The BitTorrent Sync Problem

Adam Curry
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[Update June 24 2014]
  Well, it's worse than I thought. Apparently the 50 peer limit is PER SECRET key, not per peer connected.
  Clearly this is not meant to be used in the manner we are using it to disctribute the No Agenda Show. A pitty really
  Read the full response I received from BitTorrent regarding the issue by expanding this node
    Dear Adam,
    To answer your questions: if you have 50 peers connected via one secret, each of these 50 peers will not be able to have additional 50 peers connected via the same secret. In this case it's the secret itself that counts, not the device from which one gets it.
    For example: if you share the secret from your PC to PC1, PC2, and then PC2 shared this secret to PC3 and PC 4, you will have five PCs (yours included) in the share, regardless of how PC3 and PC4 got their secret.
    But if you share your secret to PC1 and PC2, and then each of them moves the content to another folder and shared the new secret with PC3 and PC4 and so on, then you will have your 50 peers, PC1 will have its 50 peers (connected via a new secret, not yours), PC2 will have its 50 peers (also, connected via a new secret, not yours).
    DHT helps to find all other peers connected to the share. From my example (first part) PC3 and PC4 learn about your PC and get connected to it. Disabling DHT doesn't mean that PC3 and PC4 won't connect to you and thus won't count. The will still connect to you - tracker server will help. Disabling tracker server is not an option since they will not be able to connect to the share at all.
  But there may be hope yet, apparently there is a new BTS alpha that they are looking to get volunteers for. Notice its for an 'Enterpirise' version of the software, and of course they didn't reach out to me to help.
[Update June 19 2014] There is now a discussion about this on the BitTorrent Forum. I'm sill not sure exactly what it means
[Original Post June 16 2014]
I received an email from the BitTorrent Sync support team this morning, and I learned something that may end our experiment of this alternate form of distribution:
Analyzing my debug logs made me think that the problem is caused by maximum number of peers allowed to connect is reached. This forced me to write to you in order to investigate this issue. The thing is that only 50 peers are allowed to be connected to one share. In other words, once you have created a secret and shared it with others, only 50 devices can get connected to it. I suppose you spread your podcast all over the world and it's popular with a lot of people. I receive reports from US, Australia and the rest of the world. So when some US clients close their devices (get disconnected), Australian people can connect and vice versa. Hope the situation is clear.
Unfortunately the situation is all too clear to me!
No wonder people have been having trouble connecting to the No Agenda BitTorrent Sync archive!
I just killed off my BTS server and restarted it, which apparently allows for the new clients to connect and sync, but obviosuly this is a non-starter for large media/large audience distribution.
And indeed, looking at my 'devices' tab, after the restart the maximum number of clients, namely 50, have no connected and are just sitting there, awaiting new content, but not allowing more peers to connect.
Whats worse, the BitTorrent branding of this BTSync product implies that opeers actually should stay connected in order to seed the network!
I have asked my contact if this 50 peer/client limitation is inherent to the system, or if there will be an upgrade path.
Regardless, if we can't get beyond any limitation, then sadly we will have to find other solutions.

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