I have been using Ktorrent for years. I have lots of disk space and a fast connection, so I seed nearly a hundred torrents (distros, etc.). I have bought a new computer and I want to migrate Ktorrent to the new computer. It is installed on the new computer, all the torrent files are in the same folder as they were on the old computer, all the data files are in the same place (an external drive), and I have copied all the configurations (dot files) from the old computer to the new one, including specifically the .kde folder, but when I launch ktorrrent it's like a brand new installation. It knows nothing of its settings, torrrents, data from the old computer. I looked inside the .kde folder and found a list of torrents in .kde/share/apps/ktorrent but Ktorrent seems to ignore them.

I have searched all over the net trying to find out where Ktorrent keeps its configurations and settings, but I have found nothing. Please don't tell me I have to start all over again. Can anyone help?

Did the settings/preferences from other KDE applications get retained as well?
You should check the output of "kde4-config --localprefix" on both systems to verify they are the same - your new system could be using ~/.kde4/ instead.

Thanks for the response.

The results from the command are the same on both computers:

jjj@Devil-Bonobo:/$ kde4-config --localprefix
/home/jjj/.kde/

I think I failed to mention that both computers are running Xubuntu, not Kubuntu; 12.04 on the old computer and 13.10 on the new computer. Ktorrent is not the only KDE app I have installed, so I assume that all the required runtime stuff is properly installed as well. Ktorrent runs fine on both computers; it's just that on the new computer it is like the first time it was ever run, that is, none of the settings or torrents from the old computer appear.

Well there's good news, and strange news, and bad news.

The good news is that Ktorrent suddenly sees all my torrents. The strange news is that I launched Ktorrent repeatedly over the past couple of days and it never saw any of the torrents. So I post here, and bcooksley gave me a command to try on both computers, which I did, and the results were the same. I posted those results. Later in the day I launched Ktorrent again, intending to see if I could get it to see the torrents by tweaking some of the settings, and lo and behold it saw all my torrents! But why? Other than run the command I did nothing. And I can't believe that command affected where Ktorrent should look for torrents. Oh well. Sometimes it's best just to accept a good thing and move on.

But the bad news is that every one of my 239 torrents popped up a warning that Ktorrent couldn't find the data. I had to manually point it to every single torrent data file one at a time. Now, all the data is on a 3 TB external drive that has always been mounted. Ktorrent on the old computer used the same drive and nothing has been done to change the folders. It took me an hour and a half to point Ktorrent to all the data files.

But now it's done and hopefully I won't have to revisit this scenario for several years.

Good to see you managed to get it working. I can't explain why it would suddenly start working however - the only thing I can think of is that you copied the ~/.kde folder from a live system / into a live system - KDE applications don't react too well to having their configuration modified by outside programs while they are running.

There is one additional problem. The old Ktorrent (4.1.3) had a column for Status. This is missing in the new Ktorrent (4.3.1). Or have I missed it somewhere?

I'm assuming you've tried right clicking on the header to see if a Status column can be enabled?

bcooksley wrote:I'm assuming you've tried right clicking on the header to see if a Status column can be enabled?

Yes, that was how I found it was missing. Right-clicking on the header in the old Ktorrent shows a Status option, but in the new one it is missing. I wonder if the Status column does not appear unless something else is added or enabled; something missing on the new installation. It doesn't make sense to remove a feature that was always working fine.

That is indeed unusual. Are all the usual plugins you use still available and activated?
Have you noticed anything else missing from KTorrent?

bcooksley wrote:That is indeed unusual. Are all the usual plugins you use still available and activated?
Have you noticed anything else missing from KTorrent?

The configurations, plugins and scripts for the new installation seem identical in every respect. There are 16 plugins available and the same ones are checked, and of the four scripts available in each version, none is checked.

If you or someone else has 4.3.1 it might be helpful to know if you have a Status column in the torrent view. If you do, then at least I know it is possible and I can continue to try to track down what might be missing in my installation of 4.3.1.

Just to double check it isn't a configuration issue - can you check under a new user to see if it is missing there as well?