Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

AEBS Gigabit + Torrents = Uh oh.

Trepex

Trepex

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Apr 5, 2007
635
20
Ottawa, Canada
I'm running an AEBS Gigabit with firmware 7.2.1 and connecting my MBP via 802.11n. I'm using NAT-PMP to automatically open ports on the AEBS, although I've also tried manually opening a specific port.

I've tried both Transmission and Azureus but I kept finding things would go alright for a few minutes, then suddenly as things get chugging along, my AEBS just freezes up and I lose all connectivity.

I've just tried now only letting one of the 4 torrents go at a time and that actually seems to be helping things. I don't see any options in Transmission to limit the number of open connections, but would that even matter? It's not just my internet connection that is dropping out, it's anything LAN-related too like my airport disks, the airport utility can't connect to the AEBS, the wireless SID disappears from the list, etc.

Help!
 
I've been experiencing the same thing for 2 weeks now. Everything constantly gets blown out. Tried 2 modems, 3 routers, 3 computers, had comcast out 3 times, dealt with Applecare for the router like you wouldn't believe - nothing fixes this. Comcast refuses to acknowledge any throttling/nuking of internet based on uploading/downloading, torrenting, etc.
I've been running a few torrents (very very pissy) and worked hard to get my settings appropriate to keep the gear happy. Nothing works.
To date, comcast refuses to look at logs, or other data to see if anything is technically amiss other than the big stuff like a squirrel chew mark at the pole.

I'm convinced Comcast is 'doing something' though find it hard to believe they'd target me for doing basically next to nothing level of like 4 torrents.
I'm at the end of my rope with all this and having to reboot the modem and router several times a day. Apple (the higher end "product specialist" of AppleCare - the last one told me they aren't knowledgeable on the intricacies of the more remote setting options for AEBS, like IPv6, etc. :(
 
Wow.... What do you use to torrent? I'm on Azureus.
Can you share your settings because in doing a 'net search, it seems TONS of people experience this problem.
 
Transmission under OSX and Bittorrent under XP. Could be your ISP. I have noticed that the AEBS occasionally locks up/stops responding to Airport Utility. 7.2.1 sucks balls big time but its not torrent related that I can find.

I don't map any ports. I use DHCP rather than static IPs as I have found that makes for a more stable AEBS. Other than that, its stock as she comes.
 
I thought I'd give some input into this. I seriously think that NAT-PMP is broken in firmware version 7.2.1. When I used to have the FE version, I upgraded to formware version 7.2.1 and there were problems with Azureus and Transmission not mapping ports. And now I use the GE version it is the same... thus it's giving me an impression that it's the firmware behind it all.
 
Nikiski - I agree. I've only had the Gigabit version. It seems the only earliest firmware for this is 7.2 which then morphed to 7.2.1. We can only roll back to 7.2 if we want to test to see if this helps.

But I don't think it's a torrent thing. If you look at all the h*ll people are going through with their Airports with installing Leopard, it seems proof to me that some upgrade in Leopard was forced on people. I believe this upgrade in firmware/software that I installed 3-4 weeks ago is the same. I keep trying to puzzle out in my head what it was. I say I don't believe it's a torrent thing at all since people are reporting blowouts when moving any data to/from an external, another computer, etc. I experience the same. Course mine also blows out when not doing that - but 90% of the time for sure when moving data. I wish I had my Tiger back so I can check my update history to pinpoint what exact update I did at the time problems ensued. But whatever that was, it's in leopard.

I go back/forth, but right now I'm thinking it's not a 7.2 vs. 7.2.1 issue. Yesterday I reverted back to 7.2 and have been running fine though I think it's just coincidence. I'm going to push around some data today to try and force a shutdown.

Nikiski - Last I checked, Transmission wasn't yet available for Leopard. But can you share your thoughts on Transmission vs. Azureus? Is one faster, cleaner, better for you?
 
Meagain,

Well I still don't know (enough) about NAT-PMP protocol on Macs (yet). If someone could shed some light about commands that could list, add and delete entries through NAT-PMP that would be helpful. I could always try to look it up myself but if someone has experience with it it would be very helpful. :)

Personally I like Transmission a bit better. It doesn't have as much options as Azureus, and is a bit slower (download speed), but I do like its light and clean interface quite a bit better than Azureus. The thing with Azureus right now is that Vuse thing. There's no way to not install it or remove it which I feel annoying. Transmission's still got the protential to become even better in the near future. I don't seem to have trouble running Transmission in Leopard... then again, I haven't yet downloaded anything since my upgrade... ;)
 
nikiski said:
I thought I'd give some input into this. I seriously think that NAT-PMP is broken in firmware version 7.2.1. When I used to have the FE version, I upgraded to formware version 7.2.1 and there were problems with Azureus and Transmission not mapping ports. And now I use the GE version it is the same... thus it's giving me an impression that it's the firmware behind it all.
Click to expand...

NAT-PMP is definitely broken in 7.2.1... rolling back to 7.1.1 fixes it for me.
 
meagain said:
I've been experiencing the same thing for 2 weeks now. Everything constantly gets blown out. Tried 2 modems, 3 routers, 3 computers, had comcast out 3 times, dealt with Applecare for the router like you wouldn't believe - nothing fixes this. Comcast refuses to acknowledge any throttling/nuking of internet based on uploading/downloading, torrenting, etc.
I've been running a few torrents (very very pissy) and worked hard to get my settings appropriate to keep the gear happy. Nothing works.
To date, comcast refuses to look at logs, or other data to see if anything is technically amiss other than the big stuff like a squirrel chew mark at the pole.

I'm convinced Comcast is 'doing something' though find it hard to believe they'd target me for doing basically next to nothing level of like 4 torrents.
I'm at the end of my rope with all this and having to reboot the modem and router several times a day. Apple (the higher end "product specialist" of AppleCare - the last one told me they aren't knowledgeable on the intricacies of the more remote setting options for AEBS, like IPv6, etc. :(
Click to expand...

Have you tried a different incoming port? Something out of the 8 thousands. I use 49125 for incoming because I think my ISP uses bandwidth shaping for ports in commonly used torrent range.
 
I've had router lockup problems on Linksys wireless routers, too.

However, I also know enough to know most routers out there (dunno about the Airport or AE) have so little RAM that it's easy to choke them when it comes to tasks such as this.

My only suggestion is to get a third-party router, such as say a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 or something else with a MINIMUM of 16 MB of RAM, and then flash it's firmware to DD-WRT's open-source replacement.

That's what I've done, and frankly I couldn't be happier.
 
MikeTheC said:
I've had router lockup problems on Linksys wireless routers, too.

However, I also know enough to know most routers out there (dunno about the Airport or AE) have so little RAM that it's easy to choke them when it comes to tasks such as this.

My only suggestion is to get a third-party router, such as say a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 or something else with a MINIMUM of 16 MB of RAM, and then flash it's firmware to DD-WRT's open-source replacement.

That's what I've done, and frankly I couldn't be happier.
Click to expand...

Thanks for all your advice, however I highly doubt that the number of connection is not the problem here. At least for AEBS. uTorrent, Transmission and Azureus fail to talk to the AEBS and add the port mapping request. Of course if I add the ports manually it will work, but that defeats the purpose of NAT-PMP. And also, as I own the Gigabit Ethernet version of the AEBS, I do not have the option to downgrade to firmware 7.1. It's getting quite annoying but I'm surprised there's no firmware to fix this issue yet.
 
As everyone already mentioned, Comcast is killing BitTorrent.

If you want to check the AEBS,

Go into Airport Utility and select your AEBS.

Click on Manual Setup

Click on Internet icon (above Summary)

Click on NAT Tab -> Check the Enable NAT Port Mapping Protocol

Mine was set by default, you don't really need to map ports outside of this.

I'm using Azureus 3.0.2.2 under Leopard
 
Okay...I have an AEBS gigabit with latest firmware (7.2.1) and comcast cable internet...one imac connected via 802.11n torrenting with transmission and one xp box with utorrent via ethernet....both can torrent with download speeds up to about 300 KB/s. After the download is complete, the torrent wont seed, but this is due to the comcast forging packets into your torrent stream and breaking the connection....not an AEBS problem. Otherwise, it's great.


I also had an airdisk connected at one point and had no problems.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back