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Is your Mac crashing? If you use Transmission the BitTorrent program, that's why.

motulist

motulist

macrumors 601
Original poster
Dec 2, 2003
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There's a bug in Transmission (the torrent program) that causes Macs to slowly crash and die. But it's really sneaky because it doesn't appear to be caused by Transmission, even though it actually is.

I thought this was important enough that everyone here needs to know about it because I'm an expert Mac user and even I didn't figure out that Transmission was the culprit for quite some time. I thought the problem was a sign of my Mac breaking.

What happens is your net connection stops working and you stop being able to switch open programs and/or you can't quit applications and you can't restart you computer without resorting to holding down the power button until it restarts, or other similar nuclear problems.

Check it out:

http://forum.transmissionbt.com/viewtopic.php?t=4564
 
thats odd, i've used transmission since i got my macbook over a month ago but havent had any of these problems. Are there exceptions?

and if this is a big problem what are good alternatives?
 
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You can't hurt me anymore you bastard :p

Surely it can't screw up your hardware? Oh well only used it once a month or so anyway.
 

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bigjnyc said:
thats odd, i've used transmission since i got my macbook over a month ago but havent had any of these problems. Are there exceptions?

and if this is a big problem what are good alternatives?
Click to expand...


If you're not experiencing a problem with Transmission after using it for a long while, then I'd suggest you can safely keep using it. But if you ever do encounter this problem then you should use one of the many torrent alternatives. Transmission's main advantage is just that it's simple and clean, but if it's causing system crashes then it loses that advantage completely.

As an alternative, I'm investigating Xtorrent, which is really powerful. It lets you subscribe to torrent RSS feeds that make it so you don't even have to individually choose which torrents to download, it takes care of all that automatically! For example you can just subscribe to some tracker's Doctor Who RSS feed, and then anytime anyone submits a Doctor Who torrent to that site then Xtorrent will automatically start downloading that torrent!

I haven't tried it much yet, but so far it seems really encouraging.

nick9191 said:
You can't hurt me anymore you bastard :p

Surely it can't screw up your hardware? Oh well only used it once a month or so anyway.
Click to expand...


So this bug was bitting you too huh?

In my experience, as long as I'm not running Transmission then my system runs fine, so I assume it's generally not causing hardware problems. However, on the Transmission forum I heard people say that the problem is causing people's hard disks to start clicking like crazy, which I experienced as well, so it is potentially possible that it could cause a hard drive failure at some point. But as long as your Mac keeps working well for a while after Transmission is no longer running, then I wouldn't worry about it.
 
motulist said:
If you're not experiencing a problem with Transmission after using it for a long while, then I'd suggest you can safely keep using it. But if you ever do encounter this problem then you should use one of the many torrent alternatives. Transmission's main advantage is just that it's simple and clean, but if it's causing system crashes then it loses that advantage completely.

As an alternative, I'm investigating Xtorrent, which is really powerful. It lets you subscribe to torrent RSS feeds that make it so you don't even have to individually choose which torrents to download, it takes care of all that automatically! For example you can just subscribe to some tracker's Doctor Who RSS feed, and then anytime anyone submits a Doctor Who torrent to that site then Xtorrent will automatically start downloading that torrent!

I haven't tried it much yet, but so far it seems really encouraging.
Click to expand...

doubt that Xtorrent will help you all that much to be honest since its based off of Transmission code, just with a pretty GUI on top
 
I've seen transmission run for max 3 months at a row (power outage cut the Uptime). No problems.

10.4.10, 10.4.11, PPC

Internet outtage is rarely caused by the torrent app (unless you set UL too high). Many ISP in the US cut torrent traffic and resets your network connection if you are torrenting.
 
Consultant said:
10.4.10, 10.4.11, PPC

Internet outtage is rarely caused by the torrent app (unless you set UL too high). Many ISP in the US cut torrent traffic and resets your network connection if you are torrenting.
Click to expand...


I think you need to reread the situation going on here. This situation isn't about just losing your net connection or throughput, this bug completely crashes Leopard 10.5.
 
I use transmission on a daily basis and haven't encountered any issues like this. Of course, I prefer hard connections to maximize throughput.
 
Have had these issues using Azureus on my Mac mini 1.25 GHz G4 running 10.4.11. Switched to Transmission because of this, and have had it happen once in the last 2 months or so. Must admit I have been running Transmission (and Azureus) non-stop on this Mac mini for nearly a week before it occurred.

Seems all is well to me now with Transmission. Feeling lucky ;)
 
motulist: You speak of a problem that hasn't even been conclusively determined to be caused by Transmission, and definitely is an issue that has hit VERY few users. Please, stop spreading misinformation. If anything, the issue you describe seems to be more related to the operating system, if people using Azureus have a similar situation.

Transmission is 100% safe to use.

btw: Xtorrent is built on an old version of the Transmission engine (and it costs money).
 
JangoFett124 said:
motulist: You speak of a problem that hasn't even been conclusively determined to be caused by Transmission, and definitely is an issue that has hit VERY few users. Please, stop spreading misinformation. If anything, the issue you describe seems to be more related to the operating system, if people using Azureus have a similar situation.

Transmission is 100% safe to use.

btw: Xtorrent is built on an old version of the Transmission engine (and it costs money).
Click to expand...

That is what forums are for. I am running 10.5.4 and transmission has been crashing the OS. I am in a critical situation now because I need something I dont have in order to format my mac and get it running and a torrent is the only thing I can use to get it. I have had to restart my mac everysingle time because transmission crashes it.

I bought Xtorrent a while ago and I stopped using it because it was somewhat bulky. but i might be needing to use it again since azureus sucks since it became bloated.

Either way dont shun people because they are having a problem. That is why forums exists to discuss about it and find a solution. And If you dont help you are part of the problem as well.
 
I have run Transmission since it came out. A long time now. I have never had any problems with it.

I seed and download with it for extended periods of time.
 
The topic should read

Is your Mac crashing? Mine might be because of Transmission the BitTorrent program, why is yours crashing?
Click to expand...

I've run Transmission since I bought my Mac last year, not one crash. None related on both my iMac and my wife's MB.

So it obviously doesn't effect everyone, as some have pointed out. Might want to consider the option of possibly 2 programs interferring with each other? Good example BF2142/APE both together are dangerous, by themselves they're both harmless. (ok so APE is the main culprit LOL)

I'll keep using Transmission and not crashing.
 
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kkat69 said:
The topic should read...
Click to expand...

Incorrect. As evidenced by the link to the official Transmission forum that I posted above, this problem is happening to a significant number of Transmission users. Just because the issue isn't affecting you doesn't mean that it's not affecting a lot of other people.

I wanted to title the thread as "Is your Mac crashing? If you use Transmission the BitTorrent program, that might be why" but the forum doesn't allow titles with that many characters in it.
 
just to add to give a bigger picture of different users experiences.

i use transmission every now and then, maybe about once every three - four weeks at the most. and i've had no problems. altho i've had no problems i'm probably going to delete now anyway, but just because i hardly use it anyway.
 
I think this has indeed gotten a little out of control. Again, like a couple posters above me have discussed, no one has decidedly stated that Transmission is causing the problem.

Just because some people who happen to use Transmission are seeing internet slowdowns does *not* give any person the evidence to state that "This is the reason why, period."

Now I'm not saying Transmission isn't causing the problem. From the sounds of things, it probably is. But don't go around spreading bad/misinformation about an application unless you can thoroughly back it up.

(And NO, a bunch of speculatory forum posts do NOT count.)
 
motulist said:
Incorrect. As evidenced by the link to the official Transmission forum that I posted above, this problem is happening to a significant number of Transmission users. Just because the issue isn't affecting you doesn't mean that it's not affecting a lot of other people.

I wanted to title the thread as "Is your Mac crashing? If you use Transmission the BitTorrent program, that might be why" but the forum doesn't allow titles with that many characters in it.
Click to expand...

Having read the thread, i see only 4 or 5 others having the problem, hardly a 'significant number of transmission users' as you say. Several of them later post that the problem had gone away with a newer version and many who had the problem have SIMBL installed just like you. Even the people trying to help you in that thread aren't convinced it's caused by transmission alone.

It's fine to post about a problem with transmission, but try to remember, this isn't Myspace, hyperbole and exaggeration aren't helpful.
 
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Transmission killed my MBP

I had been running Transmission without error for the last year. The other day I started downloading around 20 torrents. Eventually my MPB froze with the screen saver on, and wiggled the mouse, but 30 minutes later it was still stuck. I held down power, but it wouldn't come back up. None of the software recovery programs could help me, as there was a S.M.A.R.T. error.

Had to pay $433.00 for inspection, hard drive and installation. $80 to attempt a backup and $200 more if the backup is successful.
 
I've had the EXACT problem, but I think my iMac is dying.


I've stopped using Transmission, I've even deleted it and loaded Azureus, and the exact same thing happened. I re-loaded my iMac, and got the latest version of Transmission to see if it would happen again (It should work fine, It's always worked fine in the past, especially after a clean install). It froze again.


The Disk Usage goes off like crazy in Activity Monitor, and that causes things to slow down and stop responding. It's like my HDD can no longer work properly even though disk utility verification comes out clean.


Couple that with an AHT Hardware error (Failure code: 4MOT/2/40000004: HDD)


I think the iMac is losing it, not transmission. Transmission DID have a serious problem in the past which caused similar issues, but they patched it.
 
fraser8 said:
I had been running Transmission without error for the last year. The other day I started downloading around 20 torrents. Eventually my MPB froze with the screen saver on, and wiggled the mouse, but 30 minutes later it was still stuck. I held down power, but it wouldn't come back up. None of the software recovery programs could help me, as there was a S.M.A.R.T. error.

Had to pay $433.00 for inspection, hard drive and installation. $80 to attempt a backup and $200 more if the backup is successful.
Click to expand...

Wow, that sucks ass. But you could've saved a LOT of money if you:

1) Back up. Let this be a lesson to you.

2) Buy and install a new hard drive yourself.

Back to the topic, I've encountered this problem too myself. Exact same scenario. I rarely use Transmission though, so I never attributed it to Transmission. Wow, talk about sneaky and dangerous. Thanks for the information!
 
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fraser8 said:
I had been running Transmission without error for the last year. The other day I started downloading around 20 torrents. Eventually my MPB froze with the screen saver on, and wiggled the mouse, but 30 minutes later it was still stuck. I held down power, but it wouldn't come back up. None of the software recovery programs could help me, as there was a S.M.A.R.T. error.

Had to pay $433.00 for inspection, hard drive and installation. $80 to attempt a backup and $200 more if the backup is successful.
Click to expand...

Well, that was a hard drive failure, not Transmission's fault.
 
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I've noticed this lately when using iVolume (app that makes all iTunes songs play at same volume). It's a wonderful app, I don't know what I would do without it. After it's done running through, though, I sometimes have to restart my computer. It makes everything lag horribly bad even after I quit the program.

fraser8 said:
I had been running Transmission without error for the last year. The other day I started downloading around 20 torrents. Eventually my MPB froze with the screen saver on, and wiggled the mouse, but 30 minutes later it was still stuck.
Click to expand...

This has happened to me once while using Transmission. I opened up 4 torrents each with thousands of seeds/peers and it grinded my Mac to a halt. Activity monitor showed that the HDD was writing at over 45MB/s solid(which kinda scared me) causing the HDD to make a noise I've never heard before (like a really fast clicky noise). I immediately forced it to shut down. I could really see how Transmission could cook a HDD in a case like this. Luckily I stopped mine before that happened.

Ever since I started using Vuze, I haven't had a single problem. Not to mention it downloads torrents WAY better/faster than Transmission will ever be able to.
 
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