Bitcoin Forum

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It is strange that you didn't see the confirmations.  Do you use a non-standard Bitcoin-Qt installation?

Unfortunately, the scanning is part of the startup, which used to only take a couple minutes.  Armory will be switching over to a much quicker/better model, but it's no trivial amount of work.  But it's my top priority.  Maybe you will try it again after it's done and easier to use :-\

Don't worry, not everyone can have a good experience with Armory.    Thanks for trying!  I'm glad you were able to get your coins out.

Same problem for me. I have just installed Armory for the first time and it has been scanning for over 1 hour now. Its not a very high spec laptop, but it does have 2GB ram so not sure what the problem is. I will update when it finishes.


This is a top priority problem I think etotheipi, many users will just close the program in frustration most likely. I will still use for long term cold storage as I don't need fast access.

Thanks for the great work on this though, absolute genius!

That is not even close to being enough  :(  You need 4-6 GB to run Armory with the current blockchain, but a less RAM hungry version is reportedly in the works.

Yes, very much in the works.  This is one of my two major usability upgrades for Armory in the next month.

It definitely should not take that long to scan.  On my computer, it takes about 3-5 minutes.  On my Windows VM, it's about 10 minutes.  Some people have reported 10-20 minutes.  Not ideal, but at least it's "usable."

The blockchain is not getting any smaller, and reports like this are increasing in number.  I hadn't planned to do this upgrade for a while, but Bitcoin's growth + SatoshiDice have started to hold me hostage.  That's why maintaining persistent blockchain data is top of my priority list (after I'm done with my current major upgrade).

However, you should be seeing the blockchain update.   There was a bug in 0.87 that especially affected users with long load times.  That was fixed in 0.87.2.  If it still doesn't update properly in 0.87.2... then I guess you should wait for the RAM update...

Armory stores the whole blockchain in RAM? Ohgodwhy?

No it doesn't.

It only stores a transaction index to where the transactions are on disk.  But there's 10+ million transactions, with hashes 32 bytes each, 20 byte file pointers, and some extra overhead.  It's not difficult to see you're approaching the order of magnitude of its current RAM usage.

On my system, it consumes about 1.5-2 GB RAM.  It used to be 400 MB.  But the index itself is growing too fast...

In case it's helpful:

I'm running Armory on a mid 2009, Core 2 Duo 2.53 Ghz Macbook Pro, with 4GB RAM and OSX 10.8.2

installed armory compiling from source following Red Emeralds instructions on a bloated set up. Took 30/40 minutes to sync in each start and kept crashing

after a clean OS install it got better: now it takes between 10 to 20 minutes to sync, and it run flawlessly unless I open too many apps/tabs in browser, etc.

It uses Aprox. 1.6gb of RAM

Ok thanks for the info guys I thought it only required 2GB, but I guess maybe that was a long time ago when the blockchain was much smaller!

Having the same issues (long startup and using insane amounts of RAM)

There should be a better way to deal with this. Armory should store the relevant UTXOs up to the latest bitcoind checkpoint. Therefore, it doesn't need to scan the whole blockchain every time it restarts.

I also have this problem on Windows 7, 64bit with both the Bitcoin-Qt and Armory-clients installed not on default locations.
Else it works, but this constant rescanning upon each start make it practically useless for me for "fast" transactions.
For offline wallets it's ok to wait for me.

It would be great if this can be fixed, maybe by checkpointing and a Merkle tree hash upon all successfully validated transactions.

Don't worry guys... I know what to do :)  There's been a lot of life distractions, and I'm trying to finish some other Armory upgrades that both improve usability, and security.  After that (hopefully in the next couple days!) I'm going to crawl into a hole for 96 hours and not come out until the the RAM usage is reduced and the blockchain doesn't require rescanning on each load. 

Right now, Armory is still an advanced tool.  I haven't made it a priority, because I wanted to focus on unique features that no other program has, instead of having less features, but making it more usable. I'd rather have a program that 50% can't live without + 50% can't use... than a program that 95% of people can use, but don't see the advantage.  Unfortunately, that "50% can't use" is growing quickly, so that's why my priorities have shifted.

It's coming!

Turns out I've been whitelisted for around a day to post in here and I didn't even notice the message saying I was....will teach me to check messages in future.

Have also had issues with armory taking ages with the blockchain, but this was just the first scanning of it. The reason I didn't get any further was because it was taking up so much resources on my laptop (T61 Thinkpad, it has dual core and thought it'd handle something like this easily, but maybe not. First time I've ever had a problem with a program slowing down like this too.) that I just had to stop trying. Couldn't really open firefox or browse properly because the whole laptop was crawling at a really slow pace. That was on windows though, and as I've already said a few times I botched a partition and have lost windows now, so maybe ubuntu will handle it better?

But either way, was just wondering how things are going with making it use less resources, and also if the scanning each time for long periods has been fixed? I'm mainly asking because I've only just started using bitcoin last night (due to partition mess though I lost my first wallet! No bunny run bitcoin bonus this time around...) but for over a week I've been reading up a decent bit and wanted to use this on a raspberry pi for cold storage once I got started after testing bitcoin out, so I knew that things were probably secure (if done properly.) from the off. Without this I don't think there's any other way of having a watching only wallet and that idea just seems like such a great way of doing things.

Thanks if you can let us know how things are going anyway, and I might try this again with ubuntu, because bitcoin-qt seems to load way faster, so maybe armory will also work this time around.

That is clearly unreasonable with that kind of RAM available.  I have 8GB and an SSD, it takes 3 minutes.  I would expect 4-5 with sata3 at most. 

There's clearly something that is going wrong on some systems.  Even my OSX, Win7 and Ubuntu VMs, which are on old-school platter HDDs and 4GB of RAM take 4-6 minutes. 

I don't mean to discount the necessity of the upcoming upgrades to avoid the scanning entirely ... that's in the works, regardless.  But there is something wrong if it takes that long.  Can you try the new version (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=156250.0) and tell me if really takes that long consistently through the scanning (because there's no a progress bar), or if it goes through scanning and then hangs for that long?

Also, if you want to keep using Armory and you can't resolve this, you might consider deleting the Bitcoin-Qt datadir, and letting it redownload... which should take about 4-6 hours!  So you wouldn't really be losing any time... :-\

FWIW I just redownloaded the blockchain with a scent connection to a LAN bitcoind and it took closer to 48hrs.

I am having the same issue listed above.  My armory client sits with the screen shot posted below indefinitely.

http://www.seriallogic.com/pictures/armoryIssue.jpg


I have removed all files from the bitcoin home directly with exception to the wallet.dat.  Armory re-scanned the block-chain from the start, and once it gets to 99% it just sits there forever.  Does anyone have any other ways to try and resolve this issue?

My current setup:
Win7 Ultimate SP1 64 bit
8GB RAM
1TB Cavier Black HDD
50/25 mbps fiber connection


Armory 0.88.1
Bitcoinqt 0.8.1-beta

After making my post-

I closed Armory completely, opened Bitcoinqt, then opened Armory while Bitcoinqt was still running.  I used the button in Armory to close bitcoinqt and then rescan.  This fixed my issue.  It might help others.

after a few short weeks, my original fix has been working, but now im getting stuck here:

http://www.seriallogic.com/pictures/armory_issue_2.jpg


So now armory sits stuck at scanning the transaction history... forever.   Only thing that fixes this issue is rebooting my computer.  ugh.

I'm working on the updates now that will make all this scanning go away.  But it's still a little ways away.

Until then, I think I figured out that the 32-bit version (originally the only 0.88.1 version released) is the culprit.  Can you please download the 64-bit version (http://bitcoinarmory.googlecode.com/files/armory_0.88.1-beta_win64.msi) and try it out.  I think because of the resource usage, the 32-bit binary is running out memory space.

Hopefully that will solve your problem until I finally get this RAM-reduction release out.

I forgot to mention:  you must uninstall the 32-bit version before installing the new version.  I have no idea why, but the installer refuses to overwrite all the 32-bit installation files.  If you don't do this, Armory won't even start up.

I have installed using the link provided.  Everything seems good so far.  I will post again if any issues arise.  Thanks for your help!

Lucky you. I installed Armory on my both my Mac mini and and Windows 7 laptop. On the Mac, it run fine, I guess--it still takes about an hour to scan the transaction history, even if I only shut it down for 5 minutes--not the kind of wallet you want to have for "need-it-now" situations. So far, Armory appears to only be good for long-term storage. I can't believe how long it takes to get online. I would compare Armory's waste of time similar to the banks. Given how god-awful slow it is, I wouldn't commit ANYTHING to an Armory wallet that I might need in the next six months. Bump that! I can move Bitcoin between ALL of my other wallets faster than it takes Armory to sync.

On Windows, its worse. It gets to 17% of scanning the transaction history and stays there. It has been four days now, and Armory can't get past the 17% mark, after multiple attempts. Forget Armory! If I was billing out 1.5 BTC/hour to test their software, they would owe me 15 BTC.

The next version has solved all of these problems (currently in the ramreduceleveldb and rrld_planB branches).  It's not quite ready for testing, but should be very soon.  Armory now builds the database and scans it on the first load only, saving everything between loads.  And only uses like 250 MB of RAM (which should be independent of the blockchain size). 

Obviously, this is a huge step up from where it currently is.  I just haven't had the time to overhaul the relevant code until now.

Didn't you say that in March?

If its true, all I can say is...THANK FARK FOR THAT!

Well there's actually a pre-testing version available for Linux now, that you can technically checkout and use.  It has all the above properties, including 250MB RAM usage and saving scan data between loads.  But importing/sweeping/restoring addresses & wallets is a bit funky.  If you only do those ops while in offline mode, then it will rescan next time it's online, and then shouldn't rescan again until import/sweep/restore more stuff.  So far I've had it running for a week on my dev system, and it's stable.  But those rescan/rebuild ops are giving me more trouble than I was expecting.

Today I'm going to see if I can get it working in Windows.  It will have the same caveats, but at least it will help people move their money if they've been shut out up to this point.  
 
For reference, starting a company is a lot of work!   That's why this has taken me so long -- I've been thoroughly distracted with endless paperwork, negotiations, contract terms, lawyers, recruiting, finances, setting up bank accounts, etc.  I've been able to do some development in between, but obviously not at the rate otherwise.

So yes, I said these thing back in May, but I also hadn't anticipated going through such a grueling investment deal.  But now people can start believing me, because I actually have a version out there they can use :)

Unfortunately I'm in the middle of switching over to Electrum now. Armory maybe loads half the time and when it does it takes about an hour to get a proper balance. Not sure what's up with this wallet, but it's more work and time than I really have to spend. I double click on Electrum and it loads/syncs in about 30 seconds, and doesn't need huge amounts of memory or speed to work. I'm not bashing Armory, I actually wish I could still continue to use it, but the past 5 times when I needed access to my BTC I wasn't able to access them. Right now my index got corrupt "somehow" and has to re-build itself so I'm letting that run over night, then just sending my BTC to my Electrum address. Too bad, the potential and security was there but the reliability wasn't. Good luck with future upgrades.

Unfortunately, the blockchain corruption is probably a Bitcoin-Qt problem (http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/forum.php?thread_name=CAAS2fgT8_tp_4aGG_4jRAjO3ROCh9JNz1dHMfCi0qstEG8K7wA%40mail.gmail.com&forum_name=bitcoin-development), which I don't have much control over.  Nonetheless, you do avoid all that with Electrum.  But rebuilding probably won't fix it.  You have to add checklevel=2 to your bitcoin.conf or upgrade to 0.8.5.  Or maybe it really is Bitcoin DB corruption...

Give it another shot when I get the new version released.  You will probably be pleasantly surprised by it.

Is there an ETA? OR "when it's done"? :D

I just got the new branch working in Windows, finally.  And a lot of issues I was having are resolved.  This means I can probably have a pre-testing version available in the next day or two.  However, I wouldn't recommend it for regular use, since it will be pretty rough around the edges.  But it will be sufficient for getting your coins out if you've had them stuck in Armory for a while.

Of course, I keep making statements like that and I haven't been able to stick to them.  I really should say "next week" and then everyone will be happy when it's Saturday :)  I'm not going to rush it, but all the stuff really is working quite well, including the cool new backup center...

The scanning doesn't take too long on my desktop (about 4 minutes) but it sure is going to be a delight to see faster startup. What's the right branch for testing out the linux version you mentioned earlier?

Thanks for your hard work!

As an additional data point:

I had to install the newest version 0.88.1 on my Windows system since the older version ran out of RAM and crashed.

Current system:
MacBook Pro booted into Windows 7
16 GB of RAM
Armory consumes 3.8 GB of RAM!

At this point, Armory is already approaching the point at which it will exceed the memory usage of most consumer PCs, which are still being sold in the 4GB or less range.

I would advise that the memory usage must the first priority in development, or else nothing else will matter.

Read two posts up

I think you really need 16 GB RAM to run Armory 88.1 with the current blockchain. 8 GB is barely enough. Upgrading from 8 GB to 16 GB RAM worked for me.

I'm experiencing the same problem. If i close Armory and i run it again it rebuilds the database again. Is my blockchain corrupted? What can i do?

By the way is there a way to change the default .wallet location and run the wallets from another folder?

I built direct from github on Ubuntu and Armory still performs a lengthy scan each time it loads.

Despite the optimistic messages (2 minutes left ... 1 minute left ... 15 seconds ...) it generally takes about an hour.

I have also discovered that after performing a spend (offline wallet mode) armory will crash silently. I have seen this twice. I can provide logs on request, this may be due to Armory believing BitcoinQt to be out of sync, when it is not.

Despite these niggles, Armory is by far my favourite tool for keeping BTC safe :)

If you switch to the "testing" branch, you'll get the new version, which has it's own set of issues, but works very well if you are careful (don't interrupt the initial DB build or scan).  So far, I have experienced zero issues on both my Linux and Windows testing versions when I let it do its thing. 

The initial DB build takes 30-90 minutes, and 15-30 minutes for the subsequent scan.  After that, it's about 30 seconds to startup (plus a couple minutes if you haven't loaded it in a while and it has a lot of tx history to synchronize).

HI! I downloaded armory a week ago and its loading time its still a pain in the ass. I take forever to work, even when you close it and open again. Maybe its because I have encrypted (truecrypt) whole drive... dunno you must do something with this because its non use for most users (1-2 hours of loading time, no thx).

I have question about my private key and public key - where I can peep them in program (I can see them when I do paper backup - first 72 marks its my private key - root key, and second 72 marks is a public key - chain code, right ?)?

Also when I do a digital backup my addresses are not backup? Cause why there is another options to backup my individual keys? Could you explain it to me? If I don't do a backup of my addresses I lose the money in them?

Thanks for understanding those noob question, I'm waiting for answer :)

The root key and the chain code are not the same thing.  The root key together with the chain code allows Armory to generate an essentially infinite sequence of private and public keys (this is used in ordinary wallets).  The first public key together with the chain code allows Armory to generate all the public keys, but not the private ones (this is used in watch-only wallets, they only contain the public keys, so you can see the BTC but not spend them)


Both the digital and paper backups that Armory produces contain the root key and the chain code, so the backup protects all keys that Armory has generated in the wallet, and all keys Armory will generate in the future.  The backup of "individual keys" is only for the very special case that you have manually imported keys into you wallet that are were not generated by Armory.  That is a rare thing to do (and rarely a good idea).

That clarified some things - thanks!


I got a wallet and 4 addresses in there. I have made 3 translations - each time I have send money to an address A. Now when I open armory I see only 3 addresses B, C and D, but I don't see address A.
I see 3 incomes. My wallet show balance properly - but when I click on it I see only 3 addresses B,C,D and no A with my BTC on it. Is that OK ?

https://imageshack.com/i/5iw01ej


https://imageshack.com/i/046onaj

Just hit "Receive Bitcoins" a few times and it will calculate the next few addresses.  I thought Armory would do that automatically when it found money in "future" addresses in your wallet, but I guess not.  It does include them in the blockchain scan, but doesn't display them because it thinks they are "unused."  Definitely a bug.

Not sure if I am at the right place/post, but I just started to use Armory and I am seeing the same problem.

I start Armory, and nothing happens, not splash, no gui, nada. It starts bitcoind in the background though. Bitcoind is at a default place and is synced.

If I kill Armory and restart, it starts up fine but complains about bitcoind already running. If I kill bitcoind first, Armory also starts up, but in offline mode.

Running Ubuntu 12.04 64bit, armory 0.90-beta (from official deb) and bitcoind 0.8.6

Can't see anything wrong in Armory's log. Last lines: