Welcome to TorrentLeech!

We are not just one other private torrent site! Come and join the fun on irc, need help? Use our state-of-the-art Support Center. Our goal is to provide the absolutely latest torrents in the scene. Therefore, only specially authorised users have permission to upload torrents.

This is a private tracker, and you have to register before you can get full access to the site. Before you do anything here at TorrentLeech we suggest you read the rules! There are only a few rules to abide by, but we do enforce them!

Before you go any further you should read the TorrentLeech.org user agreement.

Contents









Site information - Top


What is this bittorrent all about anyway? How do I get the files?

Check out Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide


Where does the donated money go?

TorrentLeech.org is using 14 dedicated servers in the Netherlands. For the moment we have monthly running costs of approximately 6000 euros/month.


Where can I get a copy of the source code?

We dont share the modified source code of our site. However you can download the torrentbits source code (our site is partly based on that) available here

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


You can try these:

Post in the Forums, by all means or visit our support center. 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 easiest it will be for us, and the more probable your post will get a reply.
  • And needless to say: be polite. Demanding help rarely works, asking for it usually does the trick.

User information - Top


I registered an account but did not receive the confirmation e-mail!

You should check your spam/junk mail folder of your email application. In many cases the emails are being registered by your email application as spam. If you dont succeed, you can ask an admin or sysop (in our irc channel) to delete your account so that you register again with another email address. DO NOT try to re-register without your pending account is deleted first, because the system will think you are making double accounts and both accounts will be banned.


I've lost my user name or password! Can you send it to me?

Please use this form to have the login details mailed back to you.


Can you rename my account?

We do not rename accounts.


Can you delete my (confirmed) account?

We dont delete accounts. You can stop using it and it will be deleted automatically after 40 days of inactivity (meaning not connection to TorrentLeech the site).


Unused accounts

Accounts not being used to down or upload to the site will be removed to make room for active members to join


So, what's MY ratio?

Click on your profile, then on your user name (at the top). Or you can check the member bar on the top of each page.

It's important to distinguish between your overall ratio and the individual ratio on each torrent you may be seeding or leeching. The overall ratio takes into account the total uploaded and downloaded from your account since you joined the site. The individual ratio takes into account those values for each torrent.

You may see two symbols instead of a number: "Inf.", which is just an abbreviation for Infinity, and means that you have downloaded 0 bytes while uploading a non-zero amount (ul/dl becomes infinity); "---", which should be read as "non-available", and shows up when you have both downloaded and uploaded 0 bytes (ul/dl = 0/0 which is an indeterminate amount).


What is the minimum ratio i should keep?

Every user has obligation to keep his ratio any time above 0.4 .After you download 6GB. If you fail to do this you will receive a warning from the system telling that you have 5 days to correct your ratio and make it above 0.4 . In 5 days the system will re-check your ratio, if it is ok, the warning will be removed, if not your account will be automatically disabled.


Sharing your account

Just be aware that we do not tolerate any sharing of account on TL. This means that if we find anybody downloading the same release more than once, the user's account will be banned for ever. So make sure you don't download stuff more than once.


Why is my IP displayed on my details page?

Only you and the site admins and sysops can view your IP address and only sysops can view your email address. Regular users and mods do not see that information.


Help! I cannot login!? (a.k.a. Login of Death)

This problem sometimes occurs with MSIE. Close all Internet Explorer windows and open Internet Options in the control panel. Click the Delete Cookies button. You should now be able to login.


My IP address is dynamic. How do I stay logged in?

You do not have to anymore. Our tracker uses the passkey system. You can learn more about the passkey system below.


Why should i care configuring my router's firewall?

When you havent configured correctly your router's firewall, or windows firewall you 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 / router 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?

  User   The default class of new members.
  Power User   Can view NFO files and make requests in the request forum.
  Star   Has donated money to TorrentLeech.org .
  VIP   Same privileges as Power User and is considered an Elite Member of TorrentLeech. Immune to automatic demotion. Does not have any wait or slot restrictions
  Other   Customised title.
  Uploader   Same as PU except with upload rights and immune to automatic demotion.
  Moderator   Can edit and delete any uploaded torrents. Can also moderate user comments and disable accounts.
  Administrator   Can do just about anything.
  SysOp   Site owner



How does this promotion thing work anyway?

  Power User   Must have have uploaded at least 25GB and have a ratio at or above 1.05. Must be registered for 2 weeks at least.
The promotion is automatic when these conditions are met. Note that you will be automatically demoted from this status if your ratio drops below 0.95 at any time.
  Star   Just donate using our automated system
  VIP   Assigned by mods at their discretion to users they feel contribute something special to the site.
(Anyone begging for VIP status will be automatically disqualified.) Donating 25 euros and more gets you VIP status for 3 months
  Other   Conferred by mods at their discretion (not available to Users or Power Users).
  Uploader   Appointed by Admins/SysOp (see the 'Uploading' section for conditions).
  Moderator   You don't ask us, we'll ask you!



How do I add an avatar to my profile?

First, find an image that you like, and that is within the rules. Then you will have to find a place to host it, such as Photobucket, Upload-It! or ImageShack. All that is left to do is copy the URL you were given when uploading it to the avatar field in your profile.




How can i use your rss feeds ?

You can generate an rss link by using this this pageIt is being generated using the last 50 torrents from all categories. Please take in mind that abusing this service WILL get you banned. Please use a logical interval for checking the rss feed, in any case not less than 10 mins. The category name for each torrent is in the rss description, so you can selectively auto-add torrents from specific categories via the rss feeds in your torrent client, since all modern torrent clients have filtering capabilities for parsing the rss feeds


What are Invites for and how can i use them ?

Invites are for giving to people you know and trust.Trading Torrentleech invites will get you and any one you invite banned. If you invite a cheat you will get a warning for the first one if it ever happens again you will be banned too. Trading means posting TL invites on any forum giving away for free or asking for something in return in either case TL class's this as trading and your account will be banned The sale of invites to this site is strictly forbidden and results in both the inviter and invitee losing their accounts. If you come across an auction from someone claiming to have permission to sell invitations to this site, it's a lie. Do not believe positive feedback ratings; if you buy an invite, we will know about it and you will lose your account.


How do i get invites

Only vip uses get invites when we choose to distribute them


Why can't my friend become a member?

There is a users limit. When this is reached we stop accepting new members. Accounts inactive for more than 42 days are automatically deleted, so keep trying. (There is no reservation or queuing system, don't ask for that.)

Stats - Top


Most common reason for stats not updating

  • The user is cheating. (a.k.a. "Summary Ban")
  • 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.)
  • You are using a faulty client. If you want to use an experimental or CVS version you do it at your own risk.
  • You are using BitComet that has peer caching and peer sharing abilities (and you are downloading torrents from other trackers too) In this case, your clients uses sources from peers that are not members of our tracker and not connected on our tracker, so the traffic downloaded/uploaded from/to them is not counted in your stats.
  • We suggest to all users to use well tested clients like Azureus, ABC (not edition 3), BitComet (using the patch that disables peer sharing) in order not to have problems.



Multiple IPs (Can I login from different computers?)

Yes, our tracker is using the passkey system, so the ip of the user is of no relevance, as the identification of the user is being done by the means of checking the user's passkey and not the ip.


For those of you who are interested...

Some info about the "Anatomy of a torrent session".


Best practices

  • 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?

Yes. The tracker now updates the stats correctly for all bittorrent clients. However, we still recommend that you avoid the following clients:

- BitTorrent++,
- Nova Torrent,
- TorrentStorm.
- Old editions of Bitlord
! In all cases disable the DHT in clients it is supported !

These clients do not report correctly to the tracker when canceling/finishing a torrent session. If you use them then a few MB may not be counted towards the stats near the end, and torrents may still be listed in your profile for some time after you have closed the client.

We STRONGLY recommend you use either µTorrent (windows, linux and FreeBSD) or Azureus (windows, Linux and OSX), in both cases use the newest available version. Clients such as bitcomet are unfair and place unecessary pressure on the tracker. Further use of clients such as BitSpirit is not allowed and will most likely lead to a Ban. Also, clients in alpha or beta version should be avoided.

Uploading - Top


Why can't I upload torrents?

Only specially authorized users (Uploaders) have permission to upload torrents.


What criteria must I meet before I can join the Uploader team?

You must be able to provide releases that:
- include a proper NFO,
- are genuine scene releases. If it's not on pre then forget it!
- are not older than seven (7) days,
- have all files in original format (usually 14.3 MB RARs),
- you'll be able to seed, or make sure are well-seeded, for at least 24 hours.
- you should have atleast 10MBit (1'250 KB/s) upload bandwith.

If you think you can match these criteria do not hesitate to contact our staff


Can I upload your torrents to other trackers?

No. We are a closed, limited-membership community. Only registered users can use the TL tracker. Posting our torrents on other trackers is useless, since most people who attempt to download them will be unable to connect with us. This generates a lot of frustration and bad-will against us at TorrentLeech, and will therefore not be tolerated. Furthermore this action hammers our tracker and the load of our servers increases, so is our frustration.

Complaints from other sites' administrative staff about our torrents being posted on their sites will result in the banning of the users responsible.

Downloading - Top


How do I use the files I've downloaded?

Check out this guide.


What is DHT and Why must i turn it off

DHT must be disabled in your client, DHT can cause your stats to be recorded incorrectly and could be seen as cheating also disable PEX (peer exchange) Anyone using this will be banned for cheating the system. Check your snatchlist regularly to ensure stats are being recorded correctly, allow 30mins for the tracker to update your stats.


Downloaded a movie and don't know what CAM/TS/TC/SCR means?

Check out this guide.


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.
(3) Torrents are automatically deleted after 28 days.


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.


Why do my downloads sometimes stall at 99%?

The more pieces you have, the harder it becomes to find peers who have pieces you are missing. That is why downloads sometimes slow down or even stall when there are just a few percent remaining. Just be patient and you will, sooner or later, get the remaining pieces.


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.


Why do I get a "Access denied - Wait time in effect" error ?

From the time that each new torrent is uploaded to the tracker, there is a period of time that some users must wait before they can download it.
This delay in downloading will only affect users with a low ratio, and users with low upload amounts.

Ratio below
0.50
   and/or upload below
4.0GB
   delay of
48h
Ratio below
0.6
   and/or upload below
5GB
   delay of
32h
Ratio below
0.70
   and/or upload below
6.0GB
   delay of
16h
Ratio below
0.8
   and/or upload below
7GB
   delay of
8h

"And/or" means any or both. Your delay will be the largest one for which you meet at least one condition.

This applies to new users as well, so opening a new account will not help. Note also that this works at tracker level, you will be able to grab the .torrent file itself at any time.

The delay applies to leeching as well as seeding.



Why do I get a "Access denied - Torrents Limit exceeded " error ?

This is part of the "Slot System". The slot system is being used to limit the concurrent downloads for users that have ratio below 0.85

In detail:

Users with ratio < 0.5have only 1 download slot available
Users with ratio < 0.6 have only 2 download slots available
Users with ratio < 0.7 have only 3 download slots available
Users with ratio < 0.85 have only 4 download slots available
Users with ratio > 0.85 have unlimited download slots

In all cases the seeding slots are unlimited. However if you have already filled all your available download slots and try to start seeding you will receive the same error. In this case you must free at least one download slot in order to start all your seeds and then start the download. If all your download slots are filled the system will deny any connection before validating if you want to download or seed. So first start your seeds and after that your downloads.

In any time, you can check your available slots in the member bar on top of the page

You should also know that the slots for every user are calculated every 30min. Which means that if you cross a ratio barrier for more or less slots the tracker will need up to 30 min to be informed of this change, inspite of the maximum slots that you can see on your member bar.


Why do i get a "Connection limit exceeded! You may only leech from one location at a time" error?

This is an error associated with the passkey system. You may leech each torrent from one location only. If you dont leech the torrent from a second location, and you still get this problem, reset your passkey in your control panel and redownload the torrent (also redownload any other torrent you leech at the same time, or you will get an invalid passkey error)

The maximum permitted simultaneous connections per torrent are 3. 1 leech + 2 seeds or 3 seeds.


What is the passkey (torrent_pass) System? How does it work?

The passkey system has been implemented in order to substitute the ip checking system. This means that the tracker doesnt check anymore your logged ip in order to verify if you are logged in or registered with the tracker. Every user has a personal passkey, a random key generated by the system. When a user tries to download a torrent, its personal passkey is imprinted in the tracker url of the torrent, allowing to the tracker to identify any source connected on it. In this way, you can seed a torrent for example, at home and at your office simultaneously without any problem with the 2 different ips. Per torrent 3 simultaneous connections are permitted per user, and in case of leeching only 1 (That means you can leech a torrent from one location only at a time.


Why do i get a "Unregistered Torrent Pass" error?

You will get this error, firstly if you are not registered on our tracker, or if you havent downloaded the torrent to use from our webpage, when you were logged in. In this case, just register or log in and redownload the torrent.

There is a chance to get this error also, at the first time you download anything as a new user, or at the first download after you reset your passkey. The reason is simply that the tracker reviews the changes in the passkeys every few minutes and not instantly. For that reason just leave the torrent running for a few minutes, and you will get eventually an OK message from the tracker.


When do i need to reset my passkey (torrent_pass)?

  • If your passkey has been leeched and other user(s) uses it to download torrents using your account. In this case, you will see torrents stated in your account that you are not leeching or seeding .
  • When your clients hangs up or your connection is terminated without pressing the stop button of your client. In this case, in your account you will see that you are still leeching/seeding the torrents even that your client has been closed. Normally these "ghost peers" will be cleaned automatically within 30 minutes, but if you want to resume your downloads and the tracker denied that due to the fact that you "already are downloading the same torrents - Connection limit error" then you should reset your passkey and redownload the torrent, then resume it.


Please pay attention: Every time that you reset your passkey, you must redownload every single torrent that you are downloading or seeding at the same time. Or else the tracker will respond to you with a nice "Unregistered Torrent Pass " error. Also please take in mind that the tracker reads the changes in the torrent_pass every few minutes. So if you reset your passkey (or it is the first time you download anything) you will propably get a "Unregistered Torrent Pass" error. Just leave the torrent running for 1-2 minutes and eventually the tracker will respond you "OK" ;)


I received a warning for Hit 'n Run. What is this?

We expect from every user (power user or not) to help newly added torrents to reach a good seeding/leeching ratio quickly in order to help the torrent during the first hours of its "life".

All torrents must be seeded to a minimum 0.6 ratio,we understand this isnt always possible so a ratio of 0.4 is acceptable in this case, or torrent must be left open seeding for minimum of 60 hours. If its a popular torrent with plenty of leechers then there is no reason why it cant be fully seeded to a 1.1 ratio. If you close your client before you reach a torrent ratio of 0.4 or if you havent reached it (in case of slow upload connections) and close your client before seeding it for the first 24 hours, you will result in getting a automated warning by the System. As soon as you get the warning, you will have the chance to remove it, by correcting your mistake and seeding the torrent to a minimum of 0.4. If you do this in the next 60 hours, your warning will be removed completely.

In case you receive 5 warnings without reseeding your torrents to remove them, your account is automatically banned by the system.


Why do i get the tracker error : "Abnormal downloaded or uploaded data detected, announce dropped"

Unfortunately it seems, that a few Israeli ISPs (mostly GOLDEN LINES), are intensionally altering the announces to our tracker of their clients, announcing to our tracker false stats (over 8.000.000 TB of upload and download) in order for these users to be probably banned (and save some bandwidth). The tracker detects these false announces and rejects them with the error message: Abnormal downloaded or uploaded data detected, announce dropped. If you received this error, then your ISP is trying to use the same method of faking announces. Unfortunately although all normal announces are counted normally to the user's uploaded and downloaded data, since the ISP is altering announces originally sent by the user's client (which our tracker rejects) some downloaded or uploaded data may not be announced to our tracker, but there is really nothing that we can do to prevent this.

How can I improve my download speed? - Top


Do not immediately jump on new torrents

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:

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.)


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. Just make sure that your overall upload speed is set to 75% of your maximum upload speed and your overall download speed is set to 90% of your maximum download speed. You mayl 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? - Top


Maybe my address is blacklisted?

If you cant open the site at all, or you receive an Access Denied Page, then propably your ip is blocked. Please contact a member of the staff in our irc channel (#tlhelp at irc.torrentleech.org) to help you or put a ticket in our friendly Support Center


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.)
There's nothing we can do. You should contact your ISP (or get a new one). Note that you can still visit the site via a proxy, follow the instructions in the relevant section. In this case it doesn't matter if the proxy is anonymous or not, or which port it listens to.

Notice that you will always be listed as an "unconnectable" client because the tracker will be unable to check that you're capable of accepting incoming connections.

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