qBittorrent uploads only with port forwarding
Hello. I'm using qBittorrent 3.3.16 on updated Windows 10 with PIA 77. I can download torrents, but cannot upload them, unless I use port forwarding. I'm currently connected to US East, and it's downloading fine, but the connection status is yellow, and will stay that way. Without changing any settings in qBittorrent (aside from the "Optional IP address to bind to" and unchecking "Use different port on each startup"), I can connect to a server with port forwarding, and the connection status turns green and I'm uploading again.
I also run the same qBittorrent and PIA on MacOS, and I can upload fine without port forwarding.
Things have been this way for months, and this is driving me a bit mad. Any ideas? Thanks!
I also run the same qBittorrent and PIA on MacOS, and I can upload fine without port forwarding.
Things have been this way for months, and this is driving me a bit mad. Any ideas? Thanks!
Comments
The problem with most P2P applications is that if both peers are behind a NAT (you are when using PIA), they cannot talk to eachother. So when you enable port forwarding, you gain access to all peers that are not reachable the other way because it allows them to connect to you.
On top of that, those peers obviously cannot reach any other of those peers either since they have the same problem between eachother, so making yourself reachable to them also implies they are hungry for more peers to download from, therefore more upload from you.
I'm not sure why it works fine on macOS, but given that peers go in and out all the time, it's possible that this is pure luck or that Mac does something different enough that it helps get slightly more peers/possibly doesn't try to advertise an unreachable address.