Something wrong with token balance


Windows 7.3.2 version. Torrent checker disabled.
As the first picture shows, ratio is pretty high. But the token balance is still minus. I check the trust statistics, and as the second picture shows, I’m not giving anything to anybody. How is this happening? Why is my ‘given to community’ is 0 MByte while I’m constantly uploading?
I would like to know how I can fix it.
Thank you very much!

I’ve noticed the same in the most recent versions. I’ve mentioned it here, but I’m not sure if it has been picked up by any of the developers. They haven’t responded yet.

By just letting Tribler run (while exclusively uploading), I’m loosing 100’s of MB’s a day. Although that currently doesn’t result in anything other than a decreasing balance, bugs like this would be disincentivizing sharing when the token balance would be coupled to download speed. This would hinder wider adoption of the program.

I think if You are using Anonymous downloading You are “paing” more for every MByte. In Your’s case You should dubble the Bytes taken as You are using 1 hoop. According to my calculations the balance should be -20 GB.

In my case, I’m solely uploading. Anonymous uploading (altruistic behaviour) should be encouraged for the concept of Tribler’s token balance to work.

If uploading to non-Tribler users puts too much of a strain on the network, e.g. due to the reliance on exit nodes, would it be possible to limit or disable this outgoing traffic?

First post, so let me say that I think Tribler is a fantastic idea that I fully support, especially the anonymous part. The world is getting a darker place and we need programs like this.

Also thanks to the developers for their efforts.

That said, I’ve tried this program over the years and always went back to other options as it still doesn’t work fine, especially now that you have to have your ratios right if you want to download something.

The downloading itself, the search and the speed have improved tremendously compared to a few years back.

On topic: Yep, I’ve got the same issue. Windows 7.3.2 latest hotfix release. Downloaded about 7 GB in 3 files total. Then left the system running for many days and the result is a growing negative token balance of 23 GB as of now. Given to community is about 2.7 GB.

Token mining upload is 4.4 GB, 270 MB download.

The above makes me a selfish user according to the trust graph. Seems you can never win with this system :-(.

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@limjdsn @LesVerres @Borgall @Democracy
Let me try to explain so it becomes a bit clear. In general, you pay with tokens for anonymity either it is anonymous downloading or seeding. For anonymous downloading, it is probably clear that you pay for the download bandwidth. For anonymous/hidden seeding, you create the anonymous circuits to the exit nodes and pay the nodes involved in the circuit for the anonymity. It is always you who will pay for maintaining your end of anonymity whoever the downloader is. Incase the downloader is an another Tribler user, then the token cost for the whole circuit will be paid by the downloader in which case you gain token equal to the amount you seeded. In the other case, if the downloader is non-Tribler user, then you do not receive any tokens instead lose tokens for maintaining your end of anonymity circuit for hidden seeding. This is the likely the reason for your negative balance. In the recent version, no significant changes has been made in hidden seeding mechanism. However, some work is already done to prevent hidden seeding to non-Tribler user thus fixing this negative balance issue but it will take sometime to get it fully ready.

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I have used Tribler for over a year now. I like everything about it except for the, in my mind, broken way that it deals with uploads. Aside from one day when I was shocked to discover a positive balance, I have always lost tokens, even when only uploading.

The explanations for this aside, if gaining credits is impossible (as it seems to be in almost every situation) and, in fact, if uploading almost always loses you credits, then, no matter the intentions, the credit system is broken.

I have given up on ever gaining any tokens for uploads. I routinely delete my trustchain database in order to reset it back to 0 again. This does not mean that all I do is download; I am routinely uploading, but it makes no difference.

In my mind, the only way to fix the broken mechanism is to only allow Tribler to upload to other Tribler users. I can think of no reason that I should be paying for the anonymity of uploads.

I’m glad to hear that work is being done on this. I look forward to it being fully fixed at some point.

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I totally agree with jasonb. I understand how the system should work, but it’s impossible to gain a positive balance. Therefore this system does not work. All I have done is download 3 files. My balance keeps growing in the negative, even though credit mining is allowed where I uploaded 19GB against 413MB download. But even that does nothing to stop the negative balance growing.

If you create a download system based on sharing the resources of your system for others, you should be rewarded for it. I have now had the system running for days on end and I only see my balance grow in the negative. That means that I will get more and more problems downloading stuff in the future.

You should rethink the system cause this will not make this client popular.

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@S.Pan-TUDelft what is the status of this work you mention? I am a new user using 7.4.4. Should I be able to disable anonymized uploads to non-Tribler users? Currently I am only seeding, but my credit is taking a dive in the negative. I am not sure how this tool can be useful to me in its current state. Please explain how to fix this.

Never mind, answering my own question :slight_smile:

This post mentions it should be fixed in 7.5.0 (which was released as rc1 now 5 days ago)