Edit: I had to enable port forwarding. I didn’t realize it was required.
Note: for some reason strikethrough isn’t working (otherwise, I’d apply it to the original question. Also, not sure if I should delete this post now that it is working, or leave it up in case other people have the same issue.
Does anyone know why qbittorrent would be showing 0 seeders if a tracker shows that there are several?
I am using Proton VPN and qbittorrent. The torrent file is from teamos [dot] xyz.
ProtonVPN settings:
- Split tunneling enabled > Include mode > added app: qbittorrent
- Connected to the Netherlands (Wireguard UDP)
qbitttorrent settings:
- Network Interface set to ProtonVPN
Thank you
-
My guess is tracker is outdated
Also sometimes they juice up their numbers to appear more popular
I guess the tracker can see the seeders, but your client can’t connect to them maybe?
Yeah my first guess was lack of port forwarding. If neither you, nor the other people are port forwarded then you can’t establish the connection.
I’m curious if the torrent protocol could be updated to allow a Tailscale style NAT traversal so port forwarding wouldn’t even be needed. That would be a game changer, but would probably add wayyyyy too much overhead for the tracker to manage.
I had to enable port fowarding, thank you.
On top of other comments, some trackers suck at clearing out ghost seeds.
Pretty sure that is just a discrepancy between when a site has last checked client announcements from the tracker and when what the tracker currently shows. As of 2025, TPB for example links to 3.2 million torrents. Assuming client announcements were set to an average 1hr interval, that would require TPB to make 76.8 million checks every day for announcement updates.
So, I could see sites not maintaining accurate seeder/leecher data.
Split tunneling for an app that wants to bind to the VPN interface? Are you sure that’s right?
What do you mean? Is that not correct? Is it where I have to choose between one or the other?
What is split tunneling in proton VPN?
you can tell the VPN what you want to include/exclude:
Exclude mode: Selected apps and IP addresses are excluded from VPN connection, Include mode: Only selected apps and IP addresses connect via VPN, all other traffic is unprotected.
Ohhh I read it backwards.
Do you have port forwarding enabled? You might not be able to connect to the peers for the reason they don’t have an incoming port. They could also be fake peers as some trackers do that.
There we go! I had to enable port forwarding (didn’t know that was required). Thank you.
Yep :3
It took me a while to learn this but: peer to peer connections aren’t magic. You either need at least one open port for each connection, or a relay. Some things use UPNP for the further, turnservers are compatible with the latter. Signal for examples use both, with an option to always relay calls (only the turnsurver)
