference
- IP Filter
- Loading Torrents
- Adding Search Templates (Moved to separate page)
Dealing with ISP Interference
If you are having troubles with your transfers after Optimizing Vuze for Speed and choosing good torrents, then your ISP may be interfering with bittorrent. This section offers some information on determining if there is interference and how you can try to circumvent this interference.
1. Check for ISP Interference: You can check at Azureus-Wiki: Bad ISPs to see if your ISP is known to interfere and for suggestions on how to circumvent their interference.
If your ISP is not listed, your ISP may still be interfering. FileShareFreak has a good article on the ways to test for this at 6 Things You Can Do to Test Your ISP for BitTorrent Throttling.
2. Encryption If your ISP is interfering Vuze offers 5 different levels of encryption to try and circumvent this. For most people Level 2 encryption (below) will suffice. The setting for this is at:
(Windows/Linux) Tools>Options>Connection>Transport Encryption
(Mac) Azureus>Preferences>Connection>Transport Encryption
3. Lazy Bitfield Some ISPs (like my Comcast) interfere with seeding. The usual symptom of this is that upload is fine while downloading, but connections cannot be maintained after the download is complete. Enabling Lazy Bitfield has Vuze always send send a faked incomplete bitfield, which may help in defeating this ISP interference.
The setting for the Lazy Bitfield option is at:
(Windows/Linux) Tools>Options>Transfer (5th option from bottom)
(Mac) Azureus>Preferences>Transfer (5th option from bottom)
IP Filter
The Vuze IP filter blocks the IPs entered within it. Most commonly, the blocklist from BISS is used to block IPs that are "known" to interfere with bittorrent. There is some controversy over whether these lists are useful. There is some evidence to support their use in this article and there is some evidence that they are not useful in this post. I leave it up to you as to whether this is necessary for your situation.
Vuze offers a built-in IP Filter that has the ability to auto update itself. You can also manually update. It is located at:
(Windows/Linux) Tools>Options>IP Filters
(Mac) Azureus>Preferences>IP Filters
1. Auto As of now, and for the foreseeable future, BISS is no longer supporting auto updating. The blocklist is only available as a manual download.
2. Manual There are two sources for blocklist download, BISS and Nexus23. For BISS It is suggested to use the Level 1 blocklist. For Nexus23, the Peerguadian IP Filter should be used.
BISS Level 1 Blocklist Download
Nexus23 Peerguardian IP Filter Download
They are both zip files and have to be unpacked. Unpack the file to a location you want (I suggest in the Vuze program folder as it will be easy to remember). Then in Vuze at the location above, select the browse button to locate the file and then press the Load Now button. Thereafter you can unpack to that location, overwriting the existing file and press Load Now. (Click on image if you need clearer picture)
Loading Torrents
My suggestion for new users is to follow the Azureus-Wiki: What to do Now?: Best Way setup instructions. This method sets a download to automatically start when you download the torrent to the default directory. If you then wish to only select some files out of a torrent, you can save to a different location and open manually through File>Open>Torrent File and you will see a screen where download location and files to download can be selected. The setup under the Files and Torrents options for the above Best Way would look like this:
Related Articles
- Optimizing Vuze for Speed setting Vuze up for best download speeds
- Vuze Meta Search Adding Search Templates information on Vuze meta-search & adding templates
- Searching for Torrents Popular and unique torrent search sites, with comments.
- Finding Legal (and Free) Torrents sites that offer only legally downloadable and distributable content.
Gizmo's Best Ever Freeware Forums
If you still have issues after using this guide and would like some assistance, you may post here or our Forums. The comments section here is not well set up for ongoing discussions, so the forums are a better place.
If you have a suggestion or correction for the guide, please post here.
Steve
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Comments
Hi, thanks for the nice guide.
I'm trying to use a socks proxy with vuze latest build 4.7.0.0.2 and I'm getting this error Connection Error (SocketException:Malformed reply from SOCKS server)
But the proxy works fine when I use it with utorrent even with the same torrent and on the same tracker.
In utorrent, I've not changed the default settings except for number of connections, directory of download, etc.
These are the settings I used in utorrentv 2.2.1: socks5 proxy, use proxy for hostname lookups and use proxy for peer to peer connections. utorrent does say I'm firewalled but download goes fine.
In vuze i tried these settings:
socks proxy v5, enable proxyfying of peer communications, inform tracker of limitations, use same settings for peer and tracker communications, and allow more than one connection from same ip but I get error "Connection Error (SocketException:Malformed reply from SOCKS server)".
Can you please help me with this?
Who are you using for proxy?
Sorry I didn't really get what you said. I use proxy because my network blocks bittorrent traffic. Did you mean which/whose proxy I use?
It works well with utorrent, but shows the error in vuze, so I think maybe there is some setting I need to change.
Yes which proxy do you use?
hmm.. I tunnel through my ssh server. It works in utorrent but not vuze, so maybe its just the settings I use in vuze?
I did just run across a couple things that may be at play here.
First I saw a guide on setting up Vuze for Open VPN and it indicated to not enable the inform tracker of limitation option, so you might want to try that.
Second, in Vuze, at Options>Connections (expand)>Advanced network settings is an option to "bind to local IP address...". I am not sure exactly how this works, but your VPN should be listed below and it might be necessary to activate this for VPN.
http://wiki.vuze.com/w/UG_Options#Connection_options
(scroll down a little to see info on Advanced Network Settings.
Also I wanted to add, it doesn't support udp. But I haven't put udp as prefer in vuze.
Sorry, I have looked around the web on this and can find no answer. I found almost nothing on Vuze with proxies. There is (or was - I can not be sure if it was resolved) some issue on UDP trackers, but as you just said you are not using that.
The only things I came up with on that error were wrong version proxy used and invalid username/password. But, since you have it working in uTorrent those would not be issue for you.
Thanks for replying.
I'm pretty sure the proxy type, user name passwords those things I'm putting right. I guess I'll just use utorrent when I need proxy. The only setting for udp that I clearly saw was to put it as 'prefer' which I didn't do but there should be some more settings on udp. Can you tell me all the settings to completely turn off udp support for the trackers? If that doesn't work, I'll stick with utorrent when I need proxies.
At Options>Trackers (expand)>Client are two settings for UDP tracker support.
Do you want to disable all UDP communications (DHT, PEX, uTP)?
Yes, I want only tcp communications.
Make sure Mode is set to Advanced.
Options>Connection - under Peer Sources disable all but "from a tracker"
Options>Plugins>Distributed DB - disable the distributed database
Options>Plugins>Distributed Tracker - disable both options
Options>Sharing - disable "allow decentralized tracking when tracker is unavailable"
I do not know if you saw my post above where I found a couple things that may help with your issue.
Thanks, just one thing, if tracker is down, will vuze still use the cached peers if I disable all the udp connections?
"I do not know if you saw my post above where I found a couple things that may help with your issue."
I'm not really sure which post you are talking about. I only see the post where you said it could be because of wrong proxy type or password, username, but I'm sure I didn't make that mistake. Is there something else that I missed :S
By the way I think I wasn't much clear in the first post. This is what actually happens.
In utorrent:
I use the proxy settings and utorrent's default settings: All my trackers work well.
(though I connect to lesser seeds since my proxy doesn't allow udp but that's fine with me.)
In vuze:
I use the proxy settings and default vuze settings: All my trackers work fine except one tracker that works fine in utorrent with or without proxy and also works in vuze without proxy.
(I tried without proxy in another network which doesn't block bittorent)
This is what I think,
no matter whether I use uT or vuze, this particular tracker should get similar information about the proxy but since it works with utorrent but not with vuze, I think vuze sends it something it doesn't like? It does allow the proxy's ip 'cause it works with utorrent. There is a setting in vuze something like 'report the tracker about proxy's limitations'. I googled and found it simply lets the tracker know I'm using a proxy. I haven't seen such a setting in utorrent. Does utorrent not tell the tracker anything about the proxy? Could it be that this particular tracker assumes my proxy ip as my real ip when i use utorrent and allows traffic but vuze tells it specifically that it's an extra proxy and my tracker doesn't seem to like it?
I think from my first post, it seems, I can't use any trackers with proxyed vuze which is not the case :)
I saw settings like allow tor and i2p network along with public network. What do they do? I know what tor is but not sure what these settings mean.
This is the post (forgot I could link directly to it)
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/additional-vuze-settings.htm#com...
And it does talk about the "inform" option. I saw a guide for Open VPN that said that option had to be disabled (I do not know why). Since it is only happening on one tracker, this may not be the issue, but worth a try (easy enough to change back).
On Tor, Tor should not be used for bittorrent. It puts a lot of stress on their network and I had a link somewhere about how Tor does not protect the IP in bittorrent.
I really know nothing about I2P. this is their home page:
http://www.i2p2.de/
It looks like they use a similar idea to Tor, routing through a number of user IPs (which means that at some point your IP will be shown for someone else's activity).
And yes I did get the idea Vuze was not working on any. Not much of a difference in my responses though.
yeah, I had missed that. I'll look into it. I appreciate all your help. Thank you very much :)
Hi! Thanks for the nice tutorial. I recently changed from utorrent to vuze and I'm having trouble with a particualr feature. utorrent by default didn't preallocate any space to the downloads. It allocated spaces only to the particular file that is being downloaded. But vuze allocates space to all files as soon as the download starts irrespective of which files is being downloaded, all files in the torrent get space allocated. My internal harddisk is not very big and vuze wastes a lot of space for me. Is there a way to get the default utorrent behavior in vuze?
My files options:
Allocate and zero new files: Unchecked
Append data to files as downloaded and reorder pieces: Unchecked
Enable incremental file creation: Unchecked
Truncate existing files that are too large: Unchecked
recheck each pieces when download is done: Checked (Should I uncheck this to prolong my harddisk life? utorrent does this by default?)
low resources recheck when seeding: Checked (Should I uncheck this to prolong my hdd life? does utorrent do this by default?)
Please explain this options to me and tell what which options should I use to have what utorrent does by default. Is there any other options related to files that I should know of or use to get same behavior as of utorrent.
Please help me! Vuze forums don't even reply to questions. I hope you help me.
Most of those options are explained at the Vuze-Wiki on Files options
http://wiki.vuze.com/w/UG_Options#Files_options
The append data to files as downloaded..etc, was an option put in for Mac OSX users and has to do with the non-support of sparse allocation in OSX.
I have all of those options unchecked and I would suggest he same for you.
As to the recheck after download done option, this to me serves no real purpose. All bittorrent clients check the pieces and this (and the low resources re-check) are extras that are unnecessary. I do not believe uTorrent performs these, though it does do a check as I said all bittorrent clients do.
As to your allocation issue, I think the only solution is to add the torrents in a stopped state (Tools>Options>Files(expand)>Torrents).
Then you need to set the files you do not want to "Delete".
Right-click on the torrent in the Vuze library and select "Show details". Then go to the "Files" tab, highlight the files you do not want and right-click on one select "Set Priority" and set it to "Delete".
To start the torrent, go back to the torrent in the library, right-click and choose either "Queue" or "Force Start".
Any Qs, let me know.
Steve
Thanks for helping. That link was very useful.
Just a couple more things,
Allocate and zero..: This will preallocate space, so I will keep this disabled.
Enable incremental file creation: I found this allocates space from to the file from the first downloaded piece to the last downloaded piece. Will this cause too much wear and tear of my hdd if I use this?
What is the difference between set priority -> 'Do not download' and 'delete' . I guess 'do not download' is same as not selecting the file when opening the dot torrent in vuze. But what does 'delete' do?
"Enable incremental file creation: I found this allocates space from to the file from the first downloaded piece to the last downloaded piece. Will this cause too much wear and tear of my hdd if I use this?"
No, it will not add any wear as space is created one way or the other. This just makes it a question of when. This may interfere with using delete (or do not download) as it might create space even for non-selected data. I do not know for sure.
Did you have the allocate options disabled when you saw Vuze setting aside space for the full download even when you only selected part of it when adding?
I just checked on mine and my Vuze does not do this. Only space for the selected files is set aside. As I said, I have all those options disabled.
'Do not download' and 'delete' - When I deselect a file while adding, it shows up as "delete" on the files tab (meaning no space set aside).
So the only time 'Do not download' is in effect is when you select it after adding and starting the torrent. Since no files were deselected when adding the torrent, the full space was set aside and will still be set aside with 'Do not download'.
'delete' will eliminate the space for deselected items, even after the full download is started. As I said, deselecting while adding the torrent is 'Delete' in my Vuze.
thanks.
These are my default options:
Allocate and zero new files: Unchecked
Append data to files as downloaded and reorder pieces: Unchecked
Enable incremental file creation: Unchecked
This is what actually happened. I added a 15GB+ torrent and selected queue at last when adding. After a few minutes, I opened 'My Computer' and saw my disk was minus 15 GB. I found vuze has allocated space to all the files in the 15GB torrent but it was at the end of the download queue. I deleted those files and vuze showed the torrent in red and said 'files missing'. But it also showed 0.0% done and 0.0GB downloaded. So it hadn't started downloading it then but still allocated space to it. If I recheck that torrent, it again creates files and allocates space.
"Did you have the allocate options disabled when you saw Vuze setting aside space for the full download even when you only selected part of it when adding?"
I didn't mean this. I meant vuze allocates space even if the torrent is at the end in the queue like I've said in the previous paragraph. As far as creating space for deselected files is concerned, I wanted to seed a partially downloaded torrent in vuze that I had downloaded in utorrent and it didn't allocate space to deselected files. Maybe 2 or 3 extra files got space allocated but I think it was because I was very precise when selecting the files.
If I choose to try the incremental download option, will it have any harm effects on my hdd or on the overall download?
I understand now. Though you originally said Vuze was allocating space for files you deselected.
If the torrent was actually queued and not started, the space would not be set aside. If you deselect files before adding into Vuze, space will not be set aside for the files you deselected.
However, Vuze will allocate space once the torrent becomes active. Vuze does not have the "Pre-allocate" option that uTorrent does (which gives you the choice to not allocate).
"If I choose to try the incremental download option, will it have any harm effects on my hdd or on the overall download?"
No.
Just be aware that this does not mean sequential downloading and the space is allocated based upon the lowest and highest numbered bit. So, if there are 300 bits and you get bit 1 and then bit 100 1/3rd of the space will be allocated. If the next bit were number 300, then all of the space would be allocated even though you only had the three bits.
On your 15GB torrent, you could have set all files to "delete" and there would be no space set aside.
But I am not sure why you would want that torrent in the queue as opposed to stopped. If you have space issues, then you are going to have to delete files from other torrents before starting that torrent anyways.
On that partial download that you wanted to seed, if you had deselected the files you did not have when adding the torrent to Vuze (and pointed the save path to the existing partially downloaded data), then the torrent would have started seeding and no additional space would have been set aside.
'However, Vuze will allocate space once the torrent becomes active. Vuze does not have the "Pre-allocate" option that uTorrent does (which gives you the choice to not allocate).'
I never had any trouble with utorrent regarding disk space so I never paid any attention to it. But how does utorrent work? It allocates the space for a particular file when it starts downloading right?
If I use incremental download in vuze, it wont allocate much space even if the torrent started accidently for a couple of secs? Is there any guarantee that the very first piece would be from the first few bytes?
'On your 15GB torrent, you could have set all files to "delete" and there would be no space set aside.'
But then the torrent wont download right? Or you mean I should do this when space is allocated before download starts and I want to free it?
'But I am not sure why you would want that torrent in the queue as opposed to stopped. If you have space issues, then you are going to have to delete files from other torrents before starting that torrent anyways.'
Well I had a few torrents before that. I planned to transfer some of them to an external drive. If I use stopped, it wont download it when time comes?
'On that partial download that you wanted to seed, if you had deselected the files you did not have when adding the torrent to Vuze...'
I got that right :D I made a typo in my post. Sorry about that.
Another thing, I use a plugin called 'speed scheduler', I use it to download only at night. If I need something urgent I just use forced download. Unlike utorrent's built in scheduler which puts all torrents including the first one in 'queued' state and doesnt download any and according to schedule, starts downloading, speed scheduler plugin put all torrents to stopped state (So I dont know if I have stopped it or its by the scheduler) and then puts all to queue state at scheduled times. What I wonder is does it queue all stopped torrents incuding those already stopped by me or it just queues torrents it had stopped earlier? Do you know about this plugin?
(In utorrent 'queue' means the torrent will be downloaded by schedule and queue postion. In vuze it means torrents are being downloaded by queue position. Hope I was clear)
But how does utorrent work? It allocates the space for a particular file when it starts downloading right?
Not sure what the default is, but the option is at Options>Preferences>General.
Enabling the Pre-allocate causes uTorrent to allocate for the whole contents when the torrent is activated. If, pre-allocate is disabled, uTorrent will allocate for each file when a bit for that file is received. Will not matter at all on a single file torrent.
"If I use incremental download in vuze, it wont allocate much space even if the torrent started accidently for a couple of secs?"
I just tested with Open Office in my Vuze. It is a 150MB download. After a couple seconds and 0.8% downloaded, 147 of the 150MB had been allocated.
"Or you mean I should do this when space is allocated before download starts and I want to free it?"
Right. As opposed to deleting the files and having the error. You could have immediately set them back to normal priority and no space would have been taken if the torrent did not start.
"Well I had a few torrents before that. I planned to transfer some of them to an external drive. If I use stopped, it wont download it when time comes?"
My point was that you are coming to do the transfer, so you could start it at that time.
Anyhow, I think this is better dealt with by adjusting your queue rules, so the torrent does not prematurely start.
On the speed scheduler, I thought it put torrents to pause. But, I have not used it in a long time and it is not Windows 7 compatible so I can not test. You can look at the site for it to see if you get some info:
http://thesmithfam.org/blog/azureus-speed-scheduler/
The speed scheduler has not been updated in quite some time and will not be. The author suggests using uTorrent and its scheduler.
This is an issue with many of the Vuze plugins. Many of the developers became disenchanted with Vuze and have abandoned work on the plugins.
In speed scheduler, the option name is paused but when time comes vuze shows the torrents as stopped. Would be nice if the author updates it but it stills does its work pretty well. I use it on win 7 but i think it is because I've disabled UAC (user action control?) whatever it is called. With it enabled, it maybe can't access vuze properly.
Anyway thank you very much for helping me :)
Looking at his comments on Windows 7, it looks like you got it right on UAC.
Also, no real difference between pause and stop for what you want - the speed scheduler will not queue the torrents. It is designed to limit transfers to a specific time period for those that have unlimited bandwidth from their ISP at certain times of day.
Pleasure helping you - enjoy
Steve
Sorry, I made a typo.
second para from last, last sentence -> I wanted to say 'Maybe 2 or 3 extra files got space allocated but I think it was because I wasn't very precise when selecting the files.'
I downloaded a movie and put in in my library however when i drop it into my ps3 in will not convert . what do i do
Sorry, that is an area of Vuze that I know nothing about.
You could take a look at this Vuze-Wiki page (particularly 4& 9)and see if it helps
http://wiki.vuze.com/w/FAQ_Devices
Otherwise, you could try their forum. They do have a sub-forum for devices
http://forum.vuze.com/index.jspa
Steve
I still cannot find how I can download music, my sister suggested Vuze and thinks it's great but I can only get video when I seach? :(
I have tried "Show results in..." and the only option I have is video.
Please help in simple terms :)
Most likely that is due to the fact that the default site for Vuze searches is the Vuze network, which only carries video.
You could add search sites to the Vuze Meta-Search as per the Loading Search Templates section above:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/additional-vuze-settings.htm#loa...
Better to search directly at search sites and be able to view comments and ratings on the download. Some good sites listed here:
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/searching-torrents.htm
If you have any questions, post back.
Steve
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