Speed Test FAQ

Introduction

The Speed Test service can be used for the following:

• Determine the bit torrent protocol upload and download rates.
• Determine if your ISP is limiting the BitTorrent protocol and if a light encryption can get around it.
• Set the input parameters needed for the AutoSpeed beta.

Running

Start a Speed Test from the "Tool" menu item. It will be under the Advanced tab for version 3.0 users. The panel below will appear.

• Vuze speed test: from the drop down menu, select either an upload or a download test.
• Press to test with encryption: select either a standard unencrypted protocol, or use of light encryption.
• Click Run to start the test.

• The progress bar indicates how much of the test has been completed. It measures the median rate for 20 seconds once it has reached a peak. But if the test is taking too long, it will abort after 60 seconds.

• You can abort a test at any time once it starts.

• The text box at the bottom updates once per second with the measured rates, and displays any error messages if they occur.

• The Speed Test panel requires an upload test to be done first before advancing to the second panel. Plan on doing just an upload test, or doing both an upload and download test.

• After running desired tests, use the Next button to advance to the second panel.

The Second Panel:

Speed Test results are used by the AutoSpeed beta. The second panel allows you to accept the Speed Test results, or over-ride the setting with your own result.

• The bytes/sec column indicates the recommended values based on the speed test result.
• The bits/sec column displays what a US ISP would quote.
• The confidence level column allows you to set how confident you are in the settings. See Auto Speed Beta for a discussion of settings.
• You need to click Apply to make the settings active.

The Third (last) Panel:

This page indicates the settings used by the Vuze AutoSpeed. Click Finish when done.

How it works

When you click Run,

• the client contacts the auto-speed beta servers.
• the servers send a challenge to determine if the request is from Vuze client.
• the servers schedule a slot on a server. A slot should usually be available (scheduling could require up to 30 seconds).
• When a testing slot is scheduled, your client will send a test-id to the server and get back a torrent file for the test.
• The client at this point stops all running torrents, and limits anything which could interfere with the testing.
• Once the torrent is started it will take a few seconds to ramp up to full speed.
• After reaching the max speed for this network it will measure that speed for the next 20 seconds and use the median measured value as its result. Expect the result to vary by about 10% from the true value. The server also will limit all tests to 500 kbytes/sec to keep server side bandwidth reasonable.
• This result is then used an input to the second panel with gives recommended values for the AutoSpeed beta.

FAQ

Q: The ISP says my linespeed is 4.5 Mbits/sec, but Speed Test only measures 500 kbps?

A: The first thing to understand is that in the US, ISPs quote bits per second, but Vuze is measuring bytes per second. Multiply bytes per second by 8x to convert to bits per second. The second thing to consider is the Speed Test servers limit all tests to 500 kbytes/sec to keep the bandwidth use reasonable.

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Q: What if I see a higher speed running with encryption than without?

A: Some ISPs have limited the bit torrent protocol in the past. It is possible that you might be using one of them. The encryption used with SpeedTest is a light encryption, so even this test might still be limited. Please see this page if you think your ISP is limiting the bit torrent protocol.

ERRORS

Q: What if I see these errors (but everything else seems to be working)?

Test failed: Test aborted: Could not download from any of the peers as never unchoked by them

Test failed: Test aborted: Could not upload to any of the peers - insufficient upload slots?

A: Check if your ISP is on the bad ISP list. Try using the encrypted test.