Transmission ignoring settings.json?

[MrBerns]

I want to change some settings in Transmission's settings.json file that are not available in the FreeNAS UI. Specifically, script-torrent-done-enabled and script-torrent-done-filename. My Transmission configuration directory within the plugins jail is /config. Within the jail, I've edited both /config/settings.json and /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home/settings.json, but neither seems to have fixed the issue.

I found another thread that seems to be the same issue, but it hasn't been updated in 3 months.

Is there a solution for this?

 

[ThomasDK81]

Remember to shoutdown Transmission while editing settings.json :)

 

[MrBerns]

I've done that, but it's still not picking up the changes. Do you at least know whether /config/settings.json or /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home/settings.json is the right settings file?

 

[hervon]

Some settings are pushed from the FreeNAS GUI. These will be changed in the settings.json file when modified in the FreeNAS Transmission GUI.

 

[ThomasDK81]

hervon: the changes MrBern is referring to is not in the GUI.

MrBern: Look here: http://doc.freenas.org/index.php/Plugins#Transmission

You decide your self where the settings.json, which is located in the configuration dir, is located via the GUI.

 

[Gavin]

I'm having this problem also. I've tried shutting down the plugin and the jail before editing the file through shell. Reopening the file confirms changes have been saved. Once I turn on the plugin, the default settings get pushed. I can't turn on RPC Authentication without modifying the file. Have any of you solved this problem yet?

I found out what has been overwriting it. I forgot you can click the plugin in the left tree and a configuration window comes up. It's a little confusing that the plugins window cannot do certain things that the tree on the left can. Please delete this post.

 

[odoyle]

Hey, I'm having the same problem as Mr Burns.. try to edit settings.json with transmission off, but when I turn it on, settings.json is overwritten and I can't find where in the gui to set the config file location. I'm editing the one in /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home/settings.json. The link from ThomasDK81 doesn't work anymore. I'm using 9.2.1.7 (I know, I'm supposed to update it!)

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Hey, I'm having the same problem as Mr Burns.. try to edit settings.json with transmission off, but when I turn it on, settings.json is overwritten and I can't find where in the gui to set the config file location. I'm editing the one in /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home/settings.json. The link from ThomasDK81 doesn't work anymore. I'm using 9.2.1.7 (I know, I'm supposed to update it!)

what settings are you trying to change?

you can still edit settings.json directly, but settings available in the freenas webui will be overwritten. others aren't.

####

I took this setting out because I figured it was fairly obscure. you could still set this in the command line with
sysrc 'transmission_conf_dir=/path'

do realize, if you set this the transmission settings in the freenas webui may stop working because they'll be editing the wrong file.

 

[odoyle]

I was trying to edit the umask from 18 to zero. This is a pretty common one.. maybe it is worth it to add it to the gui?
Anyways, I don't know what I did, but I finally got the setting to stick!

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

I was trying to edit the umask from 18 to zero. This is a pretty common one.. maybe it is worth it to add it to the gui?
Anyways, I don't know what I did, but I finally got the setting to stick!

you can just edit the 'permission' setting in the freenas webui. I translate that to the umask setting, which is probably why your changes kept getting overwritten.

 

[odoyle]

Oh is that what that "Downloaded Permissions" setting means? I wish there was more documentation. I tried changing that to 777.. maybe that is what finally fixed it for me! I'm not an expert with unix permissions and couldn't figure out what zero would be in unix settings. Is 777 the same as zero?

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Oh is that what that "Downloaded Permissions" setting means? I wish there was more documentation. I tried changing that to 777.. maybe that is what finally fixed it for me! I'm not an expert with unix permissions and couldn't figure out what zero would be in unix settings. Is 777 the same as zero?

umask and Unix permission levels are opposite. umask 000 means 777-000=777

what's confusing as hell is that transmission stores it's umask value in octal instead of decimal. so the default 755 = 777-022
umask 022 > 0*8^2 + 2*8^1 + 2*8^0 = 18 (in octal)

####

I had to hunt to figure this out cause of the minimal docs. that's why I tried making it easy with the 'Download Permissions' setting

 

[odoyle]

Cool, thanks!

 

[forumuser]

Hey, I've been reading various posts about how to change the transmission settings and it seems like it is not really possible apart what what is found in the Freenas GUI (at least not consistently). Can you please add an option for transmission so that torrents "start on open". Basically, there is an option on the transmission GUI that allows torrents to start automatically when loaded. With this, an app like Sonarr can add torrents and they will start downloading. This works perfectly if you open the transmission GUI and check the option. The problem is that after a restart, the setting resets. Without that option checked, Sonarr will add the torrent but it will be paused by default so you have to also open the transmission GUI and hit start. This takes away one of Sonarr's most important features -> auto downloading.

Can you please add the auto start option to the freenas gui ("start-added-torrents: true" is the transmission setting in settings.json), or tell me which file I should modify to make this happen?

Thanks so much for your amazing work on these plugins!

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

Hey, I've been reading various posts about how to change the transmission settings and it seems like it is not really possible apart what what is found in the Freenas GUI (at least not consistently). Can you please add an option for transmission so that torrents "start on open". Basically, there is an option on the transmission GUI that allows torrents to start automatically when loaded. With this, an app like Sonarr can add torrents and they will start downloading. This works perfectly if you open the transmission GUI and check the option. The problem is that after a restart, the setting resets. Without that option checked, Sonarr will add the torrent but it will be paused by default so you have to also open the transmission GUI and hit start. This takes away one of Sonarr's most important features -> auto downloading.

Can you please add the auto start option to the freenas gui ("start-added-torrents: true" is the transmission setting in settings.json), or tell me which file I should modify to make this happen?

Thanks so much for your amazing work on these plugins!

only settings available in the freenas webui overwrite ones in the config file.

you can change settings from the transmission webui (as long as they aren't available in the freenas webui). restart transmission and they will be reflected in the config file.

if they are only available in the config file change them there and reload transmission.
'service transmission reload'

####

so any setting is editable but as long as you follow the convoluted procedure. I plan on simplifying this in an updated version of the plugin. going to remove duplicate stuff from the freenas webui so everything is available in only one place.

####

if you still have issues tell me what setting you are trying to change exactly. torrents start automatically on my system when sent from SickRage/CouchPotato and I didnt change any related settings.

 

[forumuser]

ok, hopefully I'm just missing something really simple, so I made some gifs so you can see exactly what I'm doing.

First gif shows me adding a torrent from sonarr to transmission after a fresh restart. The torrent will sit in the queue paused.
https://gfycat.com/ImpureCommonBoar

The second gif shows me enabling "Start when added". Now sonarr torrents start automatically
https://gfycat.com/GracefulHeartfeltBeagle

The third gif shows me restarting transmission, the "Start when added" setting is again disabled. Same thing happens if I shutoff the plugin via freenas gui. Also the same thing happens if I just hit refresh on the tab. That setting for "start when added" is lost and set back to disabled.
https://gfycat.com/UniqueOpenLarva

What is also weird is that my /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home/settings.json file already has this setting set to true, but it is not actually on.
https://imgur.com/hHFVH5u

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

ok, hopefully I'm just missing something really simple, so I made some gifs so you can see exactly what I'm doing.

First gif shows me adding a torrent from sonarr to transmission after a fresh restart. The torrent will sit in the queue paused.
https://gfycat.com/ImpureCommonBoar

The second gif shows me enabling "Start when added". Now sonarr torrents start automatically
https://gfycat.com/GracefulHeartfeltBeagle

The third gif shows me restarting transmission, the "Start when added" setting is again disabled. Same thing happens if I shutoff the plugin via freenas gui. Also the same thing happens if I just hit refresh on the tab. That setting for "start when added" is lost and set back to disabled.
https://gfycat.com/UniqueOpenLarva

What is also weird is that my /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home/settings.json file already has this setting set to true, but it is not actually on.
https://imgur.com/hHFVH5u

What you are experiencing seems strange to me. Can you provide the following..

* Transmission plugin version
The output of the following commands in transmission's jail's command line

Code:

cat /etc/rc.conf /etc/rc.conf.local | grep transmission
ls -l /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home

 

[forumuser]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Transmission version: 2.84_2
https://imgur.com/jC0N1V1

FreeNAS version: FreeNAS-9.3-STABLE-201505130355
Running in VirtualBox on Win 8.1
(I set the whole thing up this week, so it's all the latest versions)

cat /etc/rc.conf /etc/rc.conf.local | grep transmission:

root@transmission_1:/ # cat /etc/rc.conf /etc/rc.conf.local | grep transmission
cat: /etc/rc.conf.local: No such file or directory
hostname="transmission_1"
hostname="transmission_1"
transmission_download_dir=""
transmission_enable="YES"
​

Note: /etc/ contains the following rc* files:

rc
rc.bsdextended
rc.conf
rc.d
rc.firewall
rc.initdiskless
rc.resume
rc.sendmail
rc.shutdown
rc.subr
rc.suspend​

ls -l /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home

root@transmission_1:/ # ls -l /usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home
total 84
drwxr-xr-x 2 transmission transmission 2 May 21 21:02 blocklists
-rw------- 1 transmission transmission 382 May 21 22:12 dht.dat
drwxr-xr-x 2 transmission transmission 2 May 22 19:47 resume
-rw------- 1 transmission transmission 2235 May 22 18:53 settings.json
-rw------- 1 transmission transmission 151 May 22 19:53 stats.json
drwxr-xr-x 2 transmission transmission 2 May 22 19:47 torrents​

Thanks again for your help.

EDIT: also I'm not sure if this is normal behavior. I noticed that the settings.json file is set to rw- --- ---, so I changed it to rw- rw- rw- (666). That didn't solve the problem, if I enable "start when added", then refresh the page, the option will be unchecked. However, what I noticed is that if I disable and re-enable transmission from the freenas gui, the permissions of that file are reset back to rw- --- ---. I don't know if that is the default behavior, but essentially that file gets reset back to default every restart.

 

[Joshua Parker Ruehlig]

@forumuser
everything looks as it should so I'm not sure what's causing the strange behavior you are seeing. The setting you checked is normally checked by default and the config isn't showing it as unchecked so it sounds like the process has gone rouge and isn't reading/listening to the config file.
Can you try restarting the service 'service transmission restart', then checking the config and the transmission webui to see if they still don't match each other.

If you are still experiencing the werid behavior can you try installing a second instance of transmission and seeing i that has the same issue.

 

[forumuser]

I completely uninstalled transmission, and then reinstalled it. I also shut off all the plugins except for transmission. It still has the same behaviour. What is weird is that the settings in the FreeNAS gui correctly update the settings in transmission. I can change the stop-seed-ratio number or the download directory and the new values are shown in the transmission GUI. When I check

/usr/pbi/transmission-amd64/etc/transmission/home/settings.json

I see the new values changed from the freenas gui shown in that config, along with "start-added-torrents: true", however that option is not checked in the transmission gui and it doesn't work.

If I check the option in the gui, torrents start automatically, but if I refresh the page, that setting is lost and torrents start paused again.

Somewhere, the freenas gui is changing the settings correctly, but it is not being reflected in the transmission gui.