utorrent Hash: element not found

Question

Problem:

I keep getting Hash: Element not found errors.

Technical Details:

• uTorrent 3.2.3 (latest as of this writing)
  • Running about 30 Torrents (all downloading)
• Win 7 64 bit
• Dell N5050 :sigh:

Symptoms:

• Force recheck is disabled (sometimes)
• When I resume the torrent, as it halts when this happens, it proceeds smoothly until the next Hash: Element not found error
  • It doesn't happen at a particular %age

Solutions Attempted:

Searched online a lot to find a few below

1. Re-download elsewhere. Set download folder and change it and re-download the torrent. NO! DOESN'T WORK! and its FRUSTRATING that I'd to DELETE my 90% downloaded torrent!!
2. Good 'ol thump. Swear at the screen making heavy fist thumps and hand gestures. Surprisingly, this doesn't work!
3. Force recheck. Doesn't help and sometimes not available.
4. Disk I/O errors. Came across an article which said this might due to Disk I/O errors.
   • Realized I was using a DELL laptop
   • Realized HDD had failed on a previous DELL
   • Tried Solution #2 again. Same results.
   • Seemed like the most likely explanation to the problem, hence read articles about HDD checking and downloaded a few suggested softwares to check HDD Health
   • Interestingly, the HDD was a OK

None of these worked!

Answer 1

The working solution turned out to be pretty simple.

Check your Anti-Virus!

My antivirus was quietly quarantining a few suspected files.

Added those files to the exclusion list.

All is well again.

Answer 2

I was trying to download some large files to a network drive (Windows XP to Samba) and I was getting the same Element Not Found error.

In my case, enabling the disk cache has solved the issue. I had to uncheck the Disable Windows caching of disk writes and Disable Windows caching of disk reads options under uTorrent Options -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Disk Cache (this way enabling the cache).

Source: http://forum.utorrent.com/topic/34159-error-element-not-found/page-2#entry251137

I really think this question belongs to SuperUser though.

Answer 3

I got this error when my hard drive ran out of disk space, so I think it is related to some file / disk access issue, depending on where you are writing to