Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

General support for problems installing or using Deluge
eds89
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Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by eds89 »

Hello.

I've been using uTorrent as my download client for years and years over a PIA VPN.
I have always had incredibly good download speeds over my 200mbps connection.

My torrent box died and needed to be rebuilt. I decided to switch to another client and chose Deluge.
I am however now finding I am having issues with download and upload speeds, as well as general connection limits to peers.

For most torrents I have downloaded over the last few days, I don't seem to be getting any more than 1Mbps.
My upload speeds are very low, and I have a tone of torrents sitting ready to see, but not connecting to any peers to upload.
Most Deluge settings are default, other than the upload limit which I have set to 80% of upload, even though I am not even approaching that.
The DHT and peer exchange settings etc are all enabled, and it doesn't seem to make a difference if using static or random ports.
Encryption is enabled but not enforced.
Windows firewall is off and the VPN is all configured at a router level so no changes there.

I also tried disabling the incoming/outgoing utp settings with no effect either.

Can anyone offer any suggestions on what else to try tweaking to improve performance?

Thanks
Eds
fmar
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by fmar »

Install the ltConfig Plugin and load "High Performance Seed", also set "active_tracker_limit" to 9999. Those are the settings that I'm running it with and I get almost full speed through VPN.

Have you tried different trackers? Like a Linux installation disc with a high number of seeds.
eds89
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by eds89 »

I have LtConfig installed. I did try High Performance Seed but didn't seem to make much of a difference.
I have now changed the tracker limit though to see if that helps.

I'll try and find and try a linux distro and see what that does.

Thanks
eds89
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by eds89 »

I've left it running for 10 mins or so, and connectivity is pretty poor, spiking at 2MiB/s but settling to 1MiB/s
I've not connected to any peers and have uploaded nothing at all.

I have also raised a ticket with PIA, but welcome any other advice you or others may have.

Thanks
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eds89
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by eds89 »

Is there a torrent I can use for testing seeding in a significant way?

On or off the VPN, I'm still only really seeing a max of 300KiB/s for recent torrents with many peers in the pool.

I might look to redownload utorrent and compare to see if it is in fact client specific.

Cheers
Eds
mhertz
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by mhertz »

Yeah, I would check utorrent again too, as could be a VPN endpoint issue etc. You already tried uTP off, so no need suggest that, though reportedly has helped many PIA users previously. Last, if haven't already, enabling portforwarding which I know is supported by PIA, would help in up and down-loading, though even without, an e.g. popular linux iso should get you high download speeds regardless because so many peers(optimistic unchoking overriding tit-for-tat limitation), which to me then sounds like VPN endpoint issue, so try change to something else, if haven't already. Btw, if you also used VPN through router before with utorrent, then unrelated, but if something new, then many routers are limited speedwise, as the act of the encryption itself of VPN connectivity is a big task needing CPU time and will limit speed ussually, or atleast I remember reading such some years ago, so could try lower encryption algo used if possible without getting overridden by PIA's pushed defaults - just additional thought(personally I think the IP masking from swarm and not the ISP-hiding encryption, is the usefullness of VPNs for torrenting(except if being throttled from ISP otherwise), as ISPs only sends you letters when gotten notice from swarm actors).
fmar
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by fmar »

Well, that is a weird issue. If I'm downloading a current Debian distro I get a decent speed through VPN https://i.imgur.com/v4xbAMK.png

Not sure if it will help, but you could test if your client is connectable. Go to https://ipleak.net and copy the magnet link into Deluge. You don't have to actually add the torrent, just wait for a couple of seconds.

Apart from that, have you checked your bandwidth with https://speedtest.net or https://speedof.me?
eds89
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by eds89 »

So I've been reverting to some basic tests with the Ubuntu distro torrent, and am finding when the VPN is disconnected on my pfSense firewall, I get almost full speed 25MiB/s download with close to 200 connections to seeders.
When the VPN is connected, I am seeing about half the download speed, and only around 25 connections.

I have reported this info to PIA, and will see what they come back with. The app does not look to be working in my environment, so the port forwarding approach may not be possible for me.

Whilst awaiting their feedback, I want to move onto upload testing.
Would I expect to get high uploads on the Ubuntu torrent? Currently my ratio is 0, so it doesn't look like it is going to be a good torrent to test uploads with.

Thanks
Eds
mhertz
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by mhertz »

Well you're also running the VPN in "custom setup" and not with there provided client, so personally I would see what happens with e.g. either there client or the community openvpn.net open-source client. A few years ago I was a PIA custommer, and used neither there official client, but the open-source openvpn one instead, and it worked fine for me then atleast.

I know nothing about pfsense etc, but many have reported issues e.g. also with PIA specifically, and some posted options which helped them e.g. I did quick google search and quickly skimmed through a couple of the first hits, but alot of issues seemingly: https://www.google.dk/search?q=pfsense+vpn+low+speed. Enabling hardware-acceleration for crypto(if CPU supports AES-NI), changing crypto-algo and adding/upping send/recieve buffers are often suggested, and one stated he greatly preffers high-clock-speed CPUs instead of more core's with pfsense, as openvpn under v3 seemingly is single-threaded.

About testing upload, then I also don't see much upload neither with popular linux ISOs and I have portforwarding always enabled in my used VPN, which I guess is because there's so many seeders, so you are not in high demand, so I would guess it would be best finding a torrent with lower seed to peer ratio, so you would be much more in demand. Granted I never tested very long however, i.e. not more than a couple minuttes(with linux ISOs I mean.)

Good luck.
eds89
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Re: Assistance with diagnosing slowness compared to uTorrent over PIA VPN

Post by eds89 »

So testing with the PIA VPN app with port forwarding on, speeds generally seem a bit more like they used to be.

I can't run the app though, as it just doesn't fit in with my environment and affects domain connectivity for this machine.
I am going to switch back to my pfSense based OpenVPN client, but wondering if anyone has any other thoughts on how I may be able to achieve the same results as the port forwarding, but without their app?

Appreciate it isn't explicitly a Deluge question, but asking just in case.

Thanks
Eds
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