problem with rtorrent causing other programs (specifically weechat) to disconnect
 

I have recently configuring my router and firewall to handle bittorrent properly and have noticed a strange problem with other programs, specifically weechat and irc.freenode.net.

During the change to my firewalls, I also modified rtorrent's rc file and upon restarting it found out that weechat was disconnecting (~15 minutes to start, then more frequently (~5 minutes), probably after I had added a number of other torrents). I reverted many changes and even swapped to an entirely new rc file but still am having problems with other programs disconnecting.

Any idea on what may be wrong?

P.S. Sorry if this is the wrong forum, but this seems to be more network related than software related to me.

Sounds like your torrents are flooding your network. Your router may only be able to hold so many open connections also. Torrents in general are hard on a network.

That was the problem it seems. I had my max_peers set too high and had too many torrents open. Once I trimmed both down to sane values things seem to be stable