Memory leaking (client using 2.4GB of RAM) #5408

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opened 2026-02-21 17:50:17 -05:00 by deekerman · 23 comments
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Originally created by @matt31 on GitHub (Apr 6, 2017).

As a long time qBittorrent user (over 4 years; #1426 is one of my requests, btw it's been 3 years and it had zero progress so far) I've never experienced such a problem with the client, it's been my favorite and only option since I dropped uTorrent very long ago. In the past few weeks I've been noticing a very high memory consumption, even with "nothing" running in the background, and by "nothing" I mean qbitorrent and a couple of GPU overclock software. My computer used to consume around 2GB to 3GB when casually browsing and seeding, but recently that consumption jumped to 5.5GB or 6GB! I was really worried that I'd have to buy another stick of RAM, because when I'd play some video game such as BF4 or Skyrim, the consumption would near the 8GB limit of my machine. So yesterday I left the task manager open and checked and closed every and each software running on my machine to see what was causing the high consumption, and to my surprise it was qBittorrent, and it was using nearly 2.5GB. Apparently to reproduce that I simply left it downloading and seeding at night, and in the morning it was already leaking again, using 2.4GB. Video showing the memory leak: https://youtu.be/I56a4SM3kH0

I'm running qBittorrent v3.3.11 x64, on Windows 10 x64 build 1607 (Anniversary Update).

Windows 10 10.0.14393

Originally created by @matt31 on GitHub (Apr 6, 2017). As a long time qBittorrent user (over 4 years; #1426 is one of my requests, btw it's been 3 years and it had zero progress so far) I've never experienced such a problem with the client, it's been my favorite and only option since I dropped uTorrent very long ago. In the past few weeks I've been noticing a very high memory consumption, even with "nothing" running in the background, and by "nothing" I mean qbitorrent and a couple of GPU overclock software. My computer used to consume around 2GB to 3GB when casually browsing and seeding, but recently that consumption jumped to 5.5GB or 6GB! I was really worried that I'd have to buy another stick of RAM, because when I'd play some video game such as BF4 or Skyrim, the consumption would near the 8GB limit of my machine. So yesterday I left the task manager open and checked and closed every and each software running on my machine to see what was causing the high consumption, and to my surprise it was qBittorrent, and it was using nearly 2.5GB. Apparently to reproduce that I simply left it downloading and seeding at night, and in the morning it was already leaking again, using 2.4GB. Video showing the memory leak: https://youtu.be/I56a4SM3kH0 I'm running qBittorrent v3.3.11 x64, on Windows 10 x64 build 1607 (Anniversary Update). Windows 10 10.0.14393
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@zeule commented on GitHub (Apr 6, 2017):

Could you show numbers from Resource monitor, please?

@zeule commented on GitHub (Apr 6, 2017): Could you show numbers from Resource monitor, please?
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 6, 2017):

Sure. I just got home so my computer was off, but in the morning I'll post a screenshot of the resource monitor if the leak happens again. Thanks!

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 6, 2017): Sure. I just got home so my computer was off, but in the morning I'll post a screenshot of the resource monitor if the leak happens again. Thanks!
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@thalieht commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

Try disabling OS Cache in advanced settings. There is a long discussion about the same issue (probably) in #5804 if you want more info.
IIRC it's a windows problem and some newer libtorrent version tries to tackle the problem (but also removes the option to disable OS cache for unrelated reasons).

@thalieht commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): Try disabling OS Cache in advanced settings. There is a long discussion about the same issue (probably) in #5804 if you want more info. IIRC it's a windows problem and some newer libtorrent version tries to tackle the problem (but also removes the option to disable OS cache for unrelated reasons).
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

1
2

Here are the screenshots from resource monitor, it doesn't say much. The leak did happen again as I expected, but it doesn't show in either the task manager or the resource monitor.

@thalieht Well, that seems to be exactly the same problem I'm facing, I'll try to disable OS Cache in the settings and report back if it worked. Thanks!

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): ![1](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/6638991/24798832/89c18f6c-1b6e-11e7-8b18-524291a3508e.jpg) ![2](https://cloud.githubusercontent.com/assets/6638991/24798833/89c466d8-1b6e-11e7-8215-8e3522a69094.jpg) Here are the screenshots from resource monitor, it doesn't say much. The leak did happen again as I expected, but it doesn't show in either the task manager or the resource monitor. @thalieht Well, that seems to be exactly the same problem I'm facing, I'll try to disable OS Cache in the settings and report back if it worked. Thanks!
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

I have the same issue. You can read more about this here:
https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/issues/5804

Unfortunately there is no fix for it yet. Right now the half solution is to disable OS cache in Advanced settings just like @thalieht said. What's even worse is that they decided to remove this option in the future releases. I would rather they fixed it first before they remove it but I don't think it's gonna happen.

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): I have the same issue. You can read more about this here: https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/issues/5804 Unfortunately there is no fix for it yet. Right now the half solution is to disable OS cache in Advanced settings just like @thalieht said. What's even worse is that they decided to remove this option in the future releases. I would rather they fixed it first before they remove it but I don't think it's gonna happen.
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@zeule commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

Here are the screenshots from resource monitor, ...

Thanks you.

it doesn't say much.

Quite the opposite. It shows that this is not a memory leak, but, as @Misiek304 already pointed out, just cached memory. It would be a leak if program working set grows, but it does not (less than 83 MiB in your screenshot).

Offtopic: I simply do not understand you; why do you worry about cache size? It is read cache, can be discarded immediately when memory is required. Why do you want your memory to be free? The memory must work, and if there is no program data to fill it, let it work as the disk read cache. I'm trying to convince my Windows machine to cache data more aggressively (it leaves 50 GiB free and Fallout reloads all its data from the hard drive over and over). At the same time, Linux manager utilises all the available memory. For instance right now:

$ free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            31G         14G        1.2G        2.9G         15G         13G

Look, cache occupies half of my memory and is counted as "available".

@zeule commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): > Here are the screenshots from resource monitor, ... Thanks you. > it doesn't say much. Quite the opposite. It shows that this is not a memory leak, but, as @Misiek304 already pointed out, just cached memory. It would be a leak if program working set grows, but it does not (less than 83 MiB in your screenshot). Offtopic: I simply do not understand you; why do you worry about cache size? It is read cache, can be discarded immediately when memory is required. Why do you want your memory to be free? The memory must work, and if there is no program data to fill it, let it work as the disk read cache. I'm trying to convince my Windows machine to cache data more aggressively (it leaves 50 GiB free and Fallout reloads all its data from the hard drive over and over). At the same time, Linux manager utilises all the available memory. For instance right now: ``` $ free -h total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 31G 14G 1.2G 2.9G 15G 13G ``` Look, cache occupies half of my memory and is counted as "available".
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

@Misiek304 I just updated to 3.3.12 and the option is still there, but I think I'll be leaving the option checked since it's actually a good thing to have cached read memory as @evsh said.

@evsh Well, to simply put it, I didn't understand the subject at all. By logic I thought that a higher memory consumption would cause performance problems, what mostly worried me was gaming, and 8GB of RAM for gaming nowadays is obviously not that great, even so when I only had half of it available, but as it turns out that wouldn't impact performance at all since it was only cached memory and it would be freed as soon as the space was required. That's actually very good to know, and now I won't be worried about my memory being "wasted" (or so I thought). Thanks!

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): @Misiek304 I just updated to 3.3.12 and the option is still there, but I think I'll be leaving the option checked since it's actually a good thing to have cached read memory as @evsh said. @evsh Well, to simply put it, I didn't understand the subject at all. By logic I thought that a higher memory consumption would cause performance problems, what mostly worried me was gaming, and 8GB of RAM for gaming nowadays is obviously not that great, even so when I only had half of it available, but as it turns out that wouldn't impact performance at all since it was only cached memory and it would be freed as soon as the space was required. That's actually very good to know, and now I won't be worried about my memory being "wasted" (or so I thought). Thanks!
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

Offtopic: I simply do not understand you; why do you worry about cache size? It is read cache, can be discarded immediately when memory is required. Why do you want your memory to be free?

I don't know if you actually experienced the bug but here's my setup. I'm having a Windows 7 x64 laptop running 24/7 with qBittorrent running at all times. The laptop in question has only 4GB of RAM. I'm seeding around 300-400 torrents and Windows Cache is fulling the RAM as much as it can. When the RAM usage grows to about 70%-90%, Windows doesn't free up the Cache, it starts to put my running programs in SWAP and then it starts caching to SWAP. This is crazy. The whole laptops runs like Windows Vista with 512MB of RAM.

Don't you even dare to tell me the "free RAM is wasted RAM" bullshit cause when my laptop is at 90-something % of RAM usage the whole system works terribly. If Cache was freed up when needed to like you say it should then I wouldn't have to file a bug report and @arvidn wouldn't have to try to fix it.

I also get that this issue is only present on Windows but uTorrent, Transmission and Taxiti doesn't have this problem. Sorry but you can't minimize the importance of this problem just because the issue is not present in Linux or macOS. Windows is the most used system on desktops in the world. This should matter. The the present of this issue has been reported for years!

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): > Offtopic: I simply do not understand you; why do you worry about cache size? It is read cache, can be discarded immediately when memory is required. Why do you want your memory to be free? I don't know if you actually experienced the bug but here's my setup. I'm having a Windows 7 x64 laptop running 24/7 with qBittorrent running at all times. The laptop in question has only 4GB of RAM. I'm seeding around 300-400 torrents and Windows Cache is fulling the RAM as much as it can. When the RAM usage grows to about 70%-90%, Windows doesn't free up the Cache, it starts to put my running programs in SWAP and then it starts caching to SWAP. This is crazy. The whole laptops runs like Windows Vista with 512MB of RAM. Don't you even dare to tell me the "free RAM is wasted RAM" bullshit cause when my laptop is at 90-something % of RAM usage the whole system works terribly. If Cache was freed up when needed to like you say it should then I wouldn't have to file a bug report and @arvidn wouldn't have to try to fix it. I also get that this issue is only present on Windows but uTorrent, Transmission and Taxiti doesn't have this problem. Sorry but you can't minimize the importance of this problem just because the issue is not present in Linux or macOS. Windows is the most used system on desktops in the world. This should matter. The the present of this issue has been reported for years!
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

That's actually very good to know, and now I won't be worried about my memory being "wasted" (or so I thought). Thanks!

You should actually check this before you closed this issue. Wait until the RAM usage climbs to 6-7GB and try to play a RAM intensive game. See what happens.

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): > That's actually very good to know, and now I won't be worried about my memory being "wasted" (or so I thought). Thanks! You should actually check this before you closed this issue. Wait until the RAM usage climbs to 6-7GB and try to play a RAM intensive game. See what happens.
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

You should actually check this before you closed this issue. Wait until the RAM usage climbs to 6-7GB and try to play a RAM intensive game. See what happens.

@Misiek304 You're right, I didn't check to make sure if it would in fact impact the performance or not. And it actually did, that's why I opened this thread anyway, I was getting under 40 fps on Skyrim, something that never happened before my RAM was getting filled up. I'll be reopening the issue and leave it, even though I have a feeling it might be closed like #5804.
Anyway, qBittorrent has been going downhill for a long time now, sadly I guess it's time to move on, I understand this issue is not something recent, and simple features such as scheduling that I've requested (3 years ago!) #1426 is still on a "wishlist". I don't know why I've tried to make myself believe in this client, but to be honest that's enough, I'll be trying something else for a while, while still checking back on qbittorrent to see if it grows. Thanks for everyone's attention and help.

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): > You should actually check this before you closed this issue. Wait until the RAM usage climbs to 6-7GB and try to play a RAM intensive game. See what happens. @Misiek304 You're right, I didn't check to make sure if it would in fact impact the performance or not. And it actually did, that's why I opened this thread anyway, I was getting under 40 fps on Skyrim, something that never happened before my RAM was getting filled up. I'll be reopening the issue and leave it, even though I have a feeling it might be closed like #5804. Anyway, qBittorrent has been going downhill for a long time now, sadly I guess it's time to move on, I understand this issue is not something recent, and simple features such as scheduling that I've requested (3 years ago!) #1426 is still on a "wishlist". I don't know why I've tried to make myself believe in this client, but to be honest that's enough, I'll be trying something else for a while, while still checking back on qbittorrent to see if it grows. Thanks for everyone's attention and help.
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

@matt31 - I wonder what other client will you check next? I'm thinking about switching back to uTorrent but I'm trying hard not to. The ads are killing me. Taxiti is not liked on private trackers and Transmission doesn't have RSS features I use.

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): @matt31 - I wonder what other client will you check next? I'm thinking about switching back to uTorrent but I'm trying hard not to. The ads are killing me. Taxiti is not liked on private trackers and Transmission doesn't have RSS features I use.
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

@Misiek304 I'll be using to Deluge, it's actually what I used in a short while before fully migrating to qBittorrent after uTorrent got ridden with ads. I don't know if it's actually a good client, but I always see people saying good things about it. Other client I had thought of was Transmission, but I don't remember liking it very much when I tried it.

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): @Misiek304 I'll be using to Deluge, it's actually what I used in a short while before fully migrating to qBittorrent after uTorrent got ridden with ads. I don't know if it's actually a good client, but I always see people saying good things about it. Other client I had thought of was Transmission, but I don't remember liking it very much when I tried it.
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@zeule commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

@matt31, FYI Deluge uses the same libtorrent library as its backend as qBittorrent does. I.e. they can share the same workaround for Windows memory manager badness.

@zeule commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): @matt31, FYI Deluge uses the same libtorrent library as its backend as qBittorrent does. I.e. they can share the same workaround for Windows memory manager badness.
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

I myself tried Deluge on Windows and it was useless for me. I wasn't able to make it even run without crashing at startup. I have uTorrent 3.4.2 with disabled ads that I used before switching to qBittorrent. I think I might go back to it.

FYI Deluge uses the same libtorrent library as its backend as qBittorrent does. I.e. they can share the same workaround for Windows memory manager badness.

Like I said it didn't work for me either.... xD

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): I myself tried Deluge on Windows and it was useless for me. I wasn't able to make it even run without crashing at startup. I have uTorrent 3.4.2 with disabled ads that I used before switching to qBittorrent. I think I might go back to it. > FYI Deluge uses the same libtorrent library as its backend as qBittorrent does. I.e. they can share the same workaround for Windows memory manager badness. Like I said it didn't work for me either.... xD
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

@evsh Well, that's unfortunate. I remember liking it when I tried it, but that was some years ago.

@Misiek304 I can't stand uTorrent anymore, it gave me so much headache in the past that just reading its name makes me nervous.

It feels like there's nowhere to run then. I guess I'll be trying random clients for a while and settle with whatever is good enough.

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): @evsh Well, that's unfortunate. I remember liking it when I tried it, but that was some years ago. @Misiek304 I can't stand uTorrent anymore, it gave me so much headache in the past that just reading its name makes me nervous. It feels like there's nowhere to run then. I guess I'll be trying random clients for a while and settle with whatever is good enough.
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

It feels like there's nowhere to run then. I guess I'll be trying random clients for a while and settle with whatever is good enough.

I feel the same. There is no real alternative. qBittorrent was supposed to be an alternative to uTorrent but recently I feel like it's failing. Transmission is very bugged for Windows, uTorrent is evil, qBittorrent has some long-standing issues and other clients are probably not worth consideration.

BTW if caching is your only issue with qBittorrent you can just disable it in Advanced. I did this and my instance of qBt is working quite well. I'm on 3.3.10 but some people are sticking with 3.3.7. I probably won't be updating it though.

Hope this helps.

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): > It feels like there's nowhere to run then. I guess I'll be trying random clients for a while and settle with whatever is good enough. I feel the same. There is no real alternative. qBittorrent was supposed to be an alternative to uTorrent but recently I feel like it's failing. Transmission is very bugged for Windows, uTorrent is evil, qBittorrent has some long-standing issues and other clients are probably not worth consideration. BTW if caching is your only issue with qBittorrent you can just disable it in Advanced. I did this and my instance of qBt is working quite well. I'm on 3.3.10 but some people are sticking with 3.3.7. I probably won't be updating it though. Hope this helps.
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

@Misiek304 Yeah, I've already disabled caching as suggested above, but still, the lack of support and features really bugs me. And may I ask, why are people sticking with 3.3.7, or 3.3.10? Is it something to do with stability?

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): @Misiek304 Yeah, I've already disabled caching as suggested above, but still, the lack of support and features really bugs me. And may I ask, why are people sticking with 3.3.7, or 3.3.10? Is it something to do with stability?
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017):

From what I read 3.3.7 has a working option to download incomplete torrents to different directory and 3.3.10 is the last version that didn't have problems with stalling torrents and seeding/downloading in general. It's also the last version before WebUI improvements. WebUI in 3.3.11 is a lot slower. I heard that 3.3.12 should make WebUI faster but I haven't had the chance to check this out.

I think those are the main reasons.
I will stick with 3.3.10 for now. Nothing better out there anyway. I might go back to 3.3.7 at some point.
Like I said before I also have uTorrent at 3.4.2 with disabled all the ads and fixes for "disk overload". I might switch back to it but I would rather not.

I would appreciate if you'd update this issue with your experiences with other bittorrent clients.

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 7, 2017): From what I read 3.3.7 has a working option to download incomplete torrents to different directory and 3.3.10 is the last version that didn't have problems with stalling torrents and seeding/downloading in general. It's also the last version before WebUI improvements. WebUI in 3.3.11 is a lot slower. I heard that 3.3.12 should make WebUI faster but I haven't had the chance to check this out. I think those are the main reasons. I will stick with 3.3.10 for now. Nothing better out there anyway. I might go back to 3.3.7 at some point. Like I said before I also have uTorrent at 3.4.2 with disabled all the ads and fixes for "disk overload". I might switch back to it but I would rather not. I would appreciate if you'd update this issue with your experiences with other bittorrent clients.
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@zeule commented on GitHub (Apr 8, 2017):

Closing as duplicate of #5804.

@zeule commented on GitHub (Apr 8, 2017): Closing as duplicate of #5804.
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 9, 2017):

@Misiek304 By "download incomplete torrents to different directory" you mean move the files when they haven't finished downloading yet? Well, then I might downgrade as well because I use that a lot.

I would update the issue with my experiences, but as you've said, there's nothing better out there, I might actually try a couple of clients, but I'm pretty sure I'll be coming back to this unfortunately.

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 9, 2017): @Misiek304 By "download incomplete torrents to different directory" you mean move the files when they haven't finished downloading yet? Well, then I might downgrade as well because I use that a lot. I would update the issue with my experiences, but as you've said, there's nothing better out there, I might actually try a couple of clients, but I'm pretty sure I'll be coming back to this unfortunately.
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 9, 2017):

In newer version there is an option called "Store incomplete torrents in" or something like that, I use different language. Basically you set download path for incomplete torrents like: C:\Download\Temp and after finished download the files are moved to C:\Download. The problem with this is that after 3.3.4 (the information about 3.3.7 is false, I checked it) there is additional folder like C:\Download\Temp\dfb3232 and after the finished download the dfb3232 (different name for every torrent) is left there, it's not being deleted.

So if you download like 5 torrents per day, then after a month you will have 140 empty folders (5x28 days). Those folders are left there as a result of the bug. They should be deleted.

BTW. Do you mind checking this thread out? #5804
I'm unable to help out now but since you're going to be testing other torrents I though you may want to contribute and help with resolving the issue.

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 9, 2017): In newer version there is an option called "Store incomplete torrents in" or something like that, I use different language. Basically you set download path for incomplete torrents like: C:\Download\Temp and after finished download the files are moved to C:\Download. The problem with this is that after 3.3.4 (the information about 3.3.7 is false, I checked it) there is additional folder like C:\Download\Temp\dfb3232 and after the finished download the dfb3232 (different name for every torrent) is left there, it's not being deleted. So if you download like 5 torrents per day, then after a month you will have 140 empty folders (5x28 days). Those folders are left there as a result of the bug. They should be deleted. BTW. Do you mind checking this thread out? #5804 I'm unable to help out now but since you're going to be testing other torrents I though you may want to contribute and help with resolving the issue.
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@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 9, 2017):

Oh, I see now. I've never used that feature, so I never noticed that. But does it delete the files at least? Otherwise your HD could get filled up very quickly.

Yeah, I've checked the thread already, but I don't think I have any useful information to add to it. For me it's half-fixed already by disabling caching. So I'm not going to mess around with it anymore than that, simply because I have no knowledge about how this works, even less how to try and fix it. Don't get me wrong, I would be working on it already had I the competence to do so. BTW, if you need any help with anything, just tell me, and I'll do my best.

@matt31 commented on GitHub (Apr 9, 2017): Oh, I see now. I've never used that feature, so I never noticed that. But does it delete the files at least? Otherwise your HD could get filled up very quickly. Yeah, I've checked the thread already, but I don't think I have any useful information to add to it. For me it's half-fixed already by disabling caching. So I'm not going to mess around with it anymore than that, simply because I have no knowledge about how this works, even less how to try and fix it. Don't get me wrong, I would be working on it already had I the competence to do so. BTW, if you need any help with anything, just tell me, and I'll do my best.
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@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 10, 2017):

If you decided to switch to another torrent client you may want to consider Transmission 2.84, the unofficial Windows Client, not the one from the official website since it's trash. I have an install .exe if you won't be able to find it on your own. It seems pretty stable and working good.

@Misiek304 commented on GitHub (Apr 10, 2017): If you decided to switch to another torrent client you may want to consider Transmission 2.84, the unofficial Windows Client, not the one from the official website since it's trash. I have an install .exe if you won't be able to find it on your own. It seems pretty stable and working good.
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