BitShares Forum

Main => Technical Support => Topic started by: arhag on January 04, 2015, 04:03:26 am

Title: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: arhag on January 04, 2015, 04:03:26 am
I upgraded to v0.4.27.2 from v0.4.27.1. The Qt client wasn't synchronizing the blockchain properly so I used the CLI client. The CLI client did download and index the blockchain up to the present. I then switched over to the Qt client and it appeared to be synchronized to the present and working fine for a moment. But then I realized that it wasn't updating the blockchain and just started getting further and further behind from the present.

I switched back to the v0.4.27.1 Qt client (which had its bugs (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12519.msg164982#msg164982) but at least synchronized the blockchain) and surprisingly it too had the same blockchain synchronizing problems as the v0.4.27.2 Qt client.

I then tried deleting the chain directory and downloading the blockchain from scratch using the v0.4.27.2 CLI client (which took a long time by the way). I then loaded the v0.4.27.2 Qt client on this new chain folder and the same problem of it not updating the blockchain and falling behind persisted. However, this time when I switched back to the v0.4.27.1 Qt client, the client went back to properly synchronizing the blockchain again as it did before the "upgrade". So, I'm just sticking with v0.4.27.1 for now (despite the annoying lags described previously (https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12519.msg164982#msg164982)) because at least it functions.

I am not sure what other information I can provide to help track this bug down. Has anyone else experienced this problem?
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: arhag on January 05, 2015, 03:58:33 am
Actually, it turns out if I wait long enough even the v0.4.27.1 Qt client gets into a state where it stops synchronizing the blockchain. If I restart the client it syncs to the present again, at least until after a while when it stops working. Sigh.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: vikram on January 06, 2015, 07:56:30 pm
I'm not sure what is causing this, but there are a large amount of fixes in the pipeline that have not made it into an official release in quite a while now. Hopefully issues like this will be less prevalent after the next big release.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: xh3 on January 10, 2015, 11:03:24 pm
The technical problems are getting out of hand :-/ 
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: unsoindovo on January 11, 2015, 05:06:01 pm
The technical problems are getting out of hand :-/

same problem here...

wallet v.0.4.27.2 installed...

but i'm not able to sync.
(http://i.imgur.com/bxUilqi.jpg)
the counter is going ahead and not backward :-|

i hope in the next release, would be 0.5, all this problem will be fixed!!!
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: islandking on January 11, 2015, 05:08:56 pm
The technical problems are getting out of hand :-/

My wallet has been unusable for the past month. I am just waiting until we get the new release.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: yankey on January 23, 2015, 06:00:42 am
The technical problems are getting out of hand :-/

My wallet has been unusable for the past month. I am just waiting until we get the new release.

This is getting ridiculous.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: yankey on January 23, 2015, 06:27:13 am
it was sort of working untill yesterday. Now whatever I do i get "Not Connected". Any insight?
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: Brekyrself on January 23, 2015, 07:00:16 am
it was sort of working untill yesterday. Now whatever I do i get "Not Connected". Any insight?

What version are you running?  Have you tried 0.5.1 located at https://github.com/BitShares/bitshares/releases
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: yankey on January 23, 2015, 07:54:26 am
it was sort of working untill yesterday. Now whatever I do i get "Not Connected". Any insight?

What version are you running?  Have you tried 0.5.1 located at https://github.com/BitShares/bitshares/releases

Thank you. I have missed that update - new version says "replaying blockchain..." and going slowly. I will come back later.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: yankey on January 24, 2015, 04:07:36 am
it was sort of working untill yesterday. Now whatever I do i get "Not Connected". Any insight?

What version are you running?  Have you tried 0.5.1 located at https://github.com/BitShares/bitshares/releases

Thank you. I have missed that update - new version says "replaying blockchain..." and going slowly. I will come back later.

That took about 10 hours - seems to be getting the chain now.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: svk on January 24, 2015, 07:52:22 am
it was sort of working untill yesterday. Now whatever I do i get "Not Connected". Any insight?

What version are you running?  Have you tried 0.5.1 located at https://github.com/BitShares/bitshares/releases

Thank you. I have missed that update - new version says "replaying blockchain..." and going slowly. I will come back later.

That took about 10 hours - seems to be getting the chain now.

Are you using a mechanical HDD and/or have a slow internet? Even my 5$ Digital Ocean VPS with 1 cpu core and 512MB ram only takes an hour or two to re-index, and downloading the full chain from scratch is usually even faster than that. It does use an SSD though.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: arhag on January 24, 2015, 08:02:50 am
Are you using a mechanical HDD and/or have a slow internet? Even my 5$ Digital Ocean VPS with 1 cpu core and 512MB ram only takes an hour or two to re-index, and downloading the full chain from scratch is usually even faster than that. It does use an SSD though.

That must be it. I have fast internet so that isn't the issue. And certainly much better CPU and RAM than your Digital Ocean VPS. But it must be the HDD.

I guess it is because the database read/writes are random instead of sequential. Random access puts HDD at a huge disadvantage compared to SSD.

Now I want to see a comparison between the performance of the clients (both time to sync blockchain from scratch as well as the general responsiveness of the client when running normally after syncing) for people using a computer with 4 GB of RAM and HDD vs 4 GB of RAM and SSD vs 8 GB of RAM and HDD vs 8 GB of RAM and SSD.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: svk on January 24, 2015, 08:18:18 am
Are you using a mechanical HDD and/or have a slow internet? Even my 5$ Digital Ocean VPS with 1 cpu core and 512MB ram only takes an hour or two to re-index, and downloading the full chain from scratch is usually even faster than that. It does use an SSD though.

That must be it. I have fast internet so that isn't the issue. And certainly much better CPU and RAM than your Digital Ocean VPS. But it must be the HDD.

I guess it is because the database read/writes are random instead of sequential. Random access puts HDD at a huge disadvantage compared to SSD.

Now I want to see a comparison between the performance of the clients (both time to sync blockchain from scratch as well as the general responsiveness of the client when running normally after syncing) for people using a computer with 4 GB of RAM and HDD vs 4 GB of RAM and SSD vs 8 GB of RAM and HDD vs 8 GB of RAM and SSD.

I can have a go but I don't have the time to do so today.

I actually used to run Bitcoin core as well as some altcoin wallets on my mechanical harddrive due to space issues, and they would exhibit similar symptoms. The CPU would get pegged to 100% and heat it up like crazy, triggering the CPU and GPU fans making lots of noise, and the system would become nearly unusable until the blockchain was fully synced. It did end up getting synced though, but just to say that these kinds of problems are not unique to Bitshares, even Bitcoin has them.
Title: Re: Blockchain doesn't download on v0.4.27.2 Qt client
Post by: yankey on January 24, 2015, 09:30:41 am
Yes it is a HDD on a laptop - seriously disk intensive. - plus i was doing other things at the same time.