rTorrent users, please update to 0.9.8 release

We're asking all rTorrent users to please update to 0.9.8 if able and on 0.9.6 or 0.9.7 already. Those using older than 0.9.6 must update to at least 0.9.6. Older than 0.9.6 will be banned as of Jan 1, 2024.

Why are we asking? Well there are 2 level of a bug, that we've basically put up with for all these years. 0.9.6 and 0.9.7 have basically a hard coded max interval between tracker announces of 30 minutes, regardless of anything we tell the client. Before 0.9.6 it can be even worse.

We often for connectable seeders have them announce less often than every 30 minute, as they can accept incoming connections so don't need to learn about a downloader, they'll get the incoming connection before. This also breaks the attempt to spread clients out so they don't call all at once. We also (via an automatic system) increase the tracker call times when issues are detected to try to resolve it faster. This also doesn't work for those below rTorrent 0.9.8.

How many people are on rTorrent version below 0.9.8? About 10% of our peer pool, or 900k peer entries. So it's not an insignificant number that don't follow the announce intervals we return.