Bitcoin Forum

Blockexplorer is already showing Block 287868 but Blockchain is showing Block 287863.

I'm no geek but the 2 websites do not show the same info.

Which is correct?

The one more further thought?

Yes, it's true.
Blockchain.info seems to stop functioning on Height 287863.

 :)

I would think that Blockchain.info has some problems. My own bitcoind and blockexplorer shows the same latest block (at the time of this writing 287869).

Also, on the unconfirmed transactions page (https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions) they have 5174 transactions right now. That's crazy...

There could still be some network problems going on, in this last two days my transactions (even the supposedly "high priority" ones)  confirm much slower, and some services like Coinbase seem to be misbehaving too. My guess would be some underlying problem for which the Blockchain.info unsync is a symptom, and that I'm not satoshi enough yet to understand...

Does it mean that Blockexplorer is showing the correct info but not Blockchain.info?

Architecturally, how does it work? Where does Blockexplorer and Blockchain.info get the data from?

Both sites simply run a Bitcoin node. Like any other Bitcoin node, they receive transactions and blocks from their peers. They will make sure that they are well-connected to other big nodes (such as mining pools) to ensure that they receive transactions and blocks quickly, but connections and software sometimes fail causing an issue like we see right now with Blockchain.info, where it has either not seen or processed recent blocks.

Neither Blockchain.info nor Blockexplorer is an authoritative source on the Bitcoin blockchain. They simply display their local copy of it in an easy-to-use interface.

Yes, that's what I've meant: Blockexplorer is likely to be the one correct.


Blockexplorer is getting it from bitcoind (actually, a patched version of bitcoind), as it is mentioned on their Github page (https://github.com/lirazsiri/blockexplorer). I'd expect it to be similar with Blockexplorer: use bitcoind to talk to the network, parse the bitcoin network data (announced transactions, blocks, etc), put them into a database, then just talk to the database for most of the things. This process likely got a hiccup somewhere for Blockchain.info...

Thank you Rannasha and imrehg for the explanation. It is certainly clearer now.

For someone new to the technical aspect of bitcoin (like me), it is possible they will take blockchain.info as the authoritative data source. When its data does not sync with other data sources, it is quite worrisome. But thanks for clarifying things for me.

Yeah, it is a bit of a problem. It also doesn't help that Blockchain.info has probably the best domainname available for their website, which makes it very easy for newcomers to confuse the Bitcoin blockchain, the decentralized ledger, with Blockchain.info, the company offering a browser for said ledger and a wallet-service.

A similar "problem" exists with Coinbase. A coinbase transaction is a specific type of transaction (one that awards new coins to miners for finding a block). A Coinbase transaction is a transaction sent by the company Coinbase. Capitalization matters.

Apart from blockexplorer.com and blockchain.info, there are several other similar sites.

For example: blockr.io (include unconfirmed tx, like bc.i) and biteasy.com (only include confirmed tx, like blockexplorer.com)

Another big confusion is the word "address" and "wallet".
I have seen tons of sites asking you to "enter your wallet".

Could you explain the Coinbase problem a little more?

The "coinbase (https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Coinbase)" in the Bitcoin protocol is the input of the coin generation (mining), basically the parent of the new coins.

Coinbase (http://coinbase.com) the business, on the other hand, took the business name from that particular technical name in the protocol.

So whether writing Coinbase or coinbase, or Blockchain or blockchain, one is a business, the other is part of the Bitcoin protocol. (though another level of capitalization is Bitcoin the protocol, and bitcoin the amount of value.... huh, my head hurts too :)

They had been having some database issues, could be because of that.

That's not accurate. We include unconfirmed transactions as well (you can even see them on home page live).

Blockchain has been DDoS'd recently. Probably due to the bitcoin.com issues. That is most likely the cause.