You will not be able to view posts other than stickies in forums until you read the FAQ's

Please also check the Spec FAQ.


Welcome to Cinematik.net!


Our mission is to provide cinephiles of classic, independent, rare and outlandish films a friendly location to discuss and share their own interests with current members of this ever-growing community.

We are a private community, so in order to be granted access to the site you will need to Register and Login first. Please take a moment to familiarize yourself with the User Agreement, Rules and this FAQ before registering.

Hope to see you inside!


Contents


Site information


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?

Cinematik is situated on a dedicated server in Sweden. Our monthly costs are about $80


Where can I get a copy of the source code?

Tbsource, Google it. We do not provide support on this!


Legal & Contact Information

Legal


What do the Category Icons mean?

Click Here


User information

Why am I unable to view the forums?

Cinematik will not tolerate ignorance. We require all new users to read the FAQ's and all stickies in the forum before making a post. If a user makes duplicate posts repeatedly he/she will be warned. You will get only one warning! If you understand and have read the FAQ's and stickies then click here to view the forums.


I registered an account but did not receive the confirmation e-mail!

First of all, check your spam/junk boxes. If you still can't find it, contact the person who invited you and ask them to recover their invite. Please note that if the confirmation email didn't arrive the first time, it probably won't arrive the second time either. GMail seems to always work.


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?

We do not rename accounts, sorry.


Can you delete my (confirmed) account?

You can do it yourself by using this form.


So, what's MY ratio?

Click on your settings, then on your username, or you can click Profile in the Cinematik menu.
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 only takes into account the values for a single torrent.
You may see two symbols instead of a number: "Inf.", which is just an abbreviation for Infinite, and means that you have downloaded 0 bytes while uploading a non-zero amount (ul/dl becomes infinity); "---", which should be read as "not 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 moderators can view your IP address and e-mail. Regular users do not see that information... Moderators use this information to ban you from the website if you mis-behave, so be nice! :)


Help! I cannot login!? (a.k.a. Login of Death)

This problem sometimes occurs with Microsoft Internet Explorer. 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.


My IP address is dynamic. How do I stay logged in?

Since we are using the Passkey system, you don't need to worry about this. A passkey is your personal password/code attached to the .torrent file, which is also why you should not share your personal .torrent file with anyone or upload it anywhere else.

Why am I listed as not connectable? (And why should I care?)

The tracker has determined that you are firewalled or NAT'ed 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.

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?

  User   The default class of new members.
  Power User   Has more download slots and also receives other perks available only to Power Users and higher.
  Donor Star   Has donated money to Cinematik.net.
  VIP   Same privileges as Power User and is considered an Elite Member of Cinematik.net. Immune to automatic demotion.
  Other   Customised title.
  Moderator   Can edit and delete any uploaded torrents. Can also moderate user comments, forums, warn and disable accounts.
  Administrator   Can do just about anything.
  SysOp   Site god.


How does this promotion thing work anyway?

  Power User   Must have been a member for at least 4 weeks, have uploaded at least 25GB and have a ratio at or above 1.05.
The promotion is automatic when these conditions are met. Note that you will be automatically demoted from
this status if your ratio drops below 0.95 at any time.
  Donor Star   Just donate, and send a SysOp - and only a SysOp - the details.
  VIP   Assigned by mods at their discretion to users they feel contribute something special to the site.
(Anyone begging for VIP status will be automatically disqualified.)
  Other   Conferred by mods at their discretion (not available to Users or Power Users).
  Uploader   Appointed by Admins/SysOp. Special class for those users with bigger than average "pipes".
  Moderator   Don't ask us, we'll ask you!


Can my friend become a member?

You will need to send him/her an invitation to join the site. If you do not already have an invite to give, you may ask for one in the forum topic in the Site Announcements. Otherwise, tell them to idle in the IRC channel and ask for one there.


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 ImageShack. All that is left to do is copy the URL you were given when you uploaded it into the avatar field in your settings.
Please do not make a post just to test your avatar. If everything is alright you'll see it in your profile.



Stats


Most common reason for stats not updating

  • The user is cheating. (a.k.a. "Summary Ban")
  • The server is overloaded and unresponsive. Just try to keep the session open until the server responds again. (Flooding the server with consecutive manual updates is not recommended.)
  • You are using a faulty client. If you want to use an experimental or CVS version you do it at your own risk.

Best practices

  • If a torrent you are currently leeching/seeding is not listed on your profile, just wait or force a manual update.
  • Make sure you exit your client properly and that you are connected to the internet when you do so.
  • If the tracker is down, do not stop seeding. As long as the tracker is back up before you exit the client the stats should update properly.

May I use any BitTorrent client?

Yes. The tracker now updates the stats correctly for all BitTorrent clients. However, we recommend the following clients:

• µTorrent,
• Azureus,
• BitTornado.

Also, 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 (e.g. pc crash, or frozen client) your client exits improperly 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 some tracker timeout. 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, notably TorrentStorm and Nova Torrent, do not report properly to the tracker when cancelling 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.


Multiple IPs (Can I login from different computers?)

Yes, the tracker is now capable of following sessions from different IPs for the same user thanks to the Passkey mod.


For those of you who are interested...

Some info about the "Anatomy of a torrent session".


Uploading


Can I upload your torrents to other trackers?

No. We are a closed, limited-membership community. Only registered users can use the tracker. Posting our torrents on other trackers is useless, since most people who attempt to download them will be unable to connect with us. This generates a lot of frustration and bad-will against us, and therefore it will not be tolerated.
Complaints from other sites' administrative staff about our torrents being posted on their sites will result in the banning of the users responsible.


Downloading


How do I use the files I've downloaded?

Check out this guide.


Why did an active torrent suddenly disappear?

There may two reasons for this:
(1) The torrent may have been out-of-sync with the site Rules.
(2) The uploader may have deleted it because it was a bad release. A replacement will probably 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 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 "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.

Cinematik 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 includes, but is not necessarily limited to, the following:

Direct Connect
411 - 413
Kazaa
1214
eDonkey
4662
Gnutella
6346 - 6347
BitTorrent
6881 - 6889

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. See the Why am I listed as not connectable?  section and links therein for more information on this.


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 supports FAT - or NT/2000/XP with FAT formatted hard drives. NTFS is much more robust and should never permit this problem.)


How can I improve my download speed?


The download speed mostly depends on the seeder-to-leecher ratio. Poor download speed is mainly a problem with new and very popular torrents where the seeder-to-leecher ratio is low.

(Proselytising sidenote: make sure you remember that you did not enjoy the low speed. Seed so that others will not endure the same.)

There are a couple of things that you can try at your end to improve your speed:


Jump on the Movie of the Week and the Golden Torrents.

These are "free", as in no download amount is counted but all uploaded data is counted so they can only affect your ratio positively.


Make yourself connectable

See the Why am I listed as not connectable?  section.


Limit your upload speed

The upload speed affects the download speed in essentially two ways:
  • BitTorrent peers tend to favour those other peers that upload to them. This means that if A and B are leeching the same torrent and A is sending data to B at high speed then B will try to reciprocate. So due to this effect high upload speeds lead to high download speeds.
  • Due to the way TCP works, when A is downloading something from B it has to keep telling B that it received the data sent to him. (These are called acknowledgements - ACKs -, a sort of "got it!" messages). If A fails to do this then B will stop sending data and wait. If A is uploading at full speed there may be no bandwidth left for the ACKs and they will be delayed. So due to this effect excessively high upload speeds lead to low download speeds.
The full effect is a combination of the two. The upload should be kept as high as possible while allowing the ACKs to get through without delay. A good thumb rule is keeping the upload at about 80% of the theoretical upload speed. You will have to fine tune yours to find out what works best for you. (Remember that keeping the upload high has the additional benefit of helping with your ratio.)

If you are running more than one instance of a client it is the overall upload speed that you must take into account. Some clients (e.g. Azureus) limit global upload speed, others do it on a per torrent basis. Know your client. The same applies if you are using your connection for anything else (e.g. browsing or ftp), always think of the overall upload speed.


Limit the number of simultaneous connections

Some operating systems (like Windows 9x) do not deal well with a large number of connections, and may even crash. Also some home routers (particularly when running NAT and/or firewall with stateful inspection services) tend to become slow or crash when having to deal with too many connections. There are no fixed values for this, you may try 60 or 100 and experiment with the value. Note that these numbers are additive, if you have two instances of a client running the numbers add up.


Limit the number of simultaneous uploads

Isn't this the same as above? No. Connections limit the number of peers your client is talking to and/or downloading from. Uploads limit the number of peers your client is actually uploading to. The ideal number is typically much lower than the number of connections, and highly dependent on your (physical) connection.


Just give it some time

As explained above peers favour other peers that upload to them. When you start leeching a new torrent you have nothing to offer to other peers and they will tend to ignore you. This makes the starts slow, in particular if, by change, the peers you are connected to include few or no seeders. The download speed should increase as soon as you have some pieces to share.


Why is my browsing so slow while leeching?

Your download speed is always finite. If you are a peer in a fast torrent it will almost certainly saturate your download bandwidth, and your browsing will suffer. Try limiting the download speed in your client to about 90% of your maximum.
Browsing was used just as an example, the same would apply to gaming, IMing, etc...


My ISP uses a transparent proxy. What should I do?


Caveat: This is a large and complex topic. It is not possible to cover all variations here.

Short reply: change to an ISP that does not force a proxy upon you. If you cannot or do not want to then read on.

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):

 Transparent   A transparent proxy is one that needs no configuration on the clients. It works by automatically redirecting all port 80 traffic to the proxy. (Sometimes used as synonymous for non-anonymous.)
 Explicit/Voluntary   Clients must configure their browsers to use them.
 Anonymous   The proxy sends no client identification to the server. (HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR header is not sent; the server does not see your IP.)
 Highly Anonymous   The proxy sends no client nor proxy identification to the server. (HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR, HTTP_VIA and HTTP_PROXY_CONNECTION headers are not sent; the server doesn't see your IP and doesn't even know you're using a proxy.)
 Public   (Self explanatory)

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 am I listed as not connectable even though I'm not NAT/Firewalled?

The Cinematik 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 http://cinematik.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:
  • Choose any public non-anonymous proxy that does not use port 80 (e.g. from this, this or this list).
  • Configure your computer to use that proxy. For Windows XP, do Start, Control Panel, Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings, Use a Proxy server, Advanced and type in the IP and port of your chosen proxy. Or from Internet Explorer use Tools, Internet Options, ...
  • (Facultative) Visit ProxyJudge. If you see an HTTP_X_FORWARDED_FOR in the list followed by your IP then everything should be ok, otherwise choose another proxy and try again.
  • Visit Cinematik.net - hopefully the tracker will now pick up your real IP (check your profile to make sure).

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 Cinematik.net. 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.


Why can't I connect? Is the site blocking me?


Your failure to connect may be due to several reasons.


Maybe my 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.


What if I can't find the answer to my problem here?


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:
  • Make sure your problem is not really in this FAQ. There's no point in posting just to be sent back here.
  • Before posting read the sticky topics (the ones at the top). Many times new information that still hasn't been incorporated in the FAQ can be found there.
  • Help us in helping you. Do not just say "it doesn't work!". Provide details so that we don't have to guess or waste time asking. What client do you use? What's your OS? What's your network setup? What's the exact error message you get, if any? What are the torrents you are having problems with? The more you tell the easiest it will be for us, and the more probable your post will get a reply.
  • And needless to say: be polite. Demanding help rarely works, asking for it usually does the trick.