You do not have to anymore. The tracker identifies you by the passkey included in the announce URL the torrent file you downloaded contains. WARNING : If you give a torrent file that you download to anyone else, you will effectively be sharing your account with them and any damage they would do, would be done to your account. Do not share your torrent files with anyone!

Why am I listed as not connectable? (And why should I care?)

The tracker has determined that you are firewalled or NATed and cannot accept incoming connections.

This means that other peers in the swarm will be unable to connect to you, only you to them. Even worse, if two peers are both in this state they will not be able to connect at all. This has obviously a detrimental effect on the overall speed.

The way to solve the problem involves opening the ports used for incoming connections (the same range you defined in your client) on the firewall and/or configuring your NAT server to use a basic form of NAT for that range instead of NAPT (the actual process differs widely between different router models. Check your router documentation and/or support forum. You will also find lots of information on the subject at PortForward).

What are the different user classes?

Has donated money to AdultSins

How does this promotion thing work anyway?

Just donate, and send Seven - and only Seven - the details.

Hey! I've seen Sr. Pervs with less than 25GB uploaded!

Seven, the Admins or moderators have the ability to promote anyone they feel deserving at any time.

Why can't my friend become a member?

Because your friend is ugly. Or, because your friend can easily join as we currently do not have a membership cap. Take your pick.

How do I add an avatar to my profile?

First, find an image that you like, and that is within the rules. Then go to your MySins page, expand the My Settings section and upload your avatar there.

+ Passkey system

What is a Passkey?

A passkey is what is used to identify you to the tracker instead of using your IP address. This way, people who are in the same company, university, behind the same proxy or any of a number of other reasons that may cause their IP addesses to be the same, the tracker can still individually identify everyone.

Also, the passkey system makes it so that if your IP address changes while downloading or uploading, or just before starting a new torrent, you don't have to worry about logging in to the site just to register your new IP address.

Another benefit is that it is now MUCH easier to seed the same torrent from different locations and have all the stats correctly applied to the correct account.

How do all the torrent files downloaded get the correct passkey in them?

When a torrent file is uploaded, any announce url included in it is stripped out and when it is downloaded, the correct passkey for the correct downloading member is then added to the torrent file.

What happens if I share it with others?

AdultSins is a private site for registered members only. Sharing torrent files with none members will likely result in immediate account disablement.

Someone else is using my passkey, what do I do?

On your MySins page, expand the My Passkey section and then click the Reset button and your passkey will be instantly regenerated. Please note that you will of course have to redownload any torrent files you had previously.

Do I have to download a torrent file I made just to get the passkey included in it?

Short answer, Yes. Long answer, if you BOTH include your personal announce URL, as listed on the torrent upload page AND you set the private bit when you create the torrent, you do not have to. But, if you have any problems with the torrent file you made, redownload the torrent file from the site.

Are passkeys truly unique so no two members can ever have the same passkey?

Yes, although the algorithm used to generate them does a good job of making them unique, every passkey that is generated is tested against all the other existing and previous passkeys to make sure it is truly unique.

I get "Missing key: BlahBlahBlah" error in my client, what does that mean?

That means that the passkey information was missing from the announce message from your BitTorrent client. The usual solution is to redownload the torrent file from the site.

If it continues to happen, try a different BitTorrent client.

I get "Invalid passkey (" some number "-" many characters ")" error in my client, what does that mean?

Similar to above, for some reason the passkey sent by your BitTorrent client is borked and is not all there. Try downloading it again and/or try a different BitTorrent client.

I get "Invalid passkey! Re-download the .torrent from adultsins.net." error in my client, what does that mean?

This means that the passkey is well formed but either never had been registered with the site and is counterfeit or has been revoked. This is also what people will see who were given a torrent file by a member and then the member realized their mistake and had their key regenerated.

+ Stats

Most common reason for stats not updating

You are using a faulty client. If you want to use an experimental or CVS version you do it at your own risk.

The server is overloaded and unresponsive. Just try to keep the session open until the server responds again. (Flooding the server with consecutive manual updates is not recommended.)

Best practices

If a torrent you are currently leeching/seeding is not listed on your profile, just wait or force a manual update.

Make sure you exit your client properly, so that the tracker receives "event=completed".

If the tracker is down, do not stop seeding. As long as the tracker is back up before you exit the client the stats should update properly.

May I use any bittorrent client?

No. Although the tracker correctly processes announce and scrape messages according to the BitTorrent specifications but many applications claiming to be BitTorrent clients implement them so poorly that members using them end up with serious problems. They may be fine for leeching from a public tracker but have no place in a private tracker. If you are using one of the following clients connection attempts to the tracker wiil be denied. The tracker can not be "fixed" to work with these clients as there is nothing wrong with the tracker to fix.":

• Shareaza
• eDonkey
• MlDonkey

Also, the following clients are banned.

• BitComet
• BitLord
• BitSpirit

The use of the following clients is strongly advised against as they will likely result is errors in roporting uploaded downloaed statistics likely resulting in your no longer being able to download.

• BitTorrent++
• Nova Torrent
• TorrentStorm
• TorrentTopia

Why is a torrent I'm leeching/seeding listed several times in my profile?

If for some reason (e.g. pc crash, or frozen client) your client exits improperly and you restart it, it will have a new peer_id, so it will show as a new torrent. The old one will never receive a "event=completed" or "event=stopped" and will be listed until some tracker timeout. Just ignore it, it will eventually go away.

I've finished or cancelled a torrent. Why is it still listed in my profile?

See above, simply wait for it to time out and it will be cleaned out.

Why do I sometimes see torrents I'm not leeching in my profile!?

Because either due to the above or, you didn't read the warning above and gave a torrent file you downloaded to someone else. Better hope they don't destroy your ratio..

Multiple IPs (Can I login from different computers?)

Yes, the tracker is capable of following sessions from different IPs for the same user. A torrent is associated with a given user by passkey only, not IP address or browser cookies.

How does NAT/ICS change the picture?

It doesn't. The tracker doesn't care about your IP address whether internal or external.

+ Restrictions

Why can't I download anything now?

This site uses a rather strict, but fair ratio control system. It is strict in that there are no grey areas, if you are below a given point, the system will automatically prevent you from starting any new torrents.

But, it is fair in that the more one downloads, the higher one's ratio must be so that people just starting out have a chance to make some mistakes here and there and become more familiar with using BitTorrent.

The minimum requirements are: (IF YOU FALL BELOW ANY OF THESE LIMITS, YOU MUST THEN SEED BACK TO A RATIO OF 0.8 BEFORE BEING ABLE TO DOWNLOAD AGAIN!)

• Between 5 and 20 Gig downloaded, minimum ratio is 0.4,
• Between 20 and 50 Gig downloaded, minimum ratio is 0.45,
• Between 50 and 100 Gig downloaded, minimum ratio is 0.5,
• Between 100 and 150 Gig downloaded, minimum ratio is 0.55,
• Between 150 and 200 Gig downloaded, minimum ratio is 0.6,
• Greater than 200 Gig downloaded, minimum ratio is 0.7

I am download disabled due to having a poor ratio, how can I rebuild my ratio?

Either seed what you have already downloaded or find something not already on the tracker to upload and seed. If you try to upload and seed and get the same error as downloading, that means that your BitTorrent client was not pointed in the right direction to find the completed files and so thinks it needs to download instead.

I can't download any more and my harddrive crashed with all my videos so I have nothing to seed to improve my ratio, can you help?

That's unfortunate, if it did really happen, but is not our responsibility and excuses like this will at best get ignored and at worst, laughed at.

I can't download any more and I moved all the vids to another drive, what do I do?

Learn how to use your BitTorrent application to start torrents from a location other than where originally downloaded to.

What does "X active downloads are your maximum allowed!" mean?

Users are only allowed to download a set number of torrents at one time. As one has downloaded more and more over time and has maintained at least the minimum ratio, one will be allowed to download more at periodic intervals determined by the amount downloaded and the ratio limiter bracket one happens to be in.

My computer crashed and I could download before the crash but I can't now, what's wrong?

If your BitTorrent client does not terminate a torrent properly, the tracker will think it is still there and that will count in the number of torrents you are downloading. Just wait 30 to 40 minutes for the tracker to time out on those connections and clear the data and you will be able to download again. Just leave your torrents running and they will automatically start again.

I get "A problem has occured." when I try to download, what's up with that?

The system has identified your account as possibly being a multiple account. Members, except with permission from a site administrator, are only allowed one account. Creating multiple accounts causes many problems and is not an easy condition to straighten out.

Send a PM to seven regarding this to have your accounts straightened out although you will be required to pay a US$15 administrative fee for doing so.

Note : Some ISPs' users may mistakenly receive this notice and should again, send a PM to EasySeeder to have your account cleared. Since this happens through no fault of your own, it costs you nothing.

What is it with "Connection limit exceeded! You may only download from one account on one torrent at a time."?

A given member may be active in a given torrent swarm only once. If you get this error, it is either because you have leaked your passkey to others, which is included in the torrent file you downloaded or, your BitTorrent client or OS crashed and your client still appears in the torrent peer list.

As above, wait 30 - 40 minutes and it should clear itself and allow you to continue downloading again.

Why can't I use BitComet or BitLord?

The short answer is because they suck. The more complete answer is because BitComet is coded to be hostile to other clients and trackers. Also, the majority of problems users have are due to their use of BitComet and BitLord with BitLord being nothing more than a skinned version of BitComet. For more information about why many sites ban the use of BitComet, Google is your friend.

For a client that not only is much more reliable and swarm friendly, we recommend uTorrent which can be found at www.utorrent.com/

The decision and action that lead to this situation is NOT up for discussion.

+ Reseed Requests

When can I request a reseed?

You can use the Reseed Request system to request a reseed when ALL the following conditions exist:

• There are no seeders.
• There is at least one completed download.
• There is at least one downloading peer.

How long will a reseed request last?

Reseed requests not answered within one week will be deleted along with the torrent for which the reseed was requested.

Why can't I post a comment requesting a reseed?

A post or comment asking for a reseed is a waste of space after the reseed takes place and usually gets ignored anyway.

If a person can see a comment asking for a reseed, they can also see if there are seeders or not so even without the Reseed Request system, comments asking for reseeds are a waste of time anyway.

Comments asking for reseeds will be deleted when found without warning or notice.

I requested a reseed but the request does not show on the Reseed Request list, what happened to it?

Reseed requests for which there are no downloading peers are not shown in the Reseed Request list and are periodically purged from the database.

Why do I look like an ass if I post a request for a reseed when the original uploader hasn't completed the initial seeding?

If the original uploader hasn't completed the initial seeding, how is it possible for anyone else to have the completed files? If they did, wouldn't they also be seeding?

Even if there is a VERY SMALL chance someone may have the completed files, they are more likely to see a reseed request than your comment since comments requesting reseeds are deleted anyway.

+ Uploading

Why can't I upload torrents?

You can, all members can upload, currently.

Can I upload your torrents to other trackers?

If you do, you will be uploading a torrent file with your passkey in it and any transfered bytes will count on your profile. It will also likely result in your account being disabled. If we had wanted to be a public tracker we would have created one.

(However, the files you download from us are yours to do as you please. You can always create another torrent, pointing to some other tracker, and upload it to the site of your choice.)

Why do I have to download the torrents I uploaded myself?

All torrents uploaded to the tracker will have the "private=1" flag inserted on upload. If you make your torrent files to upload and set the Private flag as well as use your personal announce URL, you do not need to download the torrent files after upload.

Why did a torrent I uploaded disappear off the tracker and is now unregistered?

Torrents are deleted from the tracker after 2 continuous weeks of no seeder activity, 1 week of having a reseed requested going unanswered or an upload that has never been seeded for two or more days.

+ Downloading

Why did an active torrent suddenly disappear?

There may be three reasons for this:

1. The torrent may have been out-of-sync with the site rules.
2. The uploader may have deleted it because it was a bad release. A replacement will probably be uploaded to take its place.
   If this ocurrs, you will receive a PM notice letting you know to replace your current torrent file.
3. Torrents are automatically deleted after 2 weeks of no seeder activity or 1 week of having a reseed request go unanswered.

How do I resume a broken download or reseed something?

Open the .torrent file. When your client asks you for a location, choose the location of the existing file(s) and it will resume/reseed the torrent.

If it instead tries to download, you need to remove the torrent from your client, reload it and then point it to the correct location to find the completed files.

What are these "a piece has failed an hash check" messages?

Bittorrent clients check the data they receive for integrity. When a piece fails this check it is automatically re-downloaded. Occasional hash fails are a common occurrence, and you shouldn't worry.

Some clients have an (advanced) option/preference to 'kick/ban clients that send you bad data' or similar. It should be turned on, since it makes sure that if a peer repeatedly sends you pieces that fail the hash check it will be ignored in the future.

The torrent is supposed to be 100MB. How come I downloaded 120MB?

See the hash fails topic. If your client receives bad data it will have to redownload it, therefore the total downloaded may be larger than the torrent size. Make sure the "kick/ban" option is turned on to minimize the extra downloads.

What's this "IOError - [Errno13] Permission denied" error?

If you just want to fix it reboot your computer, it should solve the problem. Otherwise read on.

IOError means Input-Output Error, and that is a file system error, not a tracker one. It shows up when your client is for some reason unable to open the partially downloaded torrent files. The most common cause is two instances of the client to be running simultaneously:

the last time the client was closed it somehow didn't really close but kept running in the background, and is therefore still locking the files, making it impossible for the new instance to open them.

A more uncommon occurrence is a corrupted FAT. A crash may result in corruption that makes the partially downloaded files unreadable, and the error ensues. Running scandisk should solve the problem. (Note that this may happen only if you're running Windows 9x - which only support FAT - or NT/2000/XP with FAT formatted hard drives. NTFS is much more robust and should never permit this problem.)

+ How can I improve my download speed?

The download speed mostly depends on the seeder-to-leecher ratio (SLR). Poor download speed is mainly a problem with new and very popular torrents where the SLR is low.

(Proselytising sidenote: make sure you remember that you did not enjoy the low speed. Seed so that others will not endure the same.)

There are a couple of things that you can try on your end to improve your speed:

Do not immediately jump on new torrents

In particular, do not do it if you have a slow connection. The best speeds will be found around the half-life of a torrent, when the SLR will be at its highest. (The downside is that you will not be able to seed so much. It's up to you to balance the pros and cons of this.)

Make yourself connectable

See the Why am I listed as not connectable?  section.

Limit your upload speed

The upload speed affects the download speed in essentially two ways:

• Bittorrent peers tend to favour those other peers that upload to them. This means that if A and B are leeching the same torrent and A is sending data to B at high speed then B will try to reciprocate. So due to this effect high upload speeds lead to high download speeds.
• Due to the way TCP works, when A is downloading something from B it has to keep telling B that it received the data sent to him. (These are called acknowledgements - ACKs -, a sort of "got it!" messages). If A fails to do this then B will stop sending data and wait. If A is uploading at full speed there may be no bandwidth left for the ACKs and they will be delayed. So due to this effect excessively high upload speeds lead to low download speeds.

The full effect is a combination of the two. The upload should be kept as high as possible while allowing the ACKs to get through without delay. A good thumb rule is keeping the upload at about 80% of the theoretical upload speed. You will have to fine tune yours to find out what works best for you. (Remember that keeping the upload high has the additional benefit of helping with your ratio.)

If you are running more than one instance of a client it is the overall upload speed that you must take into account. Some clients (e.g. Azureus) limit global upload speed, others (e.g. Shad0w's) do it on a per torrent basis. Know your client. The same applies if you are using your connection for anything else (e.g. browsing or ftp), always think of the overall upload speed.

Limit the number of simultaneous connections

Some operating systems (like Windows 9x) do not deal well with a large number of connections, and may even crash. Also some home routers (particularly when running NAT and/or firewall with stateful inspection services) tend to become slow or crash when having to deal with too many connections. There are no fixed values for this, you may try 60 or 100 and experiment with the value. Note that these numbers are additive, if you have two instances of a client running the numbers add up.

Limit the number of simultaneous uploads

Isn't this the same as above? No. Connections limit the number of peers your client is talking to and/or downloading from. Uploads limit the number of peers your client is actually uploading to. The ideal number is typically much lower than the number of connections, and highly dependent on your (physical) connection.

Just give it some time

As explained above peers favour other peers that upload to them. When you start leeching a new torrent you have nothing to offer to other peers and they will tend to ignore you. This makes the starts slow, in particular if, by change, the peers you are connected to include few or no seeders. The download speed should increase as soon as you have some pieces to share.

Why is my browsing so slow while leeching?

Your download speed is always finite. If you are a peer in a fast torrent it will almost certainly saturate your download bandwidth, and your browsing will suffer. At the moment there is no client that allows you to limit the download speed, only the upload. You will have to use a third-party solution, such as NetLimiter.

Browsing was used just as an example, the same would apply to gaming, IMing, etc...

+ Why can't I connect? Is the site blocking me?

Your failure to connect may be due to several reasons, rarely due to any problems on the site side.

Maybe my address is blacklisted?

Although methods to do so exist, the site rarely blocks addresses of users. This works at Apache/PHP level, it's just a script that blocks logins from those addresses. But in any event, it should not stop you from reaching the site. In particular it does not block lower level protocols, you should be able to ping/traceroute the server even if your address is blacklisted. If you cannot then the reason for the problem lies elsewhere. Also note, we rarely, if ever need to resort to IP blocking since the most effective method of prevented unwanted visitors is simply preventing their ability to connect to the tracker.

Your ISP blocks the site's address

In first place, it's unlikely your ISP is doing so. DNS name resolution and/or network problems are the usual culprits.

In the second place, if they do, there's nothing we can do about it unfortunately. But to make sure, you should contact your ISP.

+ What if I can't find the answer to my problem here?

Post in the Forums, by all means. You'll find they are usually a friendly and helpful place, provided you follow a few basic guidelines:

Make sure your problem is not really in this FAQ. There's no point in posting just to be sent back here.

Before posting read the sticky topics (the ones at the top). Many times new information that still hasn't been incorporated in the FAQ can be found there.

Help us in helping you. Do not just say "it doesn't work!". Provide details so that we don't have to guess or waste time asking. What client do you use? What's your OS? What's your network setup? What's the exact error message you get, if any? What are the torrents you are having problems with? The more you tell the easier it will be for us, and the more probable your post will get a helpful reply.

And needless to say: be polite. Demanding help rarely works, asking for it usually does the trick.