and has 41 comments
I realize that the original format of the post was confusing, so, before you start reading it, here is a summary of solutions. You should read on afterwards in order to understand the context of each solution in part, though:
  • Torrents seem to keep a reference to some of the proxy settings when they started downloading. I don't have a clear solution for this, in my case changing the configuration of the proxy and restarting both proxy and Bittorrent eventually solved it. An aggressive solution is to remove all of your torrents and readd them later.
  • Sometimes the settings file gets corrupted or the settings don't make a lot of sense. Save all your ongoing downloads, remember all the relevant settings - like download folder -, stop Bittorrent, go to your user's Application Data folder and remove the settings.dat and settings.dat.old files in the Bittorrent folder. (usually C:\Documents and Settings\YourUser\Application Data\Bittorrent or.and C:\Users\YourUser\Application Data\Bittorrent). After restarting Bittorrent you will have a fresh set of settings, so change them to what you need and reload the list of torrents that you saved.
  • Check the connection settings. Sometimes you want to minimize the number of connections Bittorrent makes because your provider gives you only a limited connection pool. Make sure the value is not too small. Bittorrent needs a lot of connections: to find peers, to download and upload stuff, to open new connections in order to find the faster one, etc. In my case 15 was too little and I had to restore it to the original 150, even it 15 worked with previous versions of the program.
  • Solution from a comment: check your firewall settings and the firewall settings of your router/modem
  • Solution from a comment: check your internet provider. Some, like Comcast, are throttling some types of traffic. This link might help: Stop your ISP from Throttling Bittorrent Speeds
  • Solution from a comment: enable Bittorrent protocol encryption and restart the application
  • Solution from a forum: disable DHT from the Bittorrent client settings (or enable it, if it is disabled?)
  • Solution from YouTube: start the torrent client 'As Administrator', suggesting there may be some file access issues you have.
  • Solution from a comment: enable DHT. If only some torrents seem to be stuck, see if you can enable DHT in those torrents' properties.

Hope that helps. Now for the original post:

Update (again): While resetting the settings did solve my problem temporarily, I had the same problem the next day as well. The only meaningful thing that I had changed was the global maximum number of connections (Preferences -> Bandwith) from 150, which seemed excessive, to 15. I changed the value back to 150 and it started downloading immediately! This is strange, since the value was 15 for years, I think. Well, I am getting tired of these solutions that only work until the next day. Hopefully this is the last time the problem appears.

Update: The enthusiasm I had after making some of the torrents work faded when I noticed most of the other torrents were still not working. My only solution was to go to the Application Data folder, then Bittorrent, and delete settings.dat and settings.dat.old while the program was closed, then restart Bittorrent. Warning! You will lose all the torrents and settings so save them first (I selected them all and copied the magnet links, then added them back one by one afterwards). The weird thing is that, while it worked, the software also looked quite different from what I was used to. Perhaps just blindly updating the version of Bittorrent all the time is not the best option. Sometimes we need to reset the setting to take advantage of the new software settings.

I've had a problem with a router which prompted me to remove it and put the Internet cable directly into my computer port. I wouldn't recommend it for you, since a router adds a level of protection against outside access, but still, I was not home and a friend of mine "fixed" the problem. Since then, I couldn't download anything on Bittorrent, as it got stuck at "Connecting to peers", even if it connected to the trackers, and saw all the seeds and leechers. Googling around I found a suggestion to remove "resume.dat" from the Bittorrent Application Data folder, but it didn't work for me. I tried a lot of things, but none worked until I found an obscure forum asking about a proxy server. And it dawned on me that it could be from there.
You see, I had previously installed a free proxy program called Privoxy, but I had bound it to the previous IP address of the computer. As a result, it didn't load anymore. The Internet settings were OK, I had removed any reference to a proxy, but strangely enough something in the Bittorrent client kept some information relating to the proxy. After I only bound the proxy to the local address, Privoxy started and miraculously also did the Bittorrent downloads (after a restart of the program).

So, if you have issues with the Bittorent client getting stuck at "Connecting to peers", check if you have recently changed your Internet proxy settings.

Comments

Meghna Gupta

go to preferences>>>>bandwidth>>>>>>maximum download rate. see if its set to 0 kb/sec. i changed it to 2048 kb/sec and it worked.

Meghna Gupta

Sava Light

Well done mate.. Been struggling with this for hours and now its fixed. Just go to your routers firewall and change security to low and INDEED LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL!! Cheers

Sava Light

shashuri

deleting resume.dat and resume old seemed to work for me in the app data folder. using bittorrent.

shashuri

Thyris Discordia

One solution could be to check your available hard drive space. Sometimes while torrenting it's easy to fill up a drive much more quickly than you may realize, which can cause the download to enter a stalled state.

Thyris Discordia

STARBOY

Dude you are life saver. Love you man My FIFA 18 stuck at 90%. God Bless You Man

STARBOY

Archie Aloysius

Same issue. Unsure how to fix. Updated software. Changed uTorrent to Bittorrent. Nothing else downloading anywhere. Fibre optic wifi. Tried updating trackers. Force start. Etc. Help!

Archie Aloysius

John Smith

Dude....3 years later and your still saving lives :)

John Smith

Siderite

I can't tell you for sure, but I would attempt to lower the number of connections in Preferences -> Bandwidth.

Siderite

Marco Victor

My problem is that it only works on fast internet connection so when I turn to a slower connection It get stuck to connecting to peers without any progress Please a step by step solution Thx in advance

Marco Victor

jack spiro

Information is helpful for sort out the issue for more detail visit http://www.maplesolutionscare.com/

jack spiro

Shaya Kutnowski

This totally fixed my stuff. (The settings file deletion thing. YOU RULE!)

Shaya Kutnowski

Josh Joyce

dude i love you... like seriously you just saved my life.

Josh Joyce

Gurpreet singh

Solved: Connecting to Peers Solution: Basically what i am doing wrong is downloading torrents through magnet link. so i am getting the Connecting to peer problem. i again started downloading that file with .torrent file. it started downloading. hope this will work for you as well...

Gurpreet singh

Milly

You're a wonder! Thought I'd never get a torrent again. I tried everything that I read with no success until I found your web-page . Thank you.

Milly

David Krispin

All these solutions didn't work for me. However, after further investigation, I found my solution. I use utorrent as my client. I clicked on the logger tab when i tried to start a download and saw that the firewall was blocking the ports. I thought it was the Windows firewall but it wasn't. It was my router's firewall. If you have comcast, log in to 10.0.0.1 through your browser and click on firewall when the xfinity screen comes up. Select the IPv4 and change the security to minimum. Close it and then life is beautiful again.

David Krispin

Mark C Tapscott

Anyways i am using PureVPN to access torrents websites and its working well for torrenting i never got any problem with that here i get the guide http://www.torrentsvpn.com/

Mark C Tapscott

Siderite

You're welcome! I am glad I could help.

Siderite

Grateful Dude

i feel like i needed to share this here but i had the same problem and fixed it all i had to do was change connections for global max to 150 and max peers to 150 as well and it worked. Thanks Siderite :p

Grateful Dude

Tr Secam

Additionally, in another case, a stubborn torrent was refusing to accept any solutions (including the "DHT" one) stuck-up at "connecting to peers". However, in this case, removing the existing trackers for that particular torrent and replacing it with the below trackers solved it and the torrent began downloading: udp://tracker.openbittorrent.com (udp://tracker.openbittorren...):80 udp://open.demonii.com:1337 udp://tracker.coppersurfer.tk:6969 udp://exodus.desync.com:6969 udp://tracker.leechers-paradise.org (udp://tracker.leechers-para...):6969 Hope this helps, cheers!

Tr Secam

Siderite

Thanks! I've updated my post with your solution.

Siderite

Tr Secam

I tried most of the things that you would usually do; however, none of them worked. In my case it was just one torrent that was showing "connecting to peers" while the other/s were downloading without any problems. After reading about DHT, I even enabled/disabled in the preferences section; however, even this didn't work. So, I thought of looking into the options for that specific torrent by right-clicking on it and selecting "Properties". Here, I enabled the option "Enable DHT" and probably after 10-15 seconds VOILA, it started downloading!!! cheers & thanks :-)

Tr Secam

Anonymous

Thanks man your trick worked for me and my bittorrent started downloading again. thanks once again.

Anonymous

Garry

I fixed the problem by uninstalling AVG then uninstalling U torrent. I then re installed U torrent , started a download and it worked then re installed AVG and it is still downloading. Hope this helps. It was my AVG stopping connecting to peers

Garry

rishav

I had tried everything on the internet (from deleting resume.dat, firewall settings, utorrent settings, vpn) BUT NOW I HAVE THE SOLUTION!!! Search for the utorrent folder and copy it to C:/Program Files/ Don't put it in Program Files (x86) I found my folder in C:/Users/Username/AppData/Roaming. You're welcome

rishav

JunXplus

deleted 2 files settings.dat & settings.dat.old.. it works! thanks!

JunXplus

Anonymous

I did number 2: and it did work... great! ^_^ thanks man!

Anonymous

parag jain

i did all of them, deleted resume dat shit still its stuck on "Connecting to peers"

parag jain

SS G

go to preferences, bit torrent, enable protocol encryption and restart the torrent client and restart your torrent :) and you are good to go

SS G

Siderite

I've updated the post with a hopefully clearer summary of the solutions. Tell me if you need more help.

Siderite

jose

Hi, I have the same problem too, I've use bittorrent for 5 years maybe but after I make a change at my proxy internet setting , it cant download anymore, just keep showing "Connecting to peer", I read your article many time but I cant really understand how you solve the problem. Please explain to me in detail. Oh, I need your help!

jose

Siderite

From what I understand, Comcast is infamous for filtering the torrent protocol and throttling traffic. There are ways in which you can try to mask it, look here: http://lifehacker.com/295995/stop-your-isp-from-throttling-bittorrent-speeds

Siderite

Daniel S

I don't have a Router. I have a Modem from Comcast.

Daniel S

Siderite

Oh, I would have never thought about it. Thanks! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarcasm

Siderite

Raja Haddad

Just check your router firewall settings, turn it off and it is gonna start Downloading.. Cheers ^_^

Raja Haddad

Anonymous

Go to the folder search bar and search %AppData% then click roaming.

Anonymous

swandiver

I just started having this issue and came across this post through a google search. 1. I have uninstalled and reinstalle Bittorrent 2x and still no downloading. 2. I have changed the prefrences settings multiple times and it doesn't do anything. 3. I looked in both "Progam Files" and "Program Files (x86) and there is no Bittorrent folder there to delete data files. (I'm running Windows 8.

swandiver

Post a comment