Bitcoin Forum

So here's the deal, I'm fairly new to bitcoin although I have used it a few times over the last year and have never had a problem. I haven't touched it in a while and I had roughly 70 dollars of coins that I ordered last night that have been sent o my account. I went to open my bitcoin qt wallet and it starts updating the blocks and just froze updating. It still said trying to add blocks from like 77 days ago but it has no connections. It registers that it is my wallet but can't connect. It has also said not synced several times when I start it. I used to have a router all previous times and now I only have a modem, could that be the problem? Although I copied my wallet folder and put it on a different computer in my lan, and it didn't load my wallet it made a new one, AND it updated blocks and had no problem catching up. This really worries and frustrates me because I've tried deleting my wallet and reinstalling but I have no idea where to put the wallet.dat file, more do I know if that file is corrupt. Can somebody please trouble shoot me through this that has had this problem before? Again my wallet recognizes its me and my history but finds no connections. This is not a port or a firewall issue as my firewall is off, it says my ports are open, and my other computer connected fine.

Type %appdata% in the run command box.

That opens the folder where you have the Bitcoin subfolder to place the wallet.dat.

Well right now my wallet.dat is in the same folder as the wallet client, like in no sub folder at all. Could this be causing the problem?

wallet.dat is inside appdata/bitcoin

So it's ok. After all, unless you specify the folder using datadir blablabla it always put the wallet there  ;)

When you start the client it looks inside appdata/bitcoin for a wallet.dat. If there is one then it use it and show you the bitcoin inside it. If there is no one then it automatically create a new one (empty of course). Also, it start downloading all the blocks (syncing), wich takes hours and hours.

That's all  :D

About the no connection thing, it's not normal. It should have at least 8 connections after some time you let it run.

I know that its not normal. I have no idea how to fix it is my problem and so far I can't find any help online

When you say you have a modem, do you mean dial-up modem? Does "only have a modem" rather mean that you connected your computer directly to a high speed cable or DSL modem? It is impractical to run the full Bitcoin client on less than high-speed internet, as 77 days of blockchain is over 1GB of data.

Nevertheless, Bitcoin should attempt to make connections with other peer-to-peer clients. If you hover the mouse over the lower-right "bars" icon, it will tell you how many connections you have to other nodes, typically it will be less than five minutes after startup for Bitcoin to have several connections.

One should examine what on your network has changed. The first suggestion might be to go into Bitcoin's options, and on the network tab try each setting of "Map port using UPnP", and disable "SOCKS Proxy" (unless you know you need a proxy server to get on the Internet).

Additionally, third-party firewall or antivirus software may be blocking or interfering with connections to the peer-to-peer network, starting with "windows essentials" antivirus. One incorrect click and they will never let your app through again.

It is also possible to misconfigure Bitcoin if you have manually edited it's configuration file. Manually and incorrectly adding some options such as "connect" can make Bitcoin unable to connect.

If your client does show that you have multiple connections to other clients and the network block count does not increase after say half-an-hour, there is the possibility that the database that stores your local block record may have become corrupted, which will take repairs or a re-download.