Mystery Ratio Gap increase

jejune

A while back I got a warning about a ratio gap, with my ratio dropping below 0.8, which is my minimum. It's unusual for me, but I made a donation and got it back up. A month later it dropped again (even though I generally only download freeleeches, and seed for at least a month afterwards). I uploaded 25gb, made another donation leaving a 30gb deficit. I uploaded another 25gb, with another 25gb ready for upload after that. Between the morning and afternoon one day my ratio deficit increased by more than 30gb. In a few days I went from a 13gb deficit, to uploading 75gb, to end up with a 55gb deficit. -13 plus 75 equals -55? I had checked all my downloaded torrents, and after downloading completed they were still freeleech, so I hadn't mistakenly download non-freeleech. I can't keep uploading/donating and keep getting further in the hole. Any ideas?

ianfontinell

@jejune the timeline and the maths are a little confusing for my poor gooner brain, but here's what i think:

you should go to this page: https://www.gaytor.rent/userdetails.php?showall=1

click "show completed torrents" and check if you remember everything you see in that list, or if there are torrents that you have not downloaded yourself.

if everything you see is legit, then it most likely boils down to freeleech torrents that expired mid-download. if everything you're describing happened exactly as you're saying, there has to be a bunch of torrents in that list that you have never downloaded.

if you do find stuff that you didn't download yourself, you need to check your client, see if it has an RSS feed that is configured to automatically download torrents that match a certain rule, or if you have any automation software with access to your account like Prowlarr or qui (a qbittorrent webUI with automation tools).

If that happens to be the case, you should also find the content from those torrents sitting somewhere in your drive.

If you don't recognize some torrents, don't have their files downloaded, have no automation software, no active RSS rules, the next step would be:

1 - reset your account password
2 - generate a new passkey

both can be done through this page: https://www.gaytor.rent/my.php#sec-account

after which, you will also want to visit this page and terminate all other sessions: https://www.gaytor.rent/mysessions.php

after resetting your passkey, your existing torrents will stop seeding, you have to either re-download them or add your new passkey to their existing tracker URL.

if you see the same strange pattern after all those procedures, open a ticket in the helpdesk.

jejune

Thank you for walking me through. I do appreciate it. The problem I have is the torrents listed as downloaded WERE downloaded by me. And after the first time receiving the ratio warning I checked the freeleech status before AND after downloading. And then this afternoon I downloaded 1gb and my ration deficit increased more than 25gb. My concern is that I did download from Pirate Bay around 20ish gb. Is there some flaw that is charging me for downloads from other sites? I've only been on this site since 2007, so perhaps I'm still considered new, having not hit the 20 year mark.

ianfontinell

@jejune said:

Thank you for walking me through. I do appreciate it. The problem I have is the torrents listed as downloaded WERE downloaded by me. And after the first time receiving the ratio warning I checked the freeleech status before AND after downloading. And then this afternoon I downloaded 1gb and my ration deficit increased more than 25gb. My concern is that I did download from Pirate Bay around 20ish gb. Is there some flaw that is charging me for downloads from other sites? I've only been on this site since 2007, so perhaps I'm still considered new, having not hit the 20 year mark.

that is totally impossible, you can download from other trackers without worries, and now to help illustrate your situation, if you can, please inform:

your total downloaded in GB until now
your total uploads in GB until now
what is your torrent client
if you currently use a VPN

MrMazda

@jejune This shouldn't be a thing due to the way that torrents on private trackers work, compared to public trackers. On private trackers, certain things like DHT are not available, so the only way in which to report any data for those torrents is to report directly to the tracker(s) for those torrents.

Anything outside of our tracker specifically would generate an "Unregistered Torrent" error, so they wouldn't even be able to register with the tracker in a way that would count their traffic into our system.

I can have a look at your account and see what I can find, but there's usually an explanation, though sometimes it's a little complicated to find.

MrMazda

Yeah... I'm gonna have to forward your account to @Joker because to me, the math ain't mathing with your account. There's only literally one (or possibly two) torrents in your account history that were not freeleech since several days before you entered into a low ratio state. These two torrents combined total approximately 10 GB in total. The rest of the torrents were not only freeleech, but from what I can tell were still well into the freeleech window just as you have claimed.

So for me to see what I'm seeing on your account seems rather unusual, and I don't often say this. Normally, when a user is in the state that you're in, I'm able to find a reasonable explanation for it, and when I do the math, the math checks out. With your account however, this is not the case. After having taken a close look at it myself, I genuinely do not understand what I'm seeing.

Without disclosing any personal information about your account or your account history, all I can say is even I (with the access I have to see the things that I can see) am genuinely at a loss to explain why your account is in the state it's in currently.

Joker

I checked the accounts from this thread against the tracker. In every case the tracker had real download traffic on the days in question; the gap did not move by itself. A client can download more than you think: a torrent you believed complete that was still missing pieces, a re-check after moving files, or a cross-seed whose files don't match exactly, all of that pulls new data. The gap shown is the upload still needed to reach 0.80, so every downloaded byte raises it by 0.8 bytes, and seeding lowers it. If anyone sees a jump that their client's own transfer log can't explain, send me the torrent and the date and I'll look at the announces. Joker

ianfontinell

@Joker i don't follow, the tracker had real download data in the date that the torrent was freeleech? have you compared with other peers who downloaded the same torrent in that date?

Kevin4fm

@ianfontinell Here's one possible scenario:

You download 75% of a torrent, but not all cos you don't want it. It was freeleech at the time.
You leave the torrent active in your client, so you can seed what you do have
You forget you're seeding and move some, or all, of the files elsewhere
Your client seeing that items you ticked to download, to the folder you specified they be downloaded to, are no longer there.
Your client therefore downloads them again, but by then freeleech has ended.

If you forget you moved / deleted etc the original files, it would be easy to think, "but I only downloaded those files, and they were freeleech when I need it".

ianfontinell

@Kevin4fm that would be a different date/time in such scenario, what i am assuming is what i got from op's first message, that it all happened while the torrent was in freeleech. it might not be the case, which tbh is the most likely... but i prefer to ask just to be 100% sure, to not take it as mystery solved without looking at everything.

Kevin4fm

@ianfontinell

1
2

"...and after downloading completed they were still freeleech."

... a few moments later...
3
4
5

With qBittorrent, which has a pretty comprehensive set of stats you can access, I don't think there's one that differentiates "last activity" between uploading and downloading.

ianfontinell

@Kevin4fm amazing didactics bro

Joker

Checked: on a freeleech torrent the tracker records no download at all, so nothing can come from there. In the cases from this thread the traffic sat on ordinary torrents, and in the one I looked at tonight it was a single torrent that was still downloading while the member thought it was seeding. Your moved-files/re-download explanation is the usual one; a client's own transfer log is the quickest way to see it. Joker