µTorrent Support

FAQ

Misc

  1. 8.1 I found a bug, what do I do?
  2. 8.2 My question isn't answered here / I wanna request a feature, is there somewhere I can go?
  3. 8.3 Does µTorrent work on a 486 with Windows 95 and 14MiB of RAM?
  4. 8.4 What is DHT?
  5. 8.5 Why does µTorrent show less DHT nodes in the status bar than BitComet / Azureus?
  6. 8.6 Does DHT mean my torrents from private trackers are getting leaked?
  7. 8.7 I don't want DHT on anyway, how do I turn it off?
  8. 8.8 Can you implement password locking?
  9. 8.9 Can you implement manual client banning?
  10. 8.10 What do all those settings in Advanced do?
  11. 8.11 What is ipfilter.dat?
  12. 8.12 What is flags.conf?
  13. 8.13 Who makes µTorrent?
  14. 8.14 How can µTorrent be so small and so fast?
  15. 8.15 How do you write µ?
  16. 8.16 How/where can I get the latest µTorrent beta?
  1. 8.1 I found a bug, what do I do?

    Try to see if the bug is reproducible. Go to the µTorrent forums, search the "Found Bugs" forum to make sure your bug wasn't found already. If it wasn't already reported, register and post it with instructions on how to reproduce it. Make sure it is not caused by any of the incompatible software mentioned in this FAQ.

  2. 8.2 My question isn't answered here / I wanna request a feature, is there somewhere I can go?

    You can get support in the µTorrent forums and request features, but please search the forums to make sure your problem wasn't already answered or that your feature wasn't already requested. You're far more likely to get a good response this way, else you may just get told to search the forums and have your thread locked.

  3. 8.3 Does µTorrent work on a 486 with Windows 95 and 14MiB of RAM?

    Yes, so long as you apply the Winsock2 update. You may have to raise the GUI update period, and generally run the client with the UI closed, though.

  4. 8.4 What is DHT?

    DHT (Distributed Hash Table, technical explanation) is an addition to certain BitTorrent clients that allows them to work without a tracker. What this means is that your client will be able to find peers even when the tracker is down, or doesn't even exist anymore. It allows the swarm to continue as normal without a tracker. You can also host torrents without a tracker. (see Does µTorrent support trackerless torrents?).

    µTorrent's DHT implementation is the same as Mainline and BitComet's, but unfortunately this is incompatible with Azureus's implementation.

  5. 8.5 Why does µTorrent show less DHT nodes in the status bar than BitComet / Azureus?

    µTorrent only shows the number of DHT nodes you are directly connected to. BitComet shows nodes that are more than one hop away (connected to nodes you're connected to), which inflates the numbers. Azureus, on the other hand, shows an estimate of how many peers there are in the DHT network.

  6. 8.6 Does DHT mean my torrents from private trackers are getting leaked?

    So long as the torrents are created with the private flag (µTorrent and Azureus support this functionality in their torrent creators), DHT will be disabled automatically for that torrent. You can verify this by double clicking on the torrent: if "Enable DHT" is greyed out, it's disabled for that torrent.

    µTorrent will NEVER support getting the private flag from the tracker announce, because this method is considered to be very insecure and unreliable. If you are a tracker admin and want the private flag to work reliably, please enforce using the private flag in the .torrent on the tracker level. BitComet's torrent maker does not make private torrents properly, nor does the client respect the private flag (see this article on Slyck).

  7. 8.7 I don't want DHT on anyway, how do I turn it off?

    Open the options, go to BitTorrent, and uncheck "Enable DHT." This will turn off DHT for ALL torrents. Alternatively, you can disable it on a per-torrent basis: double click the torrent or right click and select properties, then uncheck "Enable DHT."

    There is also an option to have DHT disabled for new torrents by default, allowing you to have DHT enabled globally without having to worry about your private torrents using DHT when they lack a private flag.

  8. 8.8 Can you implement password locking?

    No, this feature is not being considered. If you need to lock µTorrent, use the built-in computer locking feature for 2k/XP/2003.

  9. 8.9 Can you implement manual client banning?

    No, this option will not be implemented. It is misused far too often by people who do not understand the BitTorrent protocol enough to use it properly. Leave banning up to the tracker. If you require banning of IP ranges for other purposes, ipfilter.dat is available for that.

  10. 8.10 What do all those settings in Advanced do?

    Please consult the help file found on the download page.

  11. 8.11 What is ipfilter.dat?

    This is a simple text file that specifies IP ranges to block. The format is xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx - yyy.yyy.yyy.yyy
    You can also use single IPs on a line (i.e. xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx). It ONLY supports blocks: it will ignore all text specified afterwards (such as what BLM and Tiny BLM does).

    Do not pad IPs with 0s to ensure that it will work (i.e., write 64.12.15.0 not 064.012.015.000), though it is reported to work anyway.

    Each new IP or IP range must be placed on a new line.

    Place it in %AppData%\uTorrent, and set ipfilter.enable to true in the Advanced.

    To reload ipfilter.dat without restarting µTorrent (1.7+ only), view the Peers tab, right click, and select "Reload IPFilter."

  12. 8.12 What is flags.conf?

    It is a simple text file that specifies flag order (necessary when using either µTorrent's internal flag list or your own flags.bmp) and maps hosts to specific countries. You can only map .net and .com domains to a country. The format is domain.com|CC (CC being country code). You can use this flags.conf, created by eng. Press Ctrl Shift R to make µTorrent load it without restarting. Place it in %AppData%\uTorrent for it to work.

    The flag named 00 is used to automatically display unmapped .com/.net with the US flag. This requires having a duplicate US flag (or whatever you would like to use) in the flags.bmp. The internal flag list already has this.

    Note, this cannot be used with peer.resolve_country.

  13. 8.13 Who makes µTorrent?

    Ludvig Strigeus (ludde) is the original author and former maintainer of µTorrent.

    BitTorrent Inc's developers are the current maintainers of µTorrent.

    Giancarlo Mart�nez (Firon) maintains the µTorrent forums and FAQ.

    Timothy Su (ignorantcow) is the current website designer.

  14. 8.14 How can µTorrent be so small and so fast?

    µTorrent is programmed in C++ using custom-coded libraries. It is then compressed with UPX to bring the size down by about 50%.

  15. 8.15 How do you write µ?

    If you're using English-International, or most other international IMEs, as your keyboard setting (but not EN-US), press AltGr M, or Ctrl Alt M. Alternatively, you can press Alt 0181 (on the numpad), which works on ALL IMEs and regions.

  16. 8.16 How/where can I get the latest µTorrent beta?

    If you have to ask, you can't get them. :)

    Occasionally, public betas are posted on the download page.