Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys,

So i purchased around $400 in BTC from a local Bitcoin ATM.
I transferred that whole amount to my Bitcoin-QT wallet through the address i created in the "receive" section.
Upon opening my bitcoin-qt program:

1. I have zero BTC available
2. My wallet is "out of sync"
3. It says i have "no block source available" on the bottom of the screen
4. It also says i have "0 active connections to the bitcoin network"
5. There are no transactions pending or incoming either

Ive looked up the transaction on blockchain.info, and luckily i see it there. It matches up to the address i sent it to.

Ive tried changing my port on Bitcoin-QT settings, ive tried unlocking the port on my router, etc.
Nothing seems to be working and ive made zero progress.

I now have no idea what to do.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks!!

You need to sync it and once the whole blockchain gets downloaded you'll see the balance in your wallet. If you don't want to do that you can install Electrum and transfer your key from Bitcoin qt to it.

You should sync you wallet.
If you can find your balance in the blockchain, then you money is safe.

first check your internet connection
second make your wallet sync complete

after sync ins complete you will see your transaction
you must wait a long long long time to fully sync

or you can download bootstrap
it will decrease your time of waiting :)

i wonder how his wallet would sync into the network

you won't able to see them until wallet sync with network
if you are still getting the error may be i can help you with this

You can add some nodes manually if it says no block source available from https://getaddr.bitnodes.io/

Do you find any particular error in your debug.log file in the bitcoin data directory?

I would suggest that you look at the wallet offered by Blockchain.info. It is a free wallet, it is web-based which means that you do not need to wait the 24 or more hours waiting time to sync up with the network.

You can try a different and 'lite' wallet that syncs very fast compared to Bitcoin-QT.
Try MultiBit or Electrum.

You can export private keys from Bitcoin-QT and import it into MultiBit (or whatever other wallet you try).

If you have 0 connections, create a bitcoin.conf file at the data directory, find some nodes. And add this into the file, addnode=[IP] . Where IP is the IP address of the node. Try to choose a node that is closest to use. Use the link BitJack provided to find nodes close to you.

Huh, so what could be the actual reasons for BitcoinQT not 'finding' any nodes without having to add some manually to the configuration file? I know, decentralization and BitcoinQT is not for every newbie, but this should be something that works out-of-the-box, really!

well, it usually does work out-of-the-box, provided your Internet connection is fine and you have enough space in your hard disk to store the full block chain.
In this particular case, there is no reason to panic. First, wait some time till you find (bitcoin) network connections, sync up the wallet fully and then your transaction should be in. In case there are problems with network connections, add the nodes to the conf file.

Look for the bootstrap.dat torrent to speed the process up.

just wait until your wallet sync perfectly
and then you will receive your bitcoin  ;)

first check your bitcoin address's balance in an online block explorer like blockchain.info so you would know that you have non zero balance
then check your connection and see what is preventing bitcoin-qt from accessing network

Sync your wallet (download of the blockchain may take some time, depends on your connection).

It does work out of the box.  There is something blocking the user's internet connection (at least on the port used by bitcoind).  This fact was seemingly missed by 99% of the responses.  If Bitcoind can't connect to any peers it can't sync.  This is a connectivity issue.   Some possibilities would include:
* over restrictive firewall (most firewalls by default on block incoming ports but some may block outgoing traffic as well)
* ISP filtering (ISP is dropping all traffic on port 8333).
* another application using the same port (would be uncommon).

If the address went through normally as shown in blockchain.info then dont worry, its just Bitcoin-qt is a massive pain in the ass to set. You need a lot of RAM too to not struggle while running it.
Download it and let it sync, it may take like 2 days. Open needed ports as recommended.