Why does my seeding suck?
I don’t understand the intricacies of torrenting, so forgive me, but I just can’t get anything to seed much at all. Most do nothing, some do a teeny bit. Therefore, my ratio is trash despite leaving them for a week or more a lot of the time. It seems anytime I do get a good ratio on one it’s because it was taking a while to download and seeded during that time, but once it’s finished downloading it doesn’t do anything.
I use NordVPN. From what I could find online, the settings are fine, but I’m no expert. I usually get the largest and highest quality files, so there are inherently less interest in those, but surely something else is going on?
I have an invite to join my first private tracker here soon and want to make sure I can contribute. Thanks in advance!
43 comments · 93% upvoted · source · other discussions
Your are not port forwarding
FidgetyFeline [OP] 3 points · Mar 2025
My understanding is Nord doesn’t support this. Surely that doesn’t mean I can’t seed though. It just helps right?
Jovan-Ioannis 11 points · Mar 2025 · Docker
As far as I remember you can only seed to people who have open ports.
So yeah you can still seed but not nearly as much.
I chose AirVPN for this reason alone.
[deleted] 8 points · Mar 2025
It just means you’re not seeding to a fair majority of people. I’d recommend canceling your NordVPN subscription and signing up for ProtonVPN or AirVPN. There are other options, but those two are easy to set up and offer dedicated port forwarding through the VPN.
FidgetyFeline [OP] -3 points · Mar 2025
I just bought two years a month ago. The research I did when switching to Nord seemed to suggest that port forwarding is nice, but if you go with a big and fast VPN like Nord, then it doesn’t make that big of a difference.
Herr-Pyxxel 5 points · Mar 2025
I just did the very same, signed up to Nord for 2+ years. I liked their service but I had some strange days with browser tabs not loading fast and often timing out, and exactly your problem with very poor seeding. I realised it must be the lack of port forwarding.
I was still within my 30 days so I requested my money back, which they did without hassle. I then took out 2 years with Proton VPN, enabled port forwarding, set it up in qBittorrent (following their brilliant online guide) and suddenly the torrents came alive! It was like day & night.
Nord VPN is by no means bad, but the lack of port forwarding is the main drawback for me. Proton is in my experience very fast in all respects and comes with a suite of other tools that are quite useful (mail, online storage, password safe) plus you can use the VPN on 10 devices (phones, tablets, TV...). They also offer a 30-day money back guarantee so there's no risk in trying it out.
As you can tell I'm quite smitten by it! Another thing it offers is split tunneling which is something I need. Give a few suites a try!
FidgetyFeline [OP] 1 points · Mar 2025
Proton doesn’t give you a static port though does it? You have to update it in qbit any time proton restarts.
UnseenAssasin10 2 points · Mar 2025
There's a 3rd party software called Quantum that automatically updates it every time that happens
Herr-Pyxxel 1 points · Mar 2025
Correct, the port changes every session. You just copy the port number from the proton app and paste it into the field in qBittorrent. It won't change as long as you leave it up and running. Small inconvenience in my book. I don't seed all the time anyway.
[deleted] 2 points · Mar 2025
I’m not sure what you’re talking about. I get really fast speeds with my AirVPN subscription. NordVPN is just one of those heavily advertised, fancy VPNs that are fine if you’re not in private trackers. If you’re only torrenting from public trackers, then who cares if you’re not seeding. But if you are in private communities, most tracker sites will tell you to use a VPN like Proton, TorGuard, or AirVPN.
FidgetyFeline [OP] 2 points · Mar 2025
I’ll do a trial for airvpn and see how it does. Thanks for your input.
[deleted] 2 points · Mar 2025
Sounds good. They’re often very cheap too. I first paid for their one-week subscription, and after figuring out how to set up Gluetun on qBittorrent (since I use Docker), it was super easy to use. I’ve been with them for a year and a half now. Let me know how the trial goes, and I’ll help however I can if I have the time.
FidgetyFeline [OP] 1 points · Mar 2025
So I was looking at air vpn vs proton. Proton definitely wins on the gui and seems likely to be easier to manage. Proton just has dynamic port forwarding, which would be slightly annoying to work with.
I’m curious on air vpns kill switch. Seems they have something called Network Lock. How is your experience with air vpn as a whole? I want to make sure I don’t get flagged again, and would prefer to have a vpn with a good UX.
[deleted] 1 points · Mar 2025
I don’t use the GUI. I only use docker so the killswitch is gluetun not being able to connect to the vpn and it shuts off the ability for qBittorrent to download anything. If you bound the VPN interface correctly you’ll have zero issues.
FidgetyFeline [OP] 1 points · Mar 2025
I think I have it set up right, but still barely any activity. I’ve attached screenshots. Any ideas?
https://imgur.com/a/A5Ss7Lo
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bored-on-the-toilet 1 points · Mar 2025
Off topic, but since you also have Nord, did you ever have an issue with torrents not downloading. I was able to download a small torrent of about 2GB and now all other torrents that I start (~10 - 20 GB) are stuck at "downloading metadata".
I have it binded to Qbittorrent and ipleak confirms the VPN is active. I've been able to download their test torrent as well as a Linux test torrent but no other torrents.
Have you ever had this issue? If anyone else sees this and has some advice, I'd appreciate it.
FidgetyFeline [OP] 2 points · Mar 2025
No, everything downloads fine. You’re sure you have plenty of space on the drive you’re downloading to?
bored-on-the-toilet 1 points · Mar 2025
Yea, there's plenty of space. I think maybe it's a lack of seeders. Today I tried downloading some different torrents and all of those have been consistently downloading.
Unfortunately, the others I mentioned before are still stuck. Maybe I'll get lucky and they'll start up eventually.
FidgetyFeline [OP] 1 points · Mar 2025
I have one that’s at 78% and been going for 8 months, so yeah that happens.
bored-on-the-toilet 1 points · Mar 2025
Damn! That's crazy. Thanks for the input.
MajorParticular4841 1 points · Mar 2025
Nord does not. Socks5 is a thing I believe or atleast was but I could not figure it out.
When I got around to setting up my *arr for my private tracker I kept getting hit with a bad ratio warning even though they don’t care about ratio despite the warning.
Led to me switching to proton.
Edit: *arr not area
Ystebad 1 points · Mar 2025
He has “green earth” so how do you know this? (Also struggling, have AirVPN but get terrible low upload speeds)
Jovan-Ioannis 1 points · Mar 2025 · Docker
Almost all of his seeds and peers are 0 followed with (#)