qBittorrent doesn't seem to use the specified network interface for all traffic. This causes it to get stuck in "offline" status if a firewall rule force it through a VPN interface

[twig]

qBittorrent & operating system versions

qBittorrent 4.4.5 x64
Operating system: Windows 11 (10.0.22xxx)

What is the problem?

I'm testing out qBittorrent and it seems like a very nice client, but theres something that took me a while to figure out which seems to be different to every other software I've used so far.

Normally, if I set up a firewall rule that said "this program cannot connect to the internet unless it was via VPN Network interface" and applied it to my browser, it won't be able to load pages unless the VPN was connected.

However with qBittorrent, it won't connect to anything even if the VPN was connected. Telling qBittorrent to use the VPN network interface did not work either.

It was only when I changed the firewall rule for qBittorrent to "ignore application" that it started working normally.

Seems like qBittorrent is making requests out via an undesired network interface, potentially outside of the VPN?

Steps to reproduce

1. Set up a firewall rule that blocks all traffic unless it came from or goes out through a specific network interface (eg. VPN).
2. Apply that rule to qBittorrent
3. Go to settings and change the "network interface" to VPN network interface.
4. Try to load information about a magnet link.
5. It'll get stuck in a "loading" state.
6. Restart qBittorrent and notice that the client is stuck on offline mode. All torrents will be stuck on "stalled" or "fetching metadata" if you try to start them.

Change nothing else except for the firewall rule, allowing qBittorrent to be unrestricted.
Things should start working normally.

Additional context

For the sake of debugging;

• port forwarding is enabled on VPN client
• listening port matches the forwarded port from VPN
• webUI is turned on and works fine
• I used Comodo free firewall. Here's a guide on setting up the application VPN kill switch.

This exact same setup and firewall rule works fine on uTorrent.

Log(s) & preferences file(s)

log file when VPN-only firewall rule applied

(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - qBittorrent v4.4.5 started
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Using config directory: C:/Users/me/AppData/Roaming/qBittorrent
(I) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Trying to listen on: {9222CCC5-7279-4B43-829A-6D4B242B5C5C}:28174
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Peer ID: -qB4450-
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - HTTP User-Agent is 'qBittorrent/4.4.5'
(I) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - DHT support [ON]
(I) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Local Peer Discovery support [ON]
(I) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - PeX support [ON]
(I) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Anonymous mode [OFF]
(I) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Encryption support [ON]
(I) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - UPnP / NAT-PMP support [ON]
(I) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - IP geolocation database loaded. Type: DBIP-Country-Lite. Build time: Tue Nov 1 12:27:56 2022.
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Using built-in Web UI.
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Web UI translation for selected locale (en_AU) has been successfully loaded.
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:54 - Web UI: Now listening on IP: *, port: 8082

...
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:55 - 'multiple-files.txt' restored.
...
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:56 - RSS feed at 'https://some.site/link/to/rss' is successfully downloaded. Starting to parse it.
(N) 2022-11-16T21:49:56 - RSS feed at 'https://some.site/link/to/rss' updated. Added 0 new articles.
...
(I) 2022-11-16T21:50:58 - UPnP / NAT-PMP support [OFF]
) 2022-11-16T21:50:46 - Using config directory: C:/Users/me/AppData/Roaming/qBittorrent

[sedlund]

QB does not implement use of the specified network interface for RSS or tracker operations as I've read from the source f87ea1b