Many years ago, when I first started using Tixati, I set up manual port forwarding in my router, and have been happily torrenting from trackers ever since. I thought I was set up to be open to incoming connections.

In the intervening time I have started using ProtonVPN on the host that runs Tixati. Once I actually looked at the DHT page, I realized my status was "Online - port blocked". It took only a little digging to realize that the VPN made my router forwarding rules useless, so I followed some guides to enable port forwarding in ProtonVPN and set the incoming port in Tixati to match the assigned port from Proton.

Now when I examine the DHT page I still see "Online - port blocked" most of the time. I see the desired "Online" briefly after I do any of:
-restart Tixati
- stop and start decentralized tracking in Tixati
- change the incoming port in Tixati to match ProtonVPN

Hoping for clues for something to try next. Other relevant infos:

- Tixati 3.42 64 bit x86 for Linux
- Ubuntu 24.04.2 LTS
- ProtonVPN Linux client 4.9.7
- UFW (uncomplicated firewall for Linux) disabled

Thanks!

Forward both TCP and UDP ports if that option is available at your VPN provider, and if it does not prohibit torrenting on some or all of its paid or free plans.

Thanks.

ProtonVPN supports torrenting on most of its servers, and I have confirmed that I'm using one that does.

There is no explicit option for separate TCP and UDP ports, but the setup guides for other BitTorrent clients found here:

https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding?srsltid=AfmBOoq4mmQgSD6MPi-pixyvEucSedJIIyVYF93b4NkjSovVhj7fwn5x

Strongly imply that both are forwarded.

portchecker.co, when run against the public IP of my VPN and the port forwarded to me, shows open when Tixati is running and closed when it is not. I know it isn't an authoritative tool, but given that it can detect Tixati, it should be a clue at least.

Heh.

I see zero mentions of TCP and UDP on that page. To me, that strongly implies that they deliberately use vague non-technical language. It is possible that not all of their data centres allow large amounts of UDP traffic, or their DDoS protection is not tweaked for that, or they block some non-torrent activity through protocols they don't like.

There's a recent Reddit post that mentions that UDP port is not forwarded when using GUI applications provided by the service. You need to use NAT-PMP tool for that with a general purpose VPN client and custom account name. Torrent clients also support NAT-PMP, but probably get puzzled by tiny 60 second lifetime, that's why they advise to use the tool. You can try it in Tixati, and check in logs whether NAT-PMP mapping is updated each minute.
https://protonvpn.com/support/port-forwarding-manual-setup/

You can also try to use static NAT port assignment option (that they call “Moderate NAT” — not making any specific technical statements again). It should work fine with regular NAT traversal with most (but not all) peers.

I stand corrected, thanks. My link only showed that several torrent clients accept both UDP and and TCP, no mention that ProtonVPN forwards them or not.

Still working my way through the possible options, and have a question in to Proton.

For future searchers: ProtonVPN, as of this writing, does not forward UDP. Confirmed by their tech support.