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The site is entirely a hobby maintained in the free time of the staff. We are not here for profit.
This is a private site - users must to register before gaining full access. |
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What is this bittorrent all about anyway? How do I get the files? Check out Brian's BitTorrent FAQ and Guide. Where does the donated money go? MGM - MakeGreatMusic.net. All donated money goes directly back into the site for hardware/bandwidth upgrades - payments. The admins and moderators do not make a cent. Can I get a copy of the source code? Although in special situations we may release snippits of code, we are not releasing the codes to the public. Contact Josh (FlySkyHigh22) for more info. |
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Why didn't I receive a confirmation email? Check the junk mail folder in your email. If it is not there, do NOT create a second account. Join our IRC channel for help. Note: If you feel you have special circumstances where you need more than one account per household, then please let us know ahead of time and we may be convinced to make arrangements. How do I add an avatar to my profile? First, find an image that you like, and that is within the rules. Then you will have to find a place to host it, such as our own BitBucket. (Other popular choices are Photobucket, Upload-It! or ImageShack). All that is left to do is copy the URL you were given when uploading it to the avatar field in your profile. Please do not make a post just to test your avatar. If everything is allright you'll see it in your details page. Are there any kinds of user names that are not allowed? Any user names deemed by the Staff to be vulgar, obscene, or hurtful to others will be disabled without any notifications. The members of this site are considerate and mindful of others and expect new users to be also. I've lost my user name or password! Can you send it to me? Please use this form to have the login details mailed back to you. Can you rename my account? You could try your luck with one of the SysOps if you want, but you will need to have a good ratio and be an active member for this to even be looked into. Can you delete my (confirmed) account? PM an Admin or higher and state the reason you'd like your account deleted and we will consider the request. What is my ratio? Look at the top status bar where it says "ratio". It's important to distinguish between your overall ratio and the individual ratio on each torrent you may be seeding or leeching. 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: "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); "---", 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 is my IP displayed on my details page? Only you and the site staff can view your IP address and email. Regular users do not see this information. Why can't I log in? 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. You can also get help in our IRC channel live from the staffers!! My IP address is dynamic. How do I stay logged in? You do not have to anymore. All you have to do is make sure you are logged in with your actual IP when starting a torrent session. After that, even if the IP changes mid-session, the seeding or leeching will continue and the statistics will update without any problem. Can I login from different computers? Yes, the tracker is now capable of following sessions from different IPs for the same user. A torrent is associated with the user when it starts, and only at that moment is the IP relevant. So if you want to seed/leech from computer A and computer B with the same account you should access the site from computer A, start the torrent there, and then repeat both steps from computer B (not limited to two computers or to a single torrent on each, this is just the simplest example). You do not need to login again when closing the torrent. Why is my port number reported as "---"? (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 of a download. 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?
How does this promotion thing work anyway?
Why can't my friend become a member? There is a 5,000 user limit. When that number is reached, we stop accepting new members. Accounts inactive for more than 8 weeks old are automatically deleted, so keep trying. There is no reservation or queuing system. What are invites for and how do I use them? Because this site is private, you will need invitations to invite those you know and trust to join. However, trading invites will get you (and any one you invite) banned. Trading means posting MGM invites on any forum for free or asking for something in return. The sale of invites to this site is strictly forbidden and results in both the inviter and invitee losing their accounts. If you come across an auction from someone claiming to have permission to sell invitations to this site, please report this to staff. How do I earn invites? Invites are earned by trading in seed bonus points. What are Seed Bonus Points and what can I use them for? Seed Bonus points are earned when you seed a torrent that has no leechers. For every hour you are seeding to no one, you get 0.5 seed bonus points. Click on the Seed Bonus figure at the top left corner of the site, and it will bring you to a menu where you can choose to spend the points. 20 Seed Bonus Points = 3 Invitations. 75 Seed Bonus Points = 1GB upload credit. 150 Seed Bonus Points = 2.5GB upload credit. 250 Seed Bonus Points = 5GB upload credit. |
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What are the Ratio Requirements of MGM? There are two kinds of ratios: the ratio for each individual torrent one has downloaded, and the overall ratio. The ratio requirement for each individual torrent is 0.5 and the amount of time each individual torrent must be seeded is 72 hours - only one of these conditions needs to be met. If neither condition is met, it will be counted as a hit and run, and further action will be taken. If one downloads a torrent, completes it, and does not begin seeding within 6 hours, we have to assume that person does not intend to come back to seed, and this will also count as a hit and run. The overall ratio one should strive to maintain is 1.05, but we will not take action on ratios above 0.7. However, there are wait times in effect that correspond with a user's ratio. Further, any user dropping below a ratio of 0.3 will be warned, as well as download-disabled. This is more to help you get out of the hole you will have gotten yourself in if your ratio is this low. Updated 11/11/08 Why aren't my stats updating?
What can I do to ensure my stats update properly?
May I use any bittorrent client? Effective from 12th October 2008, the following torrent clients will be the only ones allowed: Multi-Platform Clients (Windows, Linux and Mac) Azureus v2.4.0.0 & v3.1.1.0 Vuze Note: Clients based on the libtorrent library need to be using the latest version. Older versions of the library cause problems. Also, some versions of vuze also cause problems on this tracker with upload and download being reported incorrectly. Windows Clients uTorrent - versions 1.6.1 or 1.7.7 Mac Clients Transmission (version 1.05+) rTorrent Linux Clients Transmission (version 1.05+) rTorrent kTorrent (version 2.1+) Deluge (version 0.4+) We also recommend that you download your client from the original client website so you don't get any client that might have been hacked. With these clients from other sources, even if you don't know you are cheating, or you don't intend to, it could look like you are to us and your account will be disabled. Clients in alpha or beta version should be avoided. Why is a torrent I'm leeching/seeding listed several times in my profile? If for some reason your client exits improperly (e.g. PC crash, or frozen client), 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 the tracker times out. Just ignore it, it will eventually go away. I've finished or cancelled a torrent. Why is it still listed in my profile? Some clients do not report properly to the tracker when canceling or finishing a torrent. In that case 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. Why do I sometimes see torrents I'm not leeching in my profile? When a torrent is first started, the tracker uses the IP to identify the user. Therefore the torrent will become associated with the user who last accessed the site from that IP. If you share your IP in some way (you are behind NAT/ICS, or using a proxy), and some of the persons you share it with are also users, you may occasionally see their torrents listed in your profile. If they start a torrent session from that IP and you were the last one to visit the site, the torrent will be associated with you. Please be aware that torrents listed in your profile will always count towards your total stats. 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 MGM user in the LAN You should use the same MGM account in all the computers. Note also that in the ICS case it is preferable to run the BT 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 MGM users in the LAN At present there is no way of making this setup always work properly with MGM. Each torrent will be associated with the user who last accessed the site from within the LAN before the torrent was started. Unless there is cooperation between the users mixing of statistics is possible. (User A accesses the site, downloads a .torrent file, but does not start the torrent immediately. Meanwhile, user B accesses the site. User A then starts the torrent. The torrent will count towards user B's statistics, not user A's.) It is your LAN, the responsibility is yours. Do not ask us to ban other users with the same IP, we will not do that. (Why should we ban him instead of you?) What happens exactly during a torrent session? Some info about the "Anatomy of a torrent session". |
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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? Fill out this questionnaire and send a PM to Conkers2005 with your answers. 1. Do you know how to create a torrent? 2. Have you ever uploaded torrent files on any site before? 3: Do you have DHT disabled? (Please note that DHT must be disabled in order for you to upload to MGM.) 4. What torrent client and version of that client do you use? 5. What do you have to offer for MGM? 6. What type of file format are not allowed to be uploaded to MGM.net? 7. Why is it important to add a good description to your uploads? 8. I understand that I have to keep seeding my torrents until there are at least two other seeders. Yes/No
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Why did an active torrent suddenly disappear? There are a few possible reasons for this: (1) The torrent may have been out-of-sync with the site rules. (2) The uploader may have deleted it. A replacement may or may not be uploaded to take its place. 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. What does "TTL" mean in the browse page? The torrent's Time To Live, in hours. It means the torrent will be deleted from the tracker after that many hours have elapsed (yes, even if it is still active). Note that this a maximum value, the torrent may be deleted at any time if it's inactive. What are these "A piece has failed a hash check" messages? 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. 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 downloads. 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 delay in downloading will only affect users with a low ratio, and users with low upload amounts.
"And/or" means any or both. Your delay will be the largest one for which you meet at least one condition. This applies to new users as well, so opening a new account will not help. Also - opening a new account is against site rules. Do so, and you will see your accounts disabled and get banned from the site. Note also that this works at tracker level, you will be able to grab the .torrent file itself at any time. N.B. Due to some users exploiting the 'no-delay-for-seeders' policy we had to change it. The delay now applies to both seeding and leeching. So if you are subject to a delay and get the files from some other source you will not be able to seed them until the delay has elapsed. Why do I get a "rejected by tracker - Port xxxx is blacklisted" error? 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. MGM 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). The blocked ports list include, but is not neccessarily limited to, the following:
In order to use use our tracker you must configure your client to use any port range that does not contain those ports (a range within the region 49152 through 65535 is preferable, cf. IANA). Notice that some clients, like Azureus 2.0.7.0 or higher, use a single port for all torrents, while most others use one port per open torrent. The size of the range you choose should take this into account (typically less than 10 ports wide. There is no benefit whatsoever in choosing a wide range, and there are possible security implications). These ports are used for connections between peers, not client to tracker. Therefore this change will not interfere with your ability to use other trackers (in fact it should increase your speed with torrents from any tracker, not just ours). Your client will also still be able to connect to peers that are using the standard ports. If your client does not allow custom ports to be used, you will have to switch to one that does. Do not ask us, or in the forums, which ports you should choose. The more random the choice is the harder it will be for ISPs to catch on to us and start limiting speeds on the ports we use. If we simply define another range ISPs will start throttling that range also. Finally, remember to forward the chosen ports in your router and/or open them in your firewall, should you have them. What's this "IOError - [Errno13] Permission denied" error? If you just want to fix it reboot your computer, it should solve the problem. Otherwise read on. IOError means Input-Output Error, and that is a file system error, not a tracker one. It shows up when your client is for some reason unable to open the partially downloaded torrent files. The most common cause is two instances of the client to be running simultaneously: the last time the client was closed it somehow didn't really close but kept running in the background, and is therefore still locking the files, making it impossible for the new instance to open them. A more uncommon occurrence is a corrupted FAT. A crash may result in corruption that makes the partially downloaded files unreadable, and the error ensues. Running scandisk should solve the problem. (Note that this may happen only if you're running Windows 9x - which only support FAT - or NT/2000/XP with FAT formatted hard drives. NTFS is much more robust and should never permit this problem.) How do I use the files I've downloaded? Check out this guide. |
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What is a proxy? Basically a middleman. When you are browsing a site through a proxy your requests are sent to the proxy and the proxy forwards them to the site instead of you connecting directly to the site. There are several classifications (the terminology is far from standard):
A transparent proxy may or may not be anonymous, and there are several levels of anonymity. How do I find out if I'm behind a (transparent/anonymous) proxy? Try ProxyJudge. It lists the HTTP headers that the server where it is running received from you. The relevant ones are HTTP_CLIENT_IP, HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR and REMOTE_ADDR. Why is my port listed as "---" even though I'm not NAT/Firewalled? The MGM tracker is quite smart at finding your real IP, but it does need the proxy to send the HTTP header HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR. If your ISP's proxy does not then what happens is that the tracker will interpret the proxy's IP address as the client's IP address. So when you login and the tracker tries to connect to your client to see if you are NAT/firewalled it will actually try to connect to the proxy on the port your client reports to be using for incoming connections. Naturally the proxy will not be listening on that port, the connection will fail and the tracker will think you are NAT/firewalled. Can I bypass my ISP's proxy? If your ISP only allows HTTP traffic through port 80 or blocks the usual proxy ports then you would need to use something like socks and that is outside the scope of this FAQ. The site accepts connections on port 81 besides the usual 80, and using them may be enough to fool some proxies. So the first thing to try should be connecting to www.MakeGreatMusic.net:81. Note that even if this works your bt client will still try to connect to port 80 unless you edit the announce url in the .torrent file. Otherwise you may try the following:
Notice that now you will be doing all your browsing through a public proxy, which are typically quite slow. Communications between peers do not use port 80 so their speed will not be affected by this, and should be better than when you were "unconnectable". How do I make my bittorrent client use a proxy? Just configure Windows XP as above. When you configure a proxy for Internet Explorer you're actually configuring a proxy for all HTTP traffic (thank Microsoft and their "IE as part of the OS policy" ). On the other hand if you use another browser (Opera/Mozilla/Firefox) and configure a proxy there you'll be configuring a proxy just for that browser. We don't know of any BT client that allows a proxy to be specified explicitly. Why can't I signup from behind a proxy? It is our policy not to allow new accounts to be opened from behind a proxy. Does this apply to other torrent sites? This section was written for MGM, a closed, port 80 tracker. Other trackers may be open or closed, and many listen on e.g. ports 6868 or 6969. The above does not necessarily apply to other trackers. |
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Your address is blacklisted The site blocks addresses listed in the (former) PeerGuardian database, as well as addresses of banned users. This works at Apache/PHP level, it's just a script that blocks logins from those addresses. It should not stop you from reaching the site. In particular it does not block lower level protocols, you should be able to ping/traceroute the server even if your address is blacklisted. If you cannot then the reason for the problem lies elsewhere. If somehow your address is indeed blocked in the PG database do not contact us about it, it is not our policy to open ad hoc exceptions. You should clear your IP with the database maintainers instead. 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. Notice that you will always be listed as an "unconnectable" client because the tracker will be unable to check that you're capable of accepting incoming connections. Alternate port (81) Some of our torrents use ports other than the usual HTTP port 80. This may cause problems for some users, for instance those behind some firewall or proxy configurations. You can easily solve this by editing the .torrent file yourself with any torrent editor, e.g. MakeTorrent, and replacing the announce url MakeGreatMusic.net:81 with MakeGreatMusic.net:80 or just MakeGreatMusic.net. Editing the .torrent with Notepad is not recommended. It may look like a text file, but it is in fact a bencoded file. If for some reason you must use a plain text editor, change the announce url to MakeGreatMusic.net:80, not MakeGreatMusic.net. (If you're thinking about changing the number before the announce url instead, you know too much to be reading this.) |
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Try these suggestions Post in the Forums, by all means. You'll find they are usually a friendly and helpful place, provided you follow a few basic guidelines:
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