ruTorrent Common Errors and Possible Fixes
Updated over a week ago

ruTorrent may seem to encounter more errors than the other clients because of the vast functionality that it offers.

Although some of them appear to be technically overwhelming for an average user, here are the most common errors and their possible solutions:

Errors and Solutions

Problem getting response info – [Errno 2] No such file or directory: “C:\\Documents and Settings\…”

Internet Explorer sometimes doesn’t BitTorrent files (torrents) in the Temporary Internet Files directory properly.It seems to disproportionately affect files with brackets (‘]’ and ‘[‘ in the filename.

Right-click on the link and choose Save As…, and save the torrent file to disk, and then double-click the file to launch the client. Clearing the IE cache seems to help if this problem is recurring.

bad data from tracker or Bad Tracker Data

Another error message that typically means little. Usually,this is a problem when a tracker is overloaded. If the problem persists, you may want to look for another torrent, but typically patience and time will allow the problem to correct itself.

Problem connecting to tracker – timeout exceeded
Problem connecting to tracker – HTTP Error 503: Connect failed
Problem connecting to tracker – [Errno socket error] (10061, “Connection refused”
Problem connecting to tracker – (111, ‘Connection refused’

By the sheer demand of connections that a tracker gets, connection issues are unavoidable. The best solution for the above errors is to leave ruTorrent open. These type of errors get resolved by itself when connections stabilize.

Problem connecting to tracker – HTTP Error 400: Not Authorized

Unavailable torrent, probably very old and already removed

Problem connecting to tracker – HTTP Error 404: Not Found

Indicates a dead torrent

Problem connecting to tracker – HTTP Error 407: Proxy Authentication Required

Configure and verify your logins for your proxy server in order to establish a connection with your tracker

Connecting to peers

Maybe there are no users to connect to. Leave your torrent open and maybe the bittorrent client will connect (it may take some time).

(IOError – [Errno13] Permission denied)

rTorrent is already running, but a new instance is also initiated(probably thru SSH). This will attempt to download the same set of torrent files which is prohibited by your trackers. Restart your seedbox in case this happens.

Problem connecting with tracker – (10054,’Connection reset by peer’)

This occurs when an established connection is shut down for some reason by the remote computer, just ignore it.

Rejected by tracker – Port xxxx is blacklisted

Your client is reporting to the tracker that it uses one of the default bittorrent ports (6881-6889) or any other common p2p port for incoming connections.

The tracker in question does not allow clients to use ports commonly associated with p2p protocols. The reason for this is that it is a common practice for ISPs to throttle those ports (that is, limit the bandwidth, hence the speed).

Contact your tracker and ask for the blocked and ideal ports they recommend.

PHP module PCRE is not installed. ruTorrent will not work.

Obviously a php module is missing. In case you haven’t installed php modules yet, please submit a support ticket mentioning the error

Web server can’t access rTorrent’s session directory for read. ruTorrent will not work.


This is caused by permission errors on certain directories that the web server need to access. config files also need to be looked into.

If you are not familiar of rTorrent’s config files’ locations or are hesitant to make the changes, kindly open a support ticket and we will look into this for you.

rTorrent’s user can’t access settings directory for read/write/execute. ruTorrent will not work.
rTorrent’s user can’t access file ./test.sh for read/execute. ruTorrent will not work.
rTorrent’s user can’t access torrents directory for read/execute. You can’t add torrents through ruTorrent.
Web server can’t access settings directory for read/write/execute. ruTorrent can’t save own settings.
Web server can’t access torrents directory for read/write/execute. You can’t add torrents through ruTorrent.

This group of errors most likely relate to incorrect ruTorrent installation.

Say the archive has been unpacked not under a web server user account.

 Ususally it means rTorrent is terminated or has not been started. If despite this error is shown you can see the list of torrents in ruTorrent – there is something wrong in ruTorrent configuration file, as it mentioned in the error message.

rTorrent is compiled with incorrect version of xmlrpc-c library, without i8 support. Version must be >= 1.11. Some functionality will be unavailable.

Old versions of xmlrpc-c do not support long integers. So numbers greater than 2G will be shown as negative. And dialog window @Settings@ will not work properly. Note – it is not enough to have just the library xmlrpc-c vesion >=1.11 in the system. It is necessary to have rTorrent compiled with it.

xxx plugin: Plugin will not work. Web-server can’t access to external program (program name)

The default user running your rTorrent is user because running it as root isn’t ideal. Because of this, some programs that are needed for other plugins to work will also need to be installed and accessible by user. Open up a support ticket so we can install those required programs.

plugin: rTorrent’s user can’t access php interpreter. Plug-in will not work.

This error is very similar to the previous error however this is related to php running on the system. Note – if PHP is working in the system, it does not always mean that the interpreter exists in the system too. The package php-cli is necessary. Web-server may use e. g. php-fcgi which does not contain an interpreter. Again if you are not familiar with this, please reach out to us by opening a support ticket so we resolve this for you.

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