Why the connection status is "offline" despite no noticeable issues with downloading?

Since the 4.0 update qBittorrent has displayed this icon and message (when hovering over):

However, I haven't noticed issues with downloading. "Offline" of course implies that the client shouldn't be able to connect at all.

UPDATE: I was using a SOCKS5 proxy at the time and at least DHT likely didn't work.

2 Answers

The problem is exactly what the status tells you: you do not have the port, which qBittorrent listens at - for incomming connections forwarded through you router to qBittorrent, or your firewall is blocking that port.

• Check that port in the settings and than try for example this:
  you should get:

Success: I can see your service

qBittorrent basically tells you that you are downloading as passive. How to change that is explained for example here: Other option is that after the update your firewall blocked the incomming port. To make it permanent do (taken from ):

1. Navigate to Control Panel, System and Security and Windows Firewall.
2. Select Advanced settings and highlight Inbound Rules in the left pane.
3. Right click Inbound Rules and select New Rule.
4. Add the port you need to open and click Next.
5. Add the protocol (TCP or UDP) and the port number into the next window and click Next.
6. Select Allow the connection in the next window and hit Next.
7. Select the network type as you see fit and click Next.
8. Name the rule something meaningful and click Finish.

For me it was something different.

After looking at the logs inside %LOCALAPPDATA%\qBittorrent\logs I saw the not very helpful error message:

Failed to listen on IP ... An attempt was made to access a socket in a way forbidden by its access permissions.

I tracked that problem to Hyper-V and WSL reserving too many ports. Look at this thread

I assigned a different random port a few times until logs indicated Successfully listening on IP: ... Port: ..., paused and restarted all torrents.

Hope this helps someone.