Problem pointing downloaded or imported torrents to existing data

[Muzak]

I'm having a very frustrating time with qBittorrent trying to seed content that I've previously downloaded.

Scenario 1: Download a new copy of the .torrent file from the tracker.  When the Add Torrent dialog appears I change the "Save As" location to point at the folder where the data lives, ie g:\tv\GilligansIsland\season01\GilligansIslandS01E05-Blah\ and check the box "Skip Hash Check".  The torrent loads into qBittorrent and says "Seeding" as expected.  As soon as someone tries to connect and get data from me, the torrent changes to "Stall", no data is sent.  If I try to "Force Recheck"  it shows 0%, if I try "Open Destination Folder" the folder that opens is not the folder shown in "Save path", but the temp folder for newly downloaded torrents.  No matter what I try I can't get qBittorrent to point at the existing data.  If I don't check the "Skip Hash Check" box the torrent goes straight to "downloading" and tries to download the torrent to the designated temp torrent.

Scenario 2: Re-use the .torrent file created by uTorrent.  I've tried both the "Add Torrent" and the "Import Existing Torrent"  The **only** way I've gotten this to work is to move the data folder to the temp download folder before importing the torrent and then "forcing" it to move it to the "completed" folder after a recheck.  I have several hundred torrents and having to move them back off the raid array, onto the download drive and then try to convince qBittorrent to move the files back to the raid array is just not feasible.

There has to be a way for users to quickly, easily and safely redownload or import existing .torrent files and point them to existing data.

The current versions of uTorrent are horrendously bad software and I'm searching very hard to find a replacement client that I can recommend to other members on the private trackers I frequent. 

The UI is window dressing (pun intended), it's not as "pretty" as uTorrent, but if the issues above were solved this would be a great alternative.  I've tried several other clients and Deluge runs a close 3rd place, only due to it's extremely primitive windows UI.  The others had various disadvantages or were just not mature enough to be considered.

Thanks for any suggestions.

[loki]

I "think" you have to point it to the folder directly above the one you are currently selecting as the path to files.

[Muzak]

Thank you, I've tried pointing at the folder where the data resides and at the folder above.  Force Recheck fails in both cases.

For example m:\music\The Band With No Name\1977 - Nameless\

If I remove the torrent from qBit and redownload it and point it directly to "the Band with No Name" I get a file not found error for the track files.  I have to point at the "1977 - nameless" folder, but as soon as a downloader hits it switches to "stalled".

Hmmm, In trying this again, even if I point to the correct folder I get a brief error message of "file not found" but the message shows that the path was not respected, it's pointing to the temp folder on the download dirve. ie H:\downloads\torrent_parts\ folder instead of the raid drive.

In some (about half) cases pointing 2 folders up (ie h:\music) solved the issue, but for the rest I'm still unable to figure out how to make this work.  For some, no matter what folder I point at it can't find it.  If the folder structure is g:\group\album, I can't seem to get to work at all, tried pointing to g:\, g:\group and g:\group\album, none seem to work.

[Muzak]

For those that don't work, if I hit "Open Destination Folder" it will open up the folder for incomplete downloads (ie h:\downloads\torrent_parts\<album name>)  If I copy the data files from the album folder to the download folder and then "Force Recheck" it finds the data.  I can then use the "Set Location" option and it will copy the data to the correct folder and seed it.  This isn't feasible for the number of torrents I'm trying to migrate from uTorrent.  There's something subtly disconnected in the setting of the data location and there's not enough information displayed to determine the issue...  I can't figure out the difference between .torrents that hook up correctly and ones that do not.

[sledgehammer_999]

Unfortunately this is a known problem. Generally speaking the "keep incomplete torrents in:" seems broken in many cases.
I suppose if you disable it everything will work fine.
Fortunately another user some days ago proposed this patch: https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/pull/1573
Although not elegant, I am going to merge it for 3.1.10. I will do a proper fix for 3.2.x though later.

[Muzak]

Thank you for the information.  I'm trying out qBit as a generally recommended replacement for uTorrent when people ask me.  I'll wait to see how the 3.1.10 handles this issue and look forward to the hopeful full patch on the 3.2 branch.

[Mfunn]

Exactly same problem here as OP, except I probably dont have quite the same amount of torrents from uTorrent to swap
it would be great if we are able to re-seed torrents without the hassle of copying them back into newly downloaded files folder as said above,
since i have many uses for the newly downloaded files folder, i dont want it to be the same folder as finished files :/

Looking forward to the update 3.2.x then ! GL

[Muzak]

I've managed to determine a stable workaround for the issue for the time being. 

**** First!!!  Make sure you have unchecked the "Keep incomplete torrents in" checkbox.  The process below will work even with this box checked about 75% of the time, but I've lost all the data for a couple downloads when this was checked, so uncheck it.
1) Download, Import, Add torrent, however you do it, point the torrent to the previously downloaded data (remember you have to point one folder above your data folder)  and make sure the "Start Torrent" is unchecked and the "Skip hashcheck"  is checked.  You don't want qBit to do anything until it has added the torrent to the list.
2) Right click on the .torrent and select "Set Location".  It should already be pointing to the location, but do it again anyway.  In about 20% of the cases if I skipped this step qBit would not "remember" the data connection.
3) Right Click and select Force Recheck.  qBit should recheck and find 100% of the data.  If not, remove it from the list in qBit (don't delete data) and start over.
4) If the recheck is successful you can Resume the torrent.

This works with pretty much any torrent, unless I renamed the folder containing the data, for those you have to actually use a bencode editor to update the folder name in the .torrent file.  It can be done but it's a bit of a hassle.

[sledgehammer_999]

This works with pretty much any torrent, unless I renamed the folder containing the data, for those you have to actually use a bencode editor to update the folder name in the .torrent file.  It can be done but it's a bit of a hassle.

Or just add the torrent instead of importing it. Then in the dialog hit the button that expands it. Choose your desired settings and location and in the file-tree rename the top folder into your renamed one. Then add it and do the rest of your steps.

[Muzak]

thanks sledgehammer, I'll try that with the next one...