Upload speed problems

[Tree]

OS: Windows 10
qBit: v. 3.3.3

Listening port: 38557 (forwarded)
Global max connections: 1000
Connections per torrent: 300
Global max upload slots: Unchecked
Slots per torrent: 7 (these last two settings, I have messed around with a lot, seems to have no effect)

uTP is OFF
Encryption: Prefer encryption
IPv6 is turned OFF at the adapter
libtorrent 1.0.8.0
Connection Status: Online (green)
DHT: 392 nodes
Using Private Internet Access VPN

I seed much more than I download, and I've been noticing variable upload speeds for a while now. I have 5 Mbps upload, and sometimes I max out on this speed, but more often I see .5 - 3 Mbps upload. Usually I am uploading actively on 3-5 torrents, when it's running fast it sometimes gets up to 7 or 8. No other devices are on this LAN. Sometimes I am browsing the web while qBittorrent is running, but not always, and this has no effect on the speed patterns I'm seeing.

When looking at the speed column over time, I often see a sharp drop after a period of maximum speed, down to a stable low speed. I don't download much at the moment, so I'm not sure whether download speeds are affected, but the couple times I have downloaded, I have often experienced fast speeds with a couple drops similar to the upload drops - haven't tested enough to see if it's a pattern.

The reason I think qBittorrent is the problem is that I've used online speed tests and another Bittorrent client, all of which display normal speeds under the same conditions.

Any help you can offer would be greatly appreciated.

[ciaobaby]

With UTP off, encryption on AND a VPN in the way, ... ... It is going to be slow.

[Tree]

[quote="ciaobaby"]
With UTP off, encryption on AND a VPN in the way, ... ... It is going to be slow.
[/quote]

Thank you for your reply. Should I turn off encryption, then?

Also, it didn't used to be this way, and I get good speed with different Bittorrent clients. Any idea why this might be?

[ciaobaby]

Using encryption and a VPN is a bit of overkill

But your connections per torrent are excessive.
Having UTP off will be reducing the number of available peers by a fairly significant number.
Going via a VPN will reduce incoming piece requests always assuming you are paying for port-forwarding.

display normal speeds under the same conditions.

What are "normal" speeds?

[Tree]

Using encryption and a VPN is a bit of overkill

qBittorrent's encryption is equivalent to that of a VPN? Or do you mean that if I'm already tunnelling my data through a VPN, there's no need to have encryption turned on? For some reason, I was taking that setting to mean, "Prefer peers with encryption, but still accept others" rather than anything to do with my traffic. Is this incorrect?

What are "normal" speeds?

As I stated above, I can regularly max out the 5 Mbps (about 650 KB/s) connection on other clients and online speed tests, right when qBittorrent fails to do so.

Edit: On that note, I can reach max speeds on Deluge with full encryption + VPN.

[ciaobaby]

qBittorrent's encryption is equivalent to that of a VPN?

Nope! But it DOES basically  the same thing, as a VPN encrypts the outgoing data at your machine then decrypts it at the VPN before it is sent to the destination and does the reverse for incoming, encrypts at the VPN and decrypts when it arrives on your machine. While the BitTorrent protocol encryption encrypts at your client and decrypts at the remote client.

By having both in place, you are making the client encrypt the data before sending it to the local VPN interface, which then encrypts the encrypted  BitTorrent protocol, which is then decrypted by the remote VPN and sent to the remote client to decrypt the original.

It is most definitely a "belt and braces" approach and is adding FOUR additional processes to the to each and every transfer.

I was taking that setting to mean, "Prefer peers with encryption, but still accept others" rather than anything to do with my traffic. Is this incorrect?

ANYTHING that you put in the way is going to affect your traffic and BT protocol encryption doesn't actually have any effect on what it was originally intended for, to prevent "traffic shaping", so what is the point of using it.

[Tree]

qBittorrent's encryption is equivalent to that of a VPN?

Nope! But it DOES basically  the same thing, as a VPN encrypts the outgoing data at your machine then decrypts it at the VPN before it is sent to the destination and does the reverse for incoming, encrypts at the VPN and decrypts when it arrives on your machine. While the BitTorrent protocol encryption encrypts at your client and decrypts at the remote client.

By having both in place, you are making the client encrypt the data before sending it to the local VPN interface, which then encrypts the encrypted  BitTorrent protocol, which is then decrypted by the remote VPN and sent to the remote client to decrypt the original.

It is most definitely a "belt and braces" approach and is adding FOUR additional processes to the to each and every transfer.

I was taking that setting to mean, "Prefer peers with encryption, but still accept others" rather than anything to do with my traffic. Is this incorrect?

ANYTHING that you put in the way is going to affect your traffic and BT protocol encryption doesn't actually have any effect on what it was originally intended for, to prevent "traffic shaping", so what is the point of using it.

Good to know! That's very helpful. Thanks for the explanation.

Still no idea what's going on, so I've switched to Deluge for now  Despite turning uTp back on and encryption off, no effect in qBit.

But I love qBittorrent, I consider it to be far superior. It has a better interface and provides more information on a variety of fronts, including the Peers and Trackers windows, data uploaded/downloaded, ordering of seeding/queued/paused, ease of ratio management, the settings and the Execution Log for crying out loud... the list goes on. It's beautiful low impact software and I want to continue using it. But here we are.

If I could trouble you (or the forum at large) for one more piece of advice, do you think this issue warrants a bug report of some kind? Since it's unresolved and has made my use of the application impractical. I can't find it now, but I read somewhere that it might be a problem with the interaction between qBittorrent and this particular VPN. Maybe it would be helpful for somebody to know of this issue.

[ciaobaby]

Despite turning uTp back on and encryption off, no effect in qBit.

How long did you wait?

do you think this issue warrants a bug report of some kind?

Not until at least another instance of similar conditions is noted, one user having problems is not indicative of a 'bug' (https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorr ... t-is-a-bug)

[Tree]

Despite turning uTp back on and encryption off, no effect in qBit.

How long did you wait?

Tracked the speed over a few hours.

Not until at least another instance of similar conditions is noted, one user having problems is not indicative of a bug (https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorr ... -is-a-'bug')

FYI, think something may not be working with that link, it directed me to the wiki home page. Found the actual page with that URL from there.

[ciaobaby]

FYI, think something may not be working with that link,

Fixed it.

[Tree]

It's FIXED!!! 

Or I hope so. I was back in qBit playing around, and I checked the "Apply rate limit to uTp" box after finding some advice on this elsewhere, and the speed jumped. Who knows why, as I don't have any rate limits in place.

Something that might be relevant is that as I was watching, I noticed that the speed drops I had been seeing were related to losing particular peers and trackers - I would be watching a torrent that was seeding at a high rate, and in the trackers window, all of a sudden the number of Peers for DHT, PeX, and all trackers would go to 0, despite the fact that they are all still labeled as "Working". The speed would often not recover from this drop. However, if I force resumed the torrent, sometimes it would find the peers it had just lost and the speed would recover part of the way.

Anyway, speed has stopped yo-yo-ing and doesn't drop even intermittently anymore. Will update if anything changes.

Thanks again for your advice ciaobaby.