Streaming freezes even when file data is downloaded

[genseric]

hello again,
When i run by index it starts to download other files inside the torrent. after some time it starts to download the file that it should start but the other files that i m not interested are created inside the folder with whole sizes. and the file i want to stream sometimes stops downloading and i see other files being downloaded.
an example is like this, some animation files inside a torrent, i choose to stream one of the smallest files. The run by index starts creating the files i do not want watch. after a few minutes my file gets some bytes and starts to stream to vlc, but streaming is not healty even if i have a good speed. after 5mins i checked and i saw 200 mbs of downloaded data but my 30mb movie file is not complete.

maybe it s an expected behavior, i don't know.
i run the latest(.9) under osx.

thanks,

[feross]

Right. The --index option is just sets the referenced file to be highest priority (and opens it in VLC/chromecast/etc. if that option is passed). It doesn't prevent the other files in the torrent from being downloaded.

Downloading bits of unrelated files is unavoidable. When requesting the pieces for a certain file, bits of the preceding and succeeding files will be downloaded too, because they're included in the pieces we need. Files cross piece boundaries and parts of multiple files can be included in the same piece.

But, I've noticed the streaming stuttering issue as well. It seems like even when a file is fully downloaded, sometimes the data isn't emitted to the stream for a really long time. There's a bug here somewhere.

[genseric]

then there's only the streaming issue. the other part is just the expected behavior.

[feross]

I'm planning to take a very close look at this issue soon (end of the month, or early January) to get to the bottom of the bug where the stream freezes for no reason. Thanks for your patience.

[astro]

Anecdotal observation: it seems that complete pieces are not always verified.

[feross]

The fix here #272 (webtorrent@0.27.2) should resolve this issue.

[westmark]

@feross I am still experiencing intermittent freezes while downloading torrents (v 0.30.0). Only using magnet links, so unsure if that has any bearing on the problem. So far all torrents have stalled around 60-80% downloaded. I'm trying to investigate as best I can - is there anything special I can do to produce more info?

I'm running WebTorrent in a NW app. When the freeze occurs I have tried to hit pause in the dev console, but that will invariably crash the entire app. Also the crashDumpDir has been disabled in the current version of NW so no luck there either.

[westmark]

Update: While the freezes still do occur, given enough time (1-2 minutes) they will eventually resolve themselves. I've been doing some profiling, but nothing conclusive yet.

[feross]

Darn. I'll re-open this issue.

[feross]

I haven't seen this issue in a while. Closing.