Regarding the stuck block bug...Block 177618 was rejected by BIP16-enabled backports (0.4.x and 0.5.x) due to containing a P2SH redemption with over 200 bytes in. Since the BIP16 code uses IsPushOnly to check the scriptSig for compliance, and IsPushOnly in these versions also enforced the 200-byte "is standard" rule, they were effectively treating it as a network rule. This was not a problem in 0.6 because the original OP_EVAL commit (e679ec9) moved the check outside of IsPushOnly.
This problem could have been avoided if either IsPushOnly was renamed when its semantics/behaviour changed significantly, or I inspected the OP_EVAL commit in detail instead of skipping it over as a new feature and not bugfixes. Additionally, it might have helped, if the commit message mentioned the change, but I'd probably have still missed it as it wasn't relevant until months later.
To get unstuck, follow these instructions:1. Ensure you have the minimum required 1280 MB memory available
2. Create a new file in your bitcoin directory (the same one with wallet.dat) called DB_CONFIG with the following two lines:
set_lk_max_locks 1000000
set_lk_max_objects 1000000
3. Start bitcoind or Bitcoin-Qt
4. WAIT AT LEAST SIX HOURS; Your client will NOT show any signs of making progress during this time
5. When complete, your client should be up-to-date on block count
6. At this time, you may wish to delete the DB_CONFIG file and restart your client, to use less memory
Poll
