Task Scheduler does not work. Help?

[Capt Spaz]

Hey guys,

Recently, we have found that we are reaching our cap limit on our internet too quickly, as I've been downloading a bunch of things using a torrent program (BitTorrent). So, to fix this, I've decided to only download large files during the off-peak period, where we have an additional amount to use.

As I wasn't too keen about staying up till Midnight to turn it on, and get up at 8 to turn it off, I decided to use the Task Scheduler program to do it for me. This is how I did it:

Start BitTorrent - At 12:00am, Start program - Bittorrent (Simple enough)

Close BitTorrent - At 8:00am, Start a .bat file I created to terminate the bittorrent.exe process. (Couldn't be bothered figuring out another way to do it =P)

Now, this is where it gets retarded. To test if this would work, I changed the trigger time to something in the near future (5 minutes away) and separated them by about 30, to see if they would indeed start and stop BitTorrent at the designated time.

The first time comes along, nothing happens. BitTorrent doesn't start.
The second time comes along, the .bat file does not run. Even if BitTorrent isn't running, I should still see the cmd window pop up briefly and attempt to carry out its task.

Now, when I bring back up the Task Scheduler window, it has the nerve to tell me that it successfully carried out these simple tasks at the time I set for them, when obviously it didn't.

So, How can I fix this?!

Cheers

Capt S

[Hux]

Easy, first don't use BitTorrent, its highly inferior. Change over to something like UTorrent which is small, very stable, very simple. Then just enable its inbuilt task scheduler, which by the way can also limit the upload/download speeds during certain hours of the day, not just whether its on or off. This means you could set it to download during the day but only at like 20kbps or something so it chews bugger all data. It will work with all of your torrents you are getting now and it is free as well. I normally dont tell people to change their software just to fix something but in this case its defiantly your best option by far.

http://www.utorrent.com/

[Capt Spaz]

Omfg I hate myself.

Just checked the Preferences for BitTorrent since you mentioned an In-Program scheduler in uTorrent.

BitTorrent has one.

Kill me now.

Thanks for that mate =) Much appreciated!

Delete plz. lol

[Hux]

Lol I didnt even think to check that myself. I have only ever used BitTorrent once and that was way back in the day so it didnt have anything like that back then.

Still recommend the change to uTorrent though. Have a look, see what you think.

[Parasyte]

Hux is wearing his new sig proudly XD

[Capt Spaz]

Lol I would Hux, but it's taken me a LONG time to get torrents working (god...don't even ask), and this is the first program , by fluke, I've gotten to work, so I'm sticking with it purely for that reason =P Thanks for the suggestion though mate.

[Hux]

Im gonna say its taken you so long as you use a bad program lol. No I understand that, fair enough. When your a little more competent however look into it, its very basic to set-up and use, yet can be customised for anything the more you learn. The main trick with any torrent program is to set the port correctly, what ever port you use needs to be forwarded through any routers/firewalls you have correctly otherwise you will always get bad speeds. For any help with that you cant go past www.portforward.com which will walk you step by step through most programs/routers/firewalls to port forward almost anything. Worth a look.

[Jader7777]

I guess that's why he calls himself Capt Spaz. XD

[Capt Spaz]

I'm fairly tech savvy, so I know how to use torrent programs. The actual problem I've had is an unusually tempermental router which won't forward ports properly, then one day, out of the blue, it worked!

So, it's not that I can't do it, it's that it won't do it lol. From your info, uTorrent sounds pretty decent, so if I can figure out how my router thinks, I'll switch to that :)

[TSPhoenix]

Want to hear something deliciously ironic?

BitTorrent = uTorrent

[piem@n]

Originally Posted by TSPhoenix

Want to hear something deliciously ironic?

BitTorrent = uTorrent

As in BitTorrent disappeared and became uTorrent... pretty much.

[Hux]

Ah good damn it! As stated above I havent used Bitorrent since way back in the day. Right, next time I shall research more before posting lol.

[Gookanheimer]

Heh, sounds a whole lot like my experience with torrents :P

Except I'm usually awake at midnight to start it off, then I set Task Scheduler to shut down the entire computer at 8 in the morning. Except sometimes it doesn't work, for whatever reason. I think it's because sitting inactive for a while, it goes into whatever powersave mode it has, and then can't wake itself up from that and ends up stuck. Just remembered that I also switch off powersave when I set Task Scheduler >_>

[Mad Nin]

I have similar problems with Windows task manager I wanted to shut my computer down at a particular time i even followed a guide step by step and it did not work so i ended up downloading a seperate program which i found by typing "auto turn off" in download.com.