Just went to FAQ and searched for those terms and got "no matches," so I am wondering if I'm in the right place. Those terms (Port Forwarding and Static Address) are in the router manual, so it's hard to believe they don't show up in the FAQ.
My underlying problem is that, after many months of flawless, convenient operation, my uTorrent software now loads the 'magnets' (whatever they are - I don't understand the terminology or more than the most general outline of how P2P works) and they sit on 0%!
In an effort to troubleshoot this, I came across the concepts of 'static address' and 'port forwarding,' but not having much luck implementing either one on my MacBookPro with OS 10.5.8 using uTorrent 1.8.0 (latest for Mac), nor am I sure that is the problem with uTorrent, but the problem started after a number of restarts of the computer, and a visit from the ISP technician, who had to disconnect the cable to the house, so I thought it might have to do with being assigned a new address from the ISP, but I am not sure.
All of the explanations of this are TERRIBLE: confused, garbled and insufficiently clear about WHICH specific field on WHICH specific page of WHICH specific device to change to WHAT, and WHY.
I know a lot of that has to do with the fact that there are ranges of choice that can be made, which makes it all the more important to thoroughly understand the background theory.
Can someone help me with any one of the issues: a static address for the computer, port forwarding of the router or what to do in the 'connections' box in uTorrent? I understand they are all interrelated, but I am having trouble with exactly how. I'm 63, and only passingly familiar with computers. However, I can follow clear English!!
Forget about static addresses & port forwarding - you're looking in the wrong place.
Every computer attached to a network running the tcp/ip protocols needs to have an ip or internet protocol address, this can be assigned dynamically by what is known as a DHCP server (usually your router) or static (unchanging and manually entered) - the only reason to use a static address is so that the computer will always have the same ip address.
Port forwarding is a procedure required to allow unsolicited connection requests to connect to a computer on the "inside" of a router using NAT (or network address translation), which is a process that allows a single public ip address to be shared by many computers on a network (each of which will have it's own private ip address).
Now - I'm pretty certain that you're no better off having read these explanations - I suspect you lack the networking background to understand them - if you need to know how it works, find a good book on computer networking, maybe a study guide for COMPTIA's Network+ exam - but - as the first sentence of my reply indicates - neither one is the cause of your problem - torrent clients connect from the inside out, so static addresses & port forwarding are not required for them to work.
As a matter of fact, with most consumer routers, you should be able to run a torrent client with NO changes to the router configuration, as long as you can connect to the internet, your torrent client should function - it is possible to prevent torrent usage with a corporate firewall, but most consumer product will not allow that level of control.
My underlying problem is that, after many months of flawless, convenient operation, my uTorrent software now loads the 'magnets' (whatever they are - I don't understand the terminology or more than the most general outline of how P2P works) and they sit on 0%!
If you had same router and has worked on torrents then suspected to be either possible ISP blocking the torrents or something else.
Most app will able to use uPnP setting which are usually enabled at default on most router so should work
