Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

 · Jan 2, 2006, 03:42 PM

I'm having some major issues with the official bit torrent client for OS X - basically whenever I try to cap the upload speed of a torrent all torrents go to 0 down and 0 up. It's made me search for a new torrent client, and it seems that they're few and far between on the mac. I know all about Tomato Torrent (multiple windows suck) and Azureus (bloated beyond use). What I'd really like to see is something like uTorrent - something that takes up little to no memory.

Anyone know of anything like that for the mac?

dazzla · Jan 2, 2006, 03:48 PM

I like Transmission.

http://transmission.m0k.org/

wataru · Jan 2, 2006, 04:29 PM

Azureus is not bloated beyond use. I use it successfully all the time.

Apfhex · Jan 2, 2006, 04:53 PM

Azureus is bloated to the point of usefulness if you ask me, though the GUI is a bit slow.

If you search the forum I think there have been plenty of discussions about BT clients.

esXXI · Jan 2, 2006, 05:21 PM

Transmission is pretty neat, Azureus feels like a horrible bloated port. What version of the official client are you using?

(Glad you like my Apple icon by the way.

)

 · Jan 2, 2006, 05:23 PM

Transmission looks very cool, I'm going to give it a shot. I was using 4.2.0, but when I upgraded to the beta I had problems running the program. I erased all the preferences and went back to 4.2.0, and that's when I had the problems with the upload cap.

Sarc · Jan 2, 2006, 05:41 PM

Transmission, although promising, is way underpowered compared to Azureus.
Hopefully the 1.0 release will catch up.

 · Jan 2, 2006, 06:17 PM

Originally Posted by Sarc

Transmission, although promising, is way underpowered compared to Azureus.
Hopefully the 1.0 release will catch up.

It also probably wont take up 1/10th the memory Azureus needs.

ghettochild · Jan 2, 2006, 06:21 PM

transmission. azureus is too much of a resource hog. heard some good things about bits on wheels..

osxrules · Jan 2, 2006, 07:36 PM

Azureus gets the vote IMO. I found it used to be bloated and the GUI was horribly unresponsive but I read Apple have fixed a bug in Java that made things run really slow. Under 10.4.3, it's more responsive. I won't go overboard with that because it's still sluggish like all Java apps under OS X but I value the stability.

Azureus is so stable - not one crash in over 3 years since I started using it and over 300GB downloaded. Also, I can set download/upload caps on a file selection and it shares the cap between the files. I can also choose to download particular files in a torrent so say there is a torrent with 50 folders and just 1 that I want, I can finish in a fraction of the time.

 · Jan 2, 2006, 08:08 PM

Transmission is working great! Thanks for the advice.

Sarc · Jan 3, 2006, 03:36 PM

I'll gladly give transmission another shot when it supports the Decentralized Tracking db, and get cache'd writes to the hard drive.

warfarer · Jan 7, 2006, 01:24 AM

I am using bits on wheels and hvae gotten a couple things off it tonight. It is taking up about 30.5 megs of ram and 2% cpu downloading two items.

nbn22385 · Jan 7, 2006, 04:03 AM

^Bits on wheels has worked best for me also.

CaptainHaddock · Jan 8, 2006, 01:42 AM

Transmission looks like it's worth a shot.

I've used Bits-on-Wheels, but it can't connect to nearly as many peers as Azureus. I've no idea why, but I'll get 5 kB/sec with B-o-W and 100 kB/sec in Azureus with the same torrent.

TorrentStation's another new one. Feature-wise, as good or better than Azureus, and a nice Cocoa app. The main problem, though, is that it crashes at least once an hour, so there's not much point in using it.

MacMan4000 · Jan 10, 2006, 10:20 PM

I was happily using Azureus for the past few months, until I updated to 10.4.4 today and now it wont open

It just bounces once then disappears from the dock.

Any suggestions?

Thinine · Jan 10, 2006, 11:04 PM

Works fine for me. Do have the latest version?

wataru · Jan 10, 2006, 11:09 PM

Works fine for me too.

MacMan4000 · 12:13 AM

Originally Posted by Thinine

Works fine for me. Do have the latest version?

yeah. i even tried re-installing it.

A few weeks ago I tried to install Virtual PC 7 and it crashed ans burned durring install... causing this same problem of Azureus not opening... the only solution I found was to un-install VPC then archive & re-install OSX... then destroy my VPC install disks and vow never again to expose my beloved Mac to the virus that is Windows.

I really dont want to re-install again... it required me reinstalling a bunch of prefpanes as well. (mostly unsanity haxies that were killed during the re-install) and it was a real pain... lots of prefs were cleared as well.

I was hoping it wasn't just me

EDIIT: I have switched to using Transmission... for anyone else looking for a place to download it from (the developers site seems to be gone) check here for nightly builds.

Thinine · Jan 11, 2006, 12:14 AM

Make sure you have the Java 1.5 that came out a few weeks ago installed. And make sure the 1.5 JVM is selected in your Java preferences app, even though Azureus should use it automatically. Are there any log messages?

MacMan4000 · Jan 11, 2006, 12:22 AM

Originally Posted by Thinine

Make sure you have the Java 1.5 that came out a few weeks ago installed. And make sure the 1.5 JVM is selected in your Java preferences app, even though Azureus should use it automatically. Are there any log messages?

I tried installing the latest Java release I could find online (found in the right column here) and it told me the version currently installed on my computer was newer than that and refused to run the installer.

as for the java prefs... iv never messed with em, i dont even know where to find em to be honest.

wataru · Jan 11, 2006, 12:41 AM

This is the latest Java. The Java prefs app is at /Applications/Utilities/Java/J2SE 5.0/Java Preferences.

MacMan4000 · Jan 11, 2006, 12:49 AM

Originally Posted by wataru

This is the latest Java. The Java prefs app is at /Applications/Utilities/Java/J2SE 5.0/Java Preferences.

yeah, the page i linked too goes to that page when you click download...

OwlBoy · Jan 11, 2006, 09:39 AM

Transmission's website is dead.

-Owl

MacMan4000 · Jan 11, 2006, 06:08 PM

Originally Posted by OwlBoy

Transmission's website is dead.

-Owl

Pay attention

Originally Posted by MacMan4000

yeah. i even tried re-installing it.

A few weeks ago I tried to install Virtual PC 7 and it crashed ans burned durring install... causing this same problem of Azureus not opening... the only solution I found was to un-install VPC then archive & re-install OSX... then destroy my VPC install disks and vow never again to expose my beloved Mac to the virus that is Windows.

I really dont want to re-install again... it required me reinstalling a bunch of prefpanes as well. (mostly unsanity haxies that were killed during the re-install) and it was a real pain... lots of prefs were cleared as well.

I was hoping it wasn't just me

EDIT: I have switched to using Transmission... for anyone else looking for a place to download it from (the developers site seems to be gone) check here for nightly builds.

Silky Voice of The Gorn · Jan 11, 2006, 06:26 PM

Bits on Wheels is the best client, hands down.
http://www.bitsonwheels.com/

MacMan4000 · Jan 16, 2006, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by MacMan4000

I was happily using Azureus for the past few months, until I updated to 10.4.4 today and now it wont open

It just bounces once then disappears from the dock.

Any suggestions?

Turns out its a Java problem after all... to fix it I followed these directions on MacOSXHints.com
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...50426014905678

notoriousformula · Mar 11, 2006, 08:46 PM

I wish utorrent supported mac os X

.. its the best Torrent client for Windows right now.. I dumped Azureues for it!

http://www.utorrent.com/

simonfraser · Mar 11, 2006, 09:30 PM

Originally Posted by MacMan4000

Turns out its a Java problem after all... to fix it I followed these directions on MacOSXHints.com
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...50426014905678

I could not locate the page in the above hints--can you help?

sushiism · Mar 12, 2006, 10:58 AM

THe BOW interface looks like a car crash, and the 3D element of their diagram makes it harder to read than a plain 2D one would be.

I'm a fan of tomato, nice icon and the torrent windows are decent (not a fan of the start panel, very un-mac like) but I just hide it once they're going anyway.
Transmission looks nice though

elrah · Mar 12, 2006, 12:14 PM

Does any client, other than Azureus, allow you to choose which files to download from a torrent?

kitcho · Mar 13, 2006, 03:00 AM

Originally Posted by CaptainHaddock

Transmission looks like it's worth a shot.

I've used Bits-on-Wheels, but it can't connect to nearly as many peers as Azureus. I've no idea why, but I'll get 5 kB/sec with B-o-W and 100 kB/sec in Azureus with the same torrent.
.

same thing happens to me... software issue? settings issue?

help

Macanoid · Mar 13, 2006, 07:00 AM

I'm just using Acquisition. Did try the others, but prefer this.

Philip J. Fry · Mar 13, 2006, 10:20 AM

Originally Posted by Macanoid

I'm just using Acquisition. Did try the others, but prefer this.

Same here.

Spliff · Mar 13, 2006, 05:34 PM

Tomato Torrent.

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/14258

CaptainHaddock · Mar 14, 2006, 10:13 AM

Originally Posted by kitcho

same thing happens to me... software issue? settings issue?

help

I suspect Azureus is better at making connections through firewalls, since Bits-on-Wheels works fine for some people, but poorly for me, and I've always had a network with a hardware router.