uTorrent Disconnects Almost Immediately - No Suggestions Work
I have no idea what's up with PIA lately, but for the last week or so every time I fire up utorrent I get disconnected from PIA almost immediately. In the past it would at least reconnect and start working again (web, uTorrent, etc.). Even when it shows as connected, it doesn't work after it stops. All my browser shows is "DNS_PROBE_FINISHED_NO_INTERNET". It thinks it's connected because when I disconnect (kill switch active), my browser says the internet is not available. This only happens when using uTorrent or similar client. I can browse all day without issue. Now I have to disconnect and reconnect myself when using uTorrent. Even then it lasts for a minute. It is any torrent client too. I've tried uTorrent and qBittorrent. Same behavior. I've tried lowering my connections, changing settings without compromising privacy, and tried different regions/countries. Nothing works. I won't renew in February if there is no solution. Anyone have any new ideas?
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I've raised it with their support department, tested every scenario and combination of source and destination port and setting in the torrent client and it still doesn't work. All I get from PIA is "torrenting is a complex protocol". What a load of rubbish.
Given the amount of issues that are being raised I seems that PIA are doing something to block torrents.
That has all versions from v36 through v46.
I've tried to use this on Linux and Windows and always see the same connectivity issues as soon as the P2P client is enabled.
Try to disable DHT network in torrent client(s) like uttorent / bitcomet and let us know the results.
When I disable uTorrent the packet loss stops happening.
I've noticed that if I restrict the bandwidth and amount of torrents I'm transferring it seems to stop the VPN from disconnecting, which has always been my problem. With this in mind I believe the problem possibly relates to the volume of TCP/UDP streams that are being generated i.e the more torrent connections i make, the more chance there is for the VPN tunnel to be torn down or for traffic to be black holed.
I am now only downloading a single torrent with a bandwidth limit of 600kB. If I increase the bandwidth too much, or try to allow too many torrents sessions through I'll lose the connection to PIA.
It looks to me like PIA possibly has a problem with volumes of TCP/UDP sessions, or have implemented some sort of traffic shaping mechanism to prevent too many TCP or UDP sessions being established by a single user. This might be in place to protect the scalability of the state tables on their firewalls, as their firewalls will only be able to handle a certain amount of sessions, and if their network is predominately handling a lot of P2P traffic, this could be the reason why.
It could also be a software issue with the client, but my money is on traffic shaping as too many people have had this problem and I've tested it both on Windows and Debian Linux.
Connection Settings:
Allow incoming legacy connections - Enabled
UPnP Port Mapping - Disabled
NAT-PMP Port Mapping - Disabled
Randomize Port Each Start - Disabled
Port Forwarding - Enabled on VPN and matched in uTorrent for incoming connections
Bandwidth:
Max Upload rate - 0
Max Download rate - 600
Apply Rate Limit to uTP Connections - Enabled
Global Max Number of Connections - 30
Maximum Number of Connections per torrent - 15
Number of upload slots per torrent - 4
Bit Torrent:
Enable Bandwidth Management (uTP) - Disabled
Enable DHT Network - Disabled
Enable DHT for new torrents - Disabled
Limit local peer bandwidth - Disabled
Protocol Encryption - Forced
Queuing:
Maximum number of active torrets (up/down) - 2
Maximum number of active downloads - 1
Still get occassional packet loss, but nowhere near as bad as in the current version. Something like 1% instead of 35%.
The v.56 so far is running about 5-6 days without a single disconnection. To be monitored for long term.