Is it ok if torrent has hashfails?
I'm downloading a very big torrent with uTorrent, and it currently has 4 hashfails (like Wasted: 20.0MB (4 hashfails)) - I don't know if the hashfails have already been re-downloaded or fixed. Is there anyway to see if it has been fixed? When I continue the torrent, it takes sometime to check, after done checking - it continues downloading, but the Info about hashfails still there - didn't reset to 0 - Is it suppose to reset to 0?
1 Answer
A "hash fail" means a block of data you downloaded was checked and the checksum (hash) of that block was incorrect, so it was discarded, and you wasted that time/bandwidth downloading that particular block. uTorrent, and all other torrent clients I am aware of, will just try again until it gets a good copy of that block. And no, it will not reset to zero but is just there for informational purposes.
Multiple issues can cause this... such as transmission errors, the seeder's source file is corrupt, hash information is incorrect, version differences from one seeder to another, and other various issues can cause hash failures as well.
Be aware that if this is not a legitimate file, meaning it is copyright material or other illegal download not intended for free distribution, there is a group called antiP2P.org that purposely seeds corrupt versions of torrent downloads specifically designed to interrupt, corrupt, or fail your download, and hashfail is often the result you see. This can be very problematic if you are downloading a large or poorly seeded torrent. Although it may not be the case here, here is an article talking about it for reference.
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