diff --git a/ChangeLog b/ChangeLog
index cb43b844c..875dbde86 100644
--- a/ChangeLog
+++ b/ChangeLog
@@ -24,6 +24,8 @@
 	  incoming connection
 	* added more detailed instrumentation of the disk I/O thread
 
+	* fixed bug in url encoder where $ would not be encoded
+
 0.15 release
 
 	* introduced a session state save mechanism. load_state() and save_state().
diff --git a/examples/client_test.cpp b/examples/client_test.cpp
index 91e909712..085730eab 100644
--- a/examples/client_test.cpp
+++ b/examples/client_test.cpp
@@ -559,6 +559,11 @@ void add_torrent(libtorrent::session& ses
 	p.duplicate_is_error = false;
 	p.auto_managed = true;
 	torrent_handle h = ses.add_torrent(p, ec);
+	if (ec)
+	{
+		fprintf(stderr, "failed to add torrent: %s\n", ec.message().c_str());
+		return;
+	}
 
 	handles.insert(std::pair<const std::string, torrent_handle>(
 		monitored_dir?std::string(torrent):std::string(), h));
@@ -839,7 +844,7 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
 			// interpret this as a torrent
 
 			// first see if this is a torrentless download
-			if (std::strstr("magnet:", argv[i]) == argv[i])
+			if (std::strstr(argv[i], "magnet:") == argv[i])
 			{
 				add_torrent_params p;
 				p.save_path = save_path;
@@ -883,7 +888,7 @@ int main(int argc, char* argv[])
 				torrent_handle h = ses.add_torrent(p, ec);
 				if (ec)
 				{
-					fprintf(stderr, "%s\n", ec.message().c_str());
+					fprintf(stderr, "failed to add torrent: %s\n", ec.message().c_str());
 					continue;
 				}
 
diff --git a/include/libtorrent/file_storage.hpp b/include/libtorrent/file_storage.hpp
index a3d8a2223..999d023fe 100644
--- a/include/libtorrent/file_storage.hpp
+++ b/include/libtorrent/file_storage.hpp
@@ -136,7 +136,7 @@ namespace libtorrent
 		int piece_size(int index) const;
 
 		void set_name(std::string const& n) { m_name = n; }
-		const std::string& name() const { TORRENT_ASSERT(m_piece_length > 0); return m_name; }
+		const std::string& name() const { return m_name; }
 
 		void swap(file_storage& ti)
 		{
diff --git a/src/escape_string.cpp b/src/escape_string.cpp
index 29c7e38a6..8f73f3e8f 100644
--- a/src/escape_string.cpp
+++ b/src/escape_string.cpp
@@ -212,10 +212,10 @@ namespace libtorrent
 		// % should be ok
 		"%+"
 		// reserved
-		";?:@=&/"
+		";?:@=&,$/"
 		// unreserved (special characters) ' excluded,
 		// since some buggy trackers fail with those
-		"$-_.!~*(),"
+		"-_!.~*()"
 		// unreserved (alphanumerics)
 		"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
 		"0123456789";
@@ -250,12 +250,12 @@ namespace libtorrent
 	
 	std::string escape_string(const char* str, int len)
 	{
-		return escape_string_impl(str, len, 9);
+		return escape_string_impl(str, len, 11);
 	}
 
 	std::string escape_path(const char* str, int len)
 	{
-		return escape_string_impl(str, len, 8);
+		return escape_string_impl(str, len, 10);
 	}
 
 	bool need_encoding(char const* str, int len)