BitShares Forum
Main => Technical Support => Topic started by: Thom on May 25, 2015, 12:10:35 am
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i don't know what the story is, but I have NEVER been able to use a chain-server to help get the blk chn downloaded.
I have tried ALL of them on this wiki page: http://wiki.bitshares.org/index.php/BitShares/Chain-Server, which was updated in April.
Starting from a fresh install of 0.9.2, started once to create default .BitShares folder. Then edited the chain_servers array in config.json to add a single IP address. Every address in the wiki page was used, no matter, the client still shows multiple connections, contrary to the wiki.
Either every single one of the chain servers is not working or the wiki page is incorrect or there is a bug in the client.
It's v e r y frustrating.
Edit: I think the servers may work initially, then crash or stop b/c if I enter the passphrase to unlock the wallet the GUI seems to ignore it (accounts--> go to my accounts does nothing, and the unlock button in center of window stops with the dots pretty quick but then nothing). I thus can't login to check the console, but I can see plenty of net activity on the router.
This shows a connection to chain-server: lsof -ni:1375 -sTCP:ESTABLISHED
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
bitshares 12457 owner 146u IPv4 539460 0t0 TCP 192.168.2.100:33893->185.25.22.21:1375 (ESTABLISHED)
So it does seem to work for a time. But once the gui responds & I get the wallet unlocked I see the sync is not done and multiple net connections. As of this moment liondani's chain-serve seems to be hanging in there.
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I would recomment to use the bitshare_client.exe which is a terminal version without GUI .. to let the blockchain sync initially
When using a chainserver you should see some lines stating sth like "fast download" IIRC .. there should not be a mention of P2P when downloading from chainserver ..
after syncing you can close the teminal version via 'quit' and run the GUI version as usual
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I would recomment to use the bitshare_client.exe which is a terminal version without GUI .. to let the blockchain sync initially
When using a chainserver you should see some lines stating sth like "fast download" IIRC .. there should not be a mention of P2P when downloading from chainserver ..
after syncing you can close the teminal version via 'quit' and run the GUI version as usual
I'd like to add something to this that may in fact help out quite a few users. I've been struggling myself to get the blockchain downloaded after upgrades and reinstalls, and I think I've found a reliable way to engage the chain servers.
Initially removing the "default_peers" portion of the config caused the chain server to engage successfully for a little while (as demonstrated in the "info" command output. However, after a brief period of d/l'ing from the chainserver (in this case, liondani's), the client seemed to discover the default peers, and flip over to a slow p2p sync. It also re-added the mising peers list to the config.json. So no joy there.
However, after changing "maximum_number_of_connections": 0 in config.json, it appears to be sticking to downloading from the chainserver and not establishing p2p d/l connections. It's been stable for about ten minutes for me so far, and has downloaded up to 510856.
Hope that helps some of you.
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I had previously removed the default peers list from config.json and discoved they are hard coded in the c++ code and get added back in. You basically have confirmed the behavior I have experienced, so IMO it sounds like a bug.
If this area of the code is revisited it would make sense to allow the chain_servers array to contain multiple IP addresses. I suspect that as soon as a problem is encountered on the chain_server the code switches to p2p mode. Given how cumbersome it is to DL the blk chn from scratch, it would really help if the support for chain_servers was more robust.
Perhaps changing the default max num connections from 200 to 0 is a workaround. Next time I need to init a new blk chn copy I'll give that a try.
I was able to DL all but the last 70 days of the blk chn from liondani's chain server before it reverted to p2p mode. I don't know if that wa due to a premature switchover to p2p or whether that was the most up to date block on liondani's chain server.
As for @xeroc's comments on using the cli version, I could have. I just wanted to report the issue the gui version for other people's benefit and to provide one more example of the poor gui experience in the hopes it will be noticed and fixed. Tho it isn't even on the dev's radar at least it's reported here for others with similar problems to find.
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Thanks for the detailed description.
Could you add a bug report to guthub? If not I can help you out ..
Paging @vikram
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Does anyone know if this was solved? Downloading form the chain servers doesn't seem to be working for me - it keeps using p2p (which is pretty slow for 3M blocks ...)
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the chainserver you chose may be offline .. have you tried another?
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I've tried a few (put three or four of them in a list / array in the relevant section of the configuration file). Still didn't work.
Here's what my config file looks like:
"chain_servers": [
"69.90.132.209:1375",
"85.214.53.224:1375",
"185.25.22.21:1375"
],
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I've tried a few (put three or four of them in a list / array in the relevant section of the configuration file). Still didn't work.
Here's what my config file looks like:
"chain_servers": [
"69.90.132.209:1375",
"85.214.53.224:1375",
"185.25.22.21:1375"
],
You can put only ONE ip in there...