On Sun, Oct 22, 2006 at 11:03:25AM +0100, Administrator wrote:

I'll admit I haven't investigated in detail the torrent mechanism, and so can't tell what will happen if the main torrent server changes the base files mid way through a torrent download. I do know what I was seeing. Torrent uploads & downloads were continuing and the files were unusable. The status of the files wasn't showing an error. The torrents were started about a week before the change, and I noticed the problem about a week afterwards.

Can you explain what would have been happening in the week when everything looked OK but wasn't?

Ok, if a torrent changes it's contents (with the exception of renaming only), the result is always a _new_ torrent, it does never change the old one. What does happen now depends on what the tracker is done: 1. If the tracker does still track the old torrent file nothing does change. Everybody that still has the old torrent file can still share and download the old image like before. 2. If the tracker does no longer track the old torrent, all seeders and downloaders can continue their work with all their peer connections they already have but it becomes unlikely that they will get new connections. Thus inlike you use some alternative technologies, the swarm is slowly dying. In no case does corruption occur from the protocol. Robert -- Robert Schiele Dipl.-Wirtsch.informatiker mailto:rschiele@gmail.com "Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur."