Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Bitcoin Technical Support => Topic started by: jackjack on March 22, 2013, 04:57:36 PM



Title: Blockchain taking ages to be downloaded
Post by: jackjack on March 22, 2013, 04:57:36 PM
Hi,
It's been 2 days that Bitcoin is downloading the blockchain (from block 1)
I don't think it's normal... Any idea?



Title: Re: Blockchain taking ages to be downloaded
Post by: jackjack on March 22, 2013, 05:21:33 PM
Not new but I didn't touch Bitcoin for about a year so yeah I didn't think the blockchain would have grown so much
15000 blocks remaining so it shouldn't be too long now

Thanks for the info about blockchain.info btw


Title: Re: Blockchain taking ages to be downloaded
Post by: btcven on March 23, 2013, 01:03:43 AM
Still downloading the blockchain? Try Electrum (http://electrum.org)


Title: Re: Blockchain taking ages to be downloaded
Post by: k on March 23, 2013, 01:06:22 AM
Not new but I didn't touch Bitcoin for about a year so yeah I didn't think the blockchain would have grown so much
15000 blocks remaining so it shouldn't be too long now

Thanks for the info about blockchain.info btw

What version of Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind are you using? latest 0.8.1 is much faster than 0.7 or lower.


Title: Re: Blockchain taking ages to be downloaded
Post by: davidoski on March 23, 2013, 01:15:22 AM
Instead of downloading the whole blockchain through the node I advise you to:

1. download the bootstrap.dat file through a torrent client
2. place the bootstrap.dat file into the Bitcoin directory on your PC
3. launch the full node

The node will take most of the blockchain data form the bootstrap.dat file and download the rest from the internet. It'll take much less then downloading the whole blockchain from the internet.

Torrent file you can find here (https://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/blockchain/) and read about it here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0).



Title: Re: Blockchain taking ages to be downloaded
Post by: jackjack on March 23, 2013, 01:22:04 AM
Still downloading the blockchain? Try Electrum (http://electrum.org)
I'm using bitcoin-qt to test pywallet so I need an environment I know
For personal use, I planned to try it later anyway, along with Armory

Not new but I didn't touch Bitcoin for about a year so yeah I didn't think the blockchain would have grown so much
15000 blocks remaining so it shouldn't be too long now

Thanks for the info about blockchain.info btw

What version of Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind are you using? latest 0.8.1 is much faster than 0.7 or lower.
0.8.1...


Instead of downloading the whole blockchain through the node I advise you to:

1. download the bootstrap.dat file through a torrent client
2. place the bootstrap.dat file into the Bitcoin directory on your PC
3. launch the full node

The node will take most of the blockchain data form the bootstrap.dat file and download the rest from the internet. It'll take much less then downloading the whole blockchain from the internet.

Torrent file you can find here (https://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/blockchain/) and read about it here (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145386.0).


I'm already in bed right now, but if it's not done when I wake up I think that's what I'll do
Thanks for the idea


Title: Re: Blockchain taking ages to be downloaded
Post by: grue on March 23, 2013, 01:56:00 AM
check your bandwidth graphs. if you're not using at least 33% of your connection, restart bitcoin-qt to connect to another node. the blockchain download isn't parallel, so you may have to do this.


Title: Re: Blockchain taking ages to be downloaded
Post by: jackjack on March 23, 2013, 04:10:37 PM
I have 217000, so no use for bootstrap...
And my bandwidth is fully used. I guess I just have to wait