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

Read this guide

Do you accept donation?

Yes. You can donate by accessing this link. All money obtained from donations will go towards server maintenance.

Where can I get the source code?

You can't.

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

Check your spam folder.

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

Use this form to recover your login details.

Can you rename my username?

We do not rename accounts. You can use this form to delete your actual account and make a new one.

Can you delete my (confirmed) account?

You can use this form to do it yourself.

So, what's my ratio?

Your ratio is displayed in the status bar and in your personal details page and it's the division between your total upload and download amount (ratio = upload/download).
It's important to distinguish between your overall ratio and the individual ratio of each torrent you downloaded. 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:

1. "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)
2. "---", 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).

Why my IP, my e-mail address and other sensitive data are displayed on my details page?

Only you and the staff members can view these 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.
Same solution apply to other browsers as well.

I have a dynamic IP, how can i stay logged in?

The authentification process is made also by comparing your current ip with your previous one. That's why every time your ip changes you'll need to relogin. However, this will not affect your active torrents, the authentification beeing made via passkey withch will not change, regardeless of your IP.

Why am I listed as not connectable? (And why should I care?)

The tracker has determined that you are firewalled or NATed and 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 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 and how promotions are made?

Most common reason for stats not updating:

1. The user is cheating. (a.k.a. "Summary Ban").
2. 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.
3. You are using a faulty client. If you want to use an experimental or CVS version you do it at your own risk.

Best practices:

If a torrent that you're leeching/seeding is not listed in your profile, wait or try manual update. 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?

We recommend the following clients:
µTorrent
Azureus
BitComet
rTorrent
ktorrent
Deluge
Please read our forum for an actualized list of all accepted clients.

Why is a torrent I'm leeching/seeding listed several times in my profile?

If for some reason (e.g. pc crash, or frozen client) your client exits improperly and you restart it, it will have a new peer_id, so it will show as a new torrent. The old one will never receive a "event=completed" or "event=stopped" and will be listed until some tracker timeout. Just ignore it, it will eventually go away.

I've finished or cancelled a torrent. Why is it still listed in my profile as leeching?

Those torrents are called Ghost-torrents. If this happen, the tracker will keep waiting for some message - and thus listing the torrent as seeding or leeching - until some timeout occurs. Just ignore it, it will eventually go away.
Please note that µTorrent and possibly other clients will fail to send "event=completed" to tracker if you partialy downloaded a torrent (eg: you selected for download only 100 of 700MB). In this case the torrent will appear as leeching even if your client reports 100%.

Why do I see torrents that I don't leech in my profile?

Someone stole your passkey. Contact staff.

Can I login from different IPs?

Yes, the tracker is able to track diffrent IPs form the same user. A torrent is associated with the user via passkey, in this case the ip beeing irrelevant.

How does NAT/ICS change the picture?

This is a very particular case in that all computers in the LAN will appear to the outside world as having the same IP. We must distinguish between two cases:

1. You are the single user in the LAN.
   You should use the same account in all the computers.
   Note also that in the ICS case it is preferable to run the BitTorrent client on the ICS gateway. Clients running on the other computers will be unconnectable (their ports will be listed as "---", as explained elsewhere in the FAQ) unless you specify the appropriate services in your ICS configuration (a good explanation of how to do this for Windows XP can be found here). In the NAT case you should configure different ranges for clients on different computers and create appropriate NAT rules in the router. (Details vary widely from router to router and are outside the scope of this FAQ. Check your router documentation and/or support forum.)
2. There are multiple SceneTorrents users in the LAN.
   Because each torrent is associated to the user via passkey, this should not be a problem concerning torrents. The problems may occur when an user of the same network (with the same IP) is repeatingly breaking the rules of this site. In some cases an IP ban may be applied, affecting you too. In some extreme cases the entire IP class may be banned.

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 meet the following criteria:

1. Must know how to create a torrent file.
2. Have at least 10MBit(1.25 MB/s) upload bandwith.
3. Have access to 0-day sources.
4. Have pretime less than 6 hours on 0-day releases.
5. Must be able to seed at least 10 hours a day or untill 5 active seeders.

If you have an upload bandwith greater than 10mbs we'll offer you access to 0-day sources. If you think you can match these criteria do not hesitate to use contact us.
Remember! Write your application carefully! Be sure to include your UL speed and what kind of stuff you're planning to upload. Only well written letters with serious intent will be considered.

Can I upload your torrents to other trackers?

No. We are a closed, limited-membership community. Only registered users can use the this 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, and will therefore not be tolerated.
Complaints from other sites' administrative staff about our torrents being posted on their sites will result in the banning of the users responsible.

How do I use the files I've downloaded?

Check out this guide.

I downloaded some broken archives. What can I do?

Some clients, like µTorrent, are checking the downloaded pieces on the fly (as they are downloaded). In this case it's unlikely to end up with broken files.
Others clients will check the downloaded data after the download is finished. In most cases this option is disabled (on larger torrents the hash check takes some time).
In either cases do a manual hash check. If this is a download problem the torrent will resume and download the missing pieces (sometimes only a few kb).
If the problem still persists, post a comment and watch for a solution. Usually a fix will be uploaded.
You can also use the included .sfv file and see witch file is corrupt.

What are these "a piece has failed an hash check" messages?

Some 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.

I copied a movie and not know what CAM/TS/TC/SCR means?

Read 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 considered dead (0 seeders, 0 leechers = 0 peers) are deleted autmaticaly after 7 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.

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 download ammount.

Why do I get a "Not authorized (xx h) - READ THE FAQ?" 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 is a penalty applied to in some cases for breaking the rules.

Why do I get a "rejected by tracker - Port xxxx is blacklisted" error?

Your client reports that the tracker uses default port for bittorrent (6881-6889) or other port used by other p2p systems.
Blocked ports include, but are not limited to:

Direct Connect	411 - 413
Kazaa	1214
eDonkey	4662
Gnutella	6346 - 6347
BitTorrent	6881 - 6889

To use our tracker you must set the client to use any port except those mentioned above. Please note that some clients, like Azureus 2.0.7.0 use a single port for all torrents, while other clients use one port for each torrent.
These ports are used to connect to other users (peers), not to tracker. In this way the setting will affect the connection to other trackers (in fact should increase the transfer speed with any tracker, not only ours). Your client will be able to connect to other users other ports. If you have a client that does not allow setting a port specified by you, you must install a client which allows.
Finally, remember to make forward of firewall / router ports chosen.

What does the error "IOError - [Errno13] Permission denied"?

If you want to fix this error, reset the computer. If you want to understand and what happens, read on:
IOError means Input-Output Error, and error is a file system not a tracker error. Occurs when the client can not open the downloaded file partially. The most common reason is that running 2 clients simultaneously: the last time the client was closed, he remained in background and still uses the files making such impossible opening of the new client.
An unusual cause is a corrupted FAT. A locking system may lead to corruption of files copied. If running a ScanDisk (note that this only happens if you use Win 9x which supports only FAT or NT/2000/XP with FAT file system)

I get the "Not enough disk space" message when I try to download / unrar a file. I know I have enough space!

Usually this happends on FAT file systems. The FAT file system has a maximum file limit of 4 GB/file. Change to NTFS filesystem.
Please note that Windows 9x and ME does not support NTFS file system.

What does TTL means?

TTL stand for "Time To Live", and it represents the time until the torrent is deleted from the tracker. Please remeber that this is the maximum value, the torrent can be deleted at any time if it becomes dead or breaks the rules. TTL does not exists on BitShock v3b.

Do not immediately jump on new torrents

Download speed depends largely on the seeders-leechers relationship. Low speed is mainly a problem of new torrents. There are several methods you can try to improve this speed:

1. Do not immediately jump on new torrents.
2. 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 will affect your download speed in two ways:

1. 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.
2. 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 may have to use a third-party solution, such as NetLimiter.

What is a proxy?

Basically it is an intermediary. When navigating on a site by a proxy your requests are sent to the proxy and the proxy sends forth the site in place to connect directly to the site. There are several classification (the terminology is not standard):

Transparent	Transparent proxy doesn't need any configuration on the client side. It works by redirecting all http trafic (usually on port 80) through the proxy.
Explicit/Voluntary	The users must configure their browser in order to use them.
Anonymous	The proxy does'n send any information to the server (the server doesn't "see" your IP).
Highly Anonymous	The proxy will not send any information about you or itself (the server will not "see" any information about yourself and will not know that you are behind a proxy).
Public	Self explanatory.

Why am I listed as unconnectable although not using NAT / FIREWALL

Our tracker is smart enough to find your real ip but needs the proxy to send the HTTP header. If the proxy does not do so the tracker will interpret the proxy ip's as of you. So when you login and when the tracker tries to connect to your client to check if you are behind a firewall will actually try to connect to the proxy on the port your client reports. Logically, the proxy will not open the port, the connection will fail and the tracker will think you are behind a firewall.

Can I avoid using the proxy of my ISP?

If he allows the port 80 HTTP traffic or just block usual proxy ports will have to use something like socks and that is not included in the scope of this FAQ. The site accepts connections on port 443 and using it can be enough to fool some proxies. You can try the following: Choose any non-anonymous proxy that does not use port 80. Configure your system to use that proxy. For Windows XP -> Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings, Use a Proxy server, Advanced and move here the IP and port of the proxy, or Internet Explorer use Tools, Internet Options ... (Optional) Visit ProxyJudge. If you HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR in the list followed by your ip everything is ok, if not choose another proxy and try again.

How can I make my torrent client to use a proxy?

Just configure Windows XP in the way shown above. When configure a proxy in IE actually configure the proxy for all HTTP traffic (Thank Microsoft).

Why can not use register form behind a proxy?

Our policy is to not allow entries from behind a proxy!

Maybe my address is blacklisted?

The site blocks addresses listed in the (ex)PeerGuardian and also banned users. This works at Apache / PHP level and is just a script that blocks access to the site from those addresses. Should not block the access to very low levels. If you try a ping / traceroute and it still does not get answered, then the problem is different!

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.

You can try the following

Post in Forum, but should remember to keep the following :
Make sure your problem is not in this FAQ. No sense to write that message to be sent back here. Before you write a message read the "sticky" topics. Often you will find that solving problems that are not in the FAQ.
Help us to help you. Do not just write "Is not working!". Provide enough details not to be forced to guess or waste our time asking them. What client do you use? What operating system? You are in a network? What ISP? What is the error message? What is the torrent problem? On what page did you encoounter the error. Giving detalied info will allow us to give you a sollution much quicker. It is understood that you must be polite.