Transmission settings overwritten at launch

mungo_park · 20 May 2019 20:47

I was trying to make some changes to my Transmission settings.json file, but every time I re-start the daemon the old settings get over-written over any changes I have made. I seem to remember there was a “reload” command for daemons that would accept any changes that had been made to the config files, but I can’t figure out what it is. I wonder if anyone would be kind enough to help?

dillthedog · 20 May 2019 20:57

You need to stop transmission first and only then should you make the changes to settings.json.

mungo_park · 20 May 2019 21:13

Thank you for this suggestion. I am actually stopping the transmission daemon before making any changes to the settings.

dillthedog · 20 May 2019 21:32

I’m a little surprised to hear that this is happening.

You could try kill -HUP, though I’ve never tried it myself on transmission.

Edit: I came across this thread: daemon should reload settings.json on SIGHUP

mungo_park · 21 May 2019 11:00

Thanks for the input! I checked out that thread but was unable to make sense of it. Is there any specific guidance for how to get the edits to the configuration file to stick?

TheHacker66 · 21 May 2019 11:20

How are you stopping the daemon? You need to stop the service by doing sudo service transmission-daemon stop otherwise it will restart the daemon and overwrite the settings.

mungo_park · 21 May 2019 11:43

I realized I’ve been doing something wrong: I’m using the bundled OSMC version of Transmission and have been starting and stopping the service by using sudo service transmission start and sudo service transmission stop. When I try to replace transmission with transmission-daemon, I get the message Failed to start transmission-daemon.service: Unit transmission-daemon.service not found.

Can I safely install transmission-daemon using apt-get? I thought I already had everything I needed from the bundled OSMC version, but perhaps that is not the case.

bmillham · 21 May 2019 11:57

To start and stop you need to:

sudo systemctl stop transmission
sudo systemctl start transmission

(You may need to use transmission-daemon instead, I’m not sure since I don’t have it installed)

Do not install the other version of transmission, it will interfere with the osmc store version.

mungo_park · 21 May 2019 15:44

Thank you for this! Unfortunately the result seems to be the same - the settings.json file is overwritten on the next launch.

The really odd thing is that I was able at one point to edit the file and get the changes to stick.

dillthedog · 21 May 2019 18:52

You’re telling us it doesn’t work but providing no evidence for us to check.

I don’t use the OSMC version of transmission, so I just installed it. AFAICT, it doesn’t overwrite my changes to the settings.json file. Here’s the evidence:

osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ ls -la
total 24
drwxr-xr-x 5 osmc osmc 4096 May 21 18:16 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 osmc osmc 4096 May 21 17:53 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 May 21 17:53 blocklists
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 May 21 17:53 resume
-rw------- 1 osmc osmc 2195 May 21 18:16 settings.json
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 May 21 17:53 torrents
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ systemctl stop transmission
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ systemctl status transmission
● transmission.service - Transmission BitTorrent Daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/transmission.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2019-05-21 18:35:42 UTC; 7s ago
  Process: 7834 ExecStart=/usr/bin/transmission-daemon -f --log-error --allowed *.*.*.* (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
  Process: 7831 ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 10 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 7834 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

May 21 18:15:53 osmc systemd[1]: Starting Transmission BitTorrent Daemon...
May 21 18:16:04 osmc systemd[1]: Started Transmission BitTorrent Daemon.
May 21 18:16:05 osmc transmission-daemon[7834]: [2019-05-21 18:16:05.263] UDP Failed to set receive buffer: requested 4194304, got 327680 (tr-udp.c:84
May 21 18:16:05 osmc transmission-daemon[7834]: [2019-05-21 18:16:05.264] UDP Failed to set send buffer: requested 1048576, got 327680 (tr-udp.c:95)
May 21 18:35:41 osmc systemd[1]: Stopping Transmission BitTorrent Daemon...
May 21 18:35:42 osmc systemd[1]: Stopped Transmission BitTorrent Daemon.
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ vi settings.json 
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ grep rpc-username settings.json 
    "rpc-username": "dillthedog",
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ systemctl start transmission
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ grep rpc-username settings.json 
    "rpc-username": "dillthedog",
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ systemctl stop transmission
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ grep rpc-username settings.json 
    "rpc-username": "dillthedog",
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ sudo systemctl start transmission
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ grep rpc-username settings.json 
    "rpc-username": "dillthedog",
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ ps -ef|grep [t]ransm
osmc      7966     1  0 18:38 ?        00:00:00 /usr/bin/transmission-daemon -f --log-error --allowed *.*.*.*

mungo_park · 23 May 2019 11:59

Thank you for the detailed response! I had hoped that I’d produce a different result when I followed your instructions, but it seems that I’ve run into the same problem. Here’s my transcript:

osmc@vero:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ ls -la
total 32
drwxr-xr-x 5 osmc osmc 4096 May 22 17:36 .
drwxr-xr-x 4 osmc osmc 4096 May 18 15:31 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 May 15 15:09 blocklists
-rw------- 1 osmc osmc  820 May 21 23:29 dht.dat
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 May 23 01:20 resume
-rw------- 1 osmc osmc 2199 May 21 23:30 settings.json
-rw------- 1 osmc osmc  153 May 22 17:36 stats.json
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 May 23 01:20 torrents
osmc@vero:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ systemctl stop transmission
osmc@vero:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ systemctl status transmission
● transmission.service - Transmission BitTorrent Daemon
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/transmission.service; enabled; vendor pre
   Active: inactive (dead) since Thu 2019-05-23 13:48:31 CEST; 17s ago
  Process: 1010 ExecStart=/usr/bin/transmission-daemon -f --log-error --allowed
  Process: 590 ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 10 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
 Main PID: 1010 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)

May 21 23:30:21 vero systemd[1]: Starting Transmission BitTorrent Daemon...
May 21 23:30:31 vero systemd[1]: Started Transmission BitTorrent Daemon.
May 23 13:48:30 vero systemd[1]: Stopping Transmission BitTorrent Daemon...
May 23 13:48:31 vero transmission-daemon[1010]: Closing transmission session...
May 23 13:48:31 vero systemd[1]: Stopped Transmission BitTorrent Daemon.
lines 1-12/12 (END)
osmc@vero:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ vi settings.json
osmc@vero:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ grep rpc-whitelist settings.json
    "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,192.168.*.*",
    "rpc-whitelist-enabled": true,
osmc@vero:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ systemctl start transmission
osmc@vero:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ grep rpc-whitelist settings.json
    "rpc-whitelist": "*.*.*.*",
    "rpc-whitelist-enabled": true,
osmc@vero:~/.config/transmission-daemon$

dillthedog · 23 May 2019 14:28

Ok, now we have something to work with.

The problem is in this line:

ExecStart=/usr/bin/transmission-daemon -f --log-error --allowed *.*.*.*

The man page tells us that --allowed “Allow[s] RPC access to a comma-delimited whitelist of IP addresses.”. Clearly, it has precedence over rpc-whitelist in settings.json.

As a quick workaround, you can edit file /lib/systemd/system/transmission.service and remove the --allowed *.*.*.* part. Longer-term, I think that @sam_nazarko needs to do the same, since the setting is already in settings.json and having it in two places seems to serve no useful purpose, as well as causing confusion.

mungo_park · 23 May 2019 15:50

Thank you @dillthedog, that worked! I really appreciate your persistence in getting to the root of this issue.

I was actually trying to change the whitelists so that I could manage my torrents in the terminal. Now that I’ve succeeded in making the change, I realize that transmission-remote-cli does not seem to be part of the OSMC Transmssion package. Do you happen to know if transmission-remote-cli is likely to be able to control OSMC Transmssion? I’d rather not install it if it’s going to create problems.

dillthedog · 23 May 2019 15:56

I’d recommend transgui.

Nikox9 · 22 August 2023 20:38

Hello, I am reviving this topic since I have the same problem…without solution: I cannot edit the settings.json file.

I cannot change the rpc-whitelist address from “...” to “192.168..” and I suspect this is why I cannot download…while I expect that ... would allow any address actually. Seems like this was mungo_park’s issue, and not sure if this is min.

Whenever I try to change this address in the json (while I stop transmission with or without the #Execstart…), it comes back to ... every single time.

> osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ ls -la
total 28
drwxr-xr-x 5 osmc osmc 4096 Aug 22 22:20 .
drwxr-xr-x 3 osmc osmc 4096 Aug  4 17:21 ..
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 Aug  4 17:21 blocklists
-rw------- 1 osmc osmc  346 Aug  4 19:31 dht.dat
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 Aug 22 22:10 resume
-rw------- 1 osmc osmc 2230 Aug 22 22:19 settings.json
drwxr-xr-x 2 osmc osmc 4096 Aug 22 21:33 torrents
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ sudo systemctl stop transmission
osmc@osmc:~/.config/transmission-daemon$ sudo systemctl status transmission
* transmission.service - Transmission BitTorrent Daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/transmission.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2023-08-22 22:22:13 CEST; 7s ago
    Process: 1310 ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 10 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 1314 ExecStart=/usr/bin/transmission-daemon -f --log-error --allowed *.*.*.* (code=exited, status=0/SUCCE>
   Main PID: 1314 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 313ms

Aug 22 22:19:41 osmc systemd[1]: Starting Transmission BitTorrent Daemon...
Aug 22 22:19:51 osmc systemd[1]: Started Transmission BitTorrent Daemon.
Aug 22 22:19:52 osmc transmission-daemon[1314]: [2023-08-22 22:19:52.785] Couldn't bind port 51413 on 185.212.227.144:>
Aug 22 22:19:52 osmc transmission-daemon[1314]: [2023-08-22 22:19:52.786] UDP Couldn't bind IPv4 socket (tr-udp.c:335)
Aug 22 22:22:10 osmc systemd[1]: Stopping Transmission BitTorrent Daemon...
Aug 22 22:22:13 osmc transmission-daemon[1314]: Closing transmission session... done.
Aug 22 22:22:13 osmc systemd[1]: transmission.service: Succeeded.
Aug 22 22:22:13 osmc systemd[1]: Stopped Transmission BitTorrent Daemon.
lines 1-16/16 (END)...skipping...
* transmission.service - Transmission BitTorrent Daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/transmission.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2023-08-22 22:22:13 CEST; 7s ago
    Process: 1310 ExecStartPre=/bin/sleep 10 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
    Process: 1314 ExecStart=/usr/bin/transmission-daemon -f --log-error --allowed *.*.*.* (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 1314 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
        CPU: 313ms

Aug 22 22:19:41 osmc systemd[1]: Starting Transmission BitTorrent Daemon...
Aug 22 22:19:51 osmc systemd[1]: Started Transmission BitTorrent Daemon.
Aug 22 22:19:52 osmc transmission-daemon[1314]: [2023-08-22 22:19:52.785] Couldn't bind port 51413 on 185.212.227.144: Cannot assign requested address (net.c:452)
Aug 22 22:19:52 osmc transmission-daemon[1314]: [2023-08-22 22:19:52.786] UDP Couldn't bind IPv4 socket (tr-udp.c:335)
Aug 22 22:22:10 osmc systemd[1]: Stopping Transmission BitTorrent Daemon...
Aug 22 22:22:13 osmc transmission-daemon[1314]: Closing transmission session... done.
Aug 22 22:22:13 osmc systemd[1]: transmission.service: Succeeded.
Aug 22 22:22:13 osmc systemd[1]: Stopped Transmission BitTorrent Daemon.

Not sure if my problem comes from my IP4 binding… Couldn't bind port 51413

If anyone has any idea, I’m interested :-). Thank you

Tom_Doyle · 22 August 2023 21:27

Hi,

From looking at your error you have a different error than the OP. Please create a new topic and provide logs.

Regards Tom.

Nikox9 · 23 August 2023 16:26

Hi Tom,

How to provide the logs ? Thank you

ActionA · 23 August 2023 16:35

To get a better understanding of the problem you are experiencing we need more information from you. The best way to get this information is for you to upload logs that demonstrate your problem. You can learn more about how to submit a useful support request here.

Depending on the used skin you have to set the settings-level to standard or higher, in summary:

enable debug logging at settings->system->logging
reboot the OSMC device twice(!)
reproduce the issue
upload the log set (all configs and logs!) either using the Log Uploader method within the My OSMC menu in the GUI or the ssh method invoking command grab-logs -A
publish the provided URL from the log set upload, here

Thanks for your understanding. We hope that we can help you get up and running again shortly.

OSMC skin screenshot:

Nikox9 · 23 August 2023 18:46

Thanks a lot