Eventually every bittorrent user (especially when dealing with older files) encounters the problem of incomplete downloads (stuck at 98%) or the problem of there just not being any or enough seeds to support their download. Understanding the problem is the first step to fixing it.

Being Stuck, Download Stops and Hangs at x%

Let’s assume you’re stuck at 98%…

The main reason for the download to stop at a certain percentage is because all the Seeders with complete copies of the file you are downloading have stopped sharing it or for some reason are unavailable. Your client still downloads all it can from the other peers in the swarm, but… that still only adds up to our hypothetical 98%!

Other reasons could include the primary tracker being down, or is overloaded and refusing connections. If this the case however, the file could reach completion once the tracker comes back online and reunites you with the seeders.

Lets assume that the tracker isn’t down or overloaded… now what?

You can try the following methods:

• Find More Seeders by ReAnnouncing the Torrent using btReannounceR
• Find More Seeders by Adding Trackers to your Torrents to

Using btReAnnounceR

btReannounceR is a online tool which can help you quickly find trackers that your torrent is currently tracked by. You can upload your torrent to their service here and view the results.

By clicking the reAnnounce button, this will reAnnounce your torrent to these trackers, and allow you to download a new torrent with new trackers inserted into it. Download that and retry your download now.

This is a much cleaner, easier method than the next,

However, if it fails you should at least take one last try…

Finding more Seeders by Adding More Trackers

This is actually an article on its own, but here’s the rundown:

• Grab a list of trackers from our tracker list.
• Add these trackers to your torrent by following the instructions in this article: Adding Additional Trackers to Your Torrents.
• Watch and wait, if anyone on any of these trackers has your file, they will be listed, so keep a close eye on the Seed and Peer columns
• Continue downloading and SEED!

And that’s basically it for now. If anyone knows other ways to revive dead torrents or find additional seeders please feel free to share!

Happy St. Patricks Day!

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts

No Seeders? Not Always the Case! How to Revive a “Dead” Torrent

Just because that hard to find torrent can’t seem to find any seeds to download from, does not necessarily mean that there are 0 seeders available in the entire world!

Seeders are very important users to you, as they are the users with a complete version of the file you are seeking. So it makes sense in desperate times to search additional trackers when you are having a hard time tracking down some seeders!

Here’s where adding trackers from our Tracker List come in handy. What this allows you to do is check other trackers (that were not included in your .torrent file) to see if anyone else has the same file to download.

This is a huge benefit as it can help you:

• Track down and increase seeder counts for a file that had none, so that you can begin downloading it
• Add to your current amount of seeders to increase overall download speeds

You must keep in mind, that this situation will arise pretty rarely and may not always work, but if you do find yourself having a tough time finding seeders it’s definitely worth a shot.

Here’s How!

Bittorrent / uTorrent

For Bittorrent 6.4 and uTorrent 2.0 alike you can click on the torrent you are downloading and then select the Trackers tab at the bottom, right-click and select Add Tracker.

As you can see by the image above, we are having a bit of a hard time finding seeds for our torrent…
In the next window, just add the trackers you want to add into the the trackers box and be sure to keep them separated by a line.

Hit OK, and you should see them added into your Trackers tab now, and your client should begin searching them.

And would you look at that! We’ve found some Seeders!

Deluge

In Delgue, once the torrent is loaded right-click on it and goto Edit Trackers. Once inside you are given the option to Add trackers. After you have added all the trackers you desire, right-click again on the torrent and select Update Tracker.

You can find a long list of trackers on our Tracker List page.
Happy Hunting! ?

Join the forum discussion on this post - (1) Posts