Bitcoin Forum

Ever since I installed the Bitcoin client program it's been working for hours (spread over 2-3 days) on updateing it's block data base, using alot of CPU and even more HD activity, and as it nears it's 130K block limit it seems the speed (new blocks / minute) is exponentially decreasing while the data base size (the files blk0001 and blkindex in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Bitcoin) keeps exponentially increasing (MB / new block).
It seems like it will never finish and I'm starting to run out of space on C:, anyone know what's going on ?

I think what you're using is the wallet client.  ::)
Check out a mining program such as guiminer.

Well I'm using what I downloaded from the official Bitclient site as the main program for using and exchanging the currency. But it seems to be badly written, no info at all on why it's doing this block update phase, how long it's going to take, how much space it needs (on install it just said a few MB, and now it's database is hundreds of MB, and I'm tight on space !) or any options to disable or adjust it (very option poor in general).

P.S.
It used to count hundreds per second now it's counting several seconds per one ! This is making me crazy !

I believe it does some few block checking just in-case you randomly find a new block to get you some credits.
The dedicated miner program, such as guiminer uses 30.5mb.

Any way to turn that off ?
And mining explains the CPU activity, but why the hell does the size of the files keep increasing and the speed decreasing ? It's like the frog that jumps half distance with each new jump, so it never reaches it's goal ! I saw on BitMarket.eu that the current block number is about 130.8 K, but I just can't get to that number !
Is that normal or am I doing something wrong ? And is there another program that can do the same thing (give and receive BTC) ?

https://www.mybitcoin.com/
The wallet program doesn't actually use much CPU (as far as I'm aware).

That might be just the thing...
This program is making me crazy !
So with this online service the wallet file is kept on my HD while the transactions are initiated via the website, right ?
And I'm still not quite clear about this, is there one wallet file per user or one wallet file per installation (of the client or per account on this website) ? Or is it any number of wallet files and anyone can use anyone else's wallet file provided they get access to it (like sneak into their house and steal their HD) ?
And thanks for the help btw...

The site acts as the program, you can receive and trade coins without needing a program.
I personally may start using this site for receiving money and once I get enough I'll just move it to my wallet (the bitcoin program).
As far as I can tell this site doesn't require you to use any program.

If you were to say run the bitcoin program once or twice to create the wallet.dat file; you could use the bellow method to secure your coins and then you could just remove the program later.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet#Making_a_secure_workspace

Also, how is it possible that you can't spend upwards of 50mb of space? Worst case, just run it off of a USB.

If you are referring to using an online eWallet service like MyBitcoin, then when doing so you have simply just an account on that service.  There is no local software and no local wallet related to that eWallet service.

It is just like online banking with your bank.  Except ... of course, MyBitcoin is not a bank, it is an eWallet provider.
  - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/EWallet



When installing and using the bitcoin client it will, by default, expect the wallet to exist in a specific directory location.  If the wallet does not yet exist one will be created.
  - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

As far as why your download was taking a long time, make sure to use the newly released version of the Bitcoin client, v0.3.23.   If has improvements specifically to help with the problem you are describing:
  - http://www.bitcoinnews.com/post/6521309281

Yeah...I've had similar problems - but related to the network. It seems to use ALL of my upload. Like - 450kb/s for uploading. And I cannot figure out why....or how to throttle it.

I actually never checked my D / U consumption... Doesn't really matter really if I'm not downloading other stuff at the same time. But the problem is not that anyway, my D / U speed is always the same, yet downloading the last few thousand blocks took three times more time and three times more disk space than the hundred thousand that came before them. Some kind of exponential inneficiency programmed into the code as far as I can see...
Btw, if you need to limit your upload to stop it from suffocateing your download (because although in theory upload and download bands are separate frequency bands in DSL, in practice a fully used upload will decrease download speed) use NetLimiter (very usefull with P2P sharing or torrent applications, if you use that kind of stuff).


If I reinstall the program, will the old databases still work (provided I relocate them manually during reinstall and return them later) or will I have to download all the blocks again ?
Because I'm sure as hell not going through another 15 hours of listening to maddening hard-drive scraping, that almost made my brain boil ! The strange thing is, it seemed my ancient processor wasn't the bottleneck (it was only partially used), it was the HD (it worked insanely much), and seeing as HDs haven't increased in speed significantly (not like CPUs anyway) I'm wondering if everyone has a similar experience...
Btw someone should add an auto-update option to that program. Like on startup it checks for newer versions and if it finds any it offers you to click to download and install the newest version.


There's one thing I don't understand about wallets and trasnfers. Does a wallet have to be "online" (that is the client related to that wallet being connected to the bitcoin network) to receive money or is money available to the recipient wallet indefinitely after being sent thanks to the network ?
For example, if you send BTC from one wallet to another which is encrypted and safely stored somewhere, or you send BTC from a web-wallet account to your wallet on your HD, and let's say you let the payments accumulate for months, if you open your safely stored and encrypted wallet one day, will it all suddenly be there ?


The program ran for 15 hours before it finished updateing the blocks and finally took up 400 MB of space on my C: drive, which leaves me with a little more than 1 GB of space on my C: drive. Now I could increase the C: drive by taking free space from D: (which I've done twice before) but that would require a backup first (as the repartitiong process is risky) and I don't want to bother with all that now. Anyway I wish it gave some info on it's space requirements and allowed you to set the path for the database files.

To be sure, close the client and make a backup first.  But then you can install the latest version  and continue where you left off -- it will use the partially-complete blockchain.


That may seem confusing but that is because bitcoin only emulates our real-world concept of sending money.  What is actually happening when you spend a bitcoin is that a signed transaction is getting sent out to the network.  Once that transaction is included in a block, it then gets replicated on each node of the network.  So your wallet doesn't need to be connected to the network to "receive" a payment.


You can specify -datadir= to tell bitcoin to use a different data directory.
  - http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Running_Bitcoin

[Edit - quoting fixed]

I think you screwed up yuor quoteing...  :)
And btw I think I pressed something on mz keaboarz accidentalz and now mz z and y are mixed up, but onlz here and not in Windows, anzone know what-s wrong _
Dang it seems a lot more than z and y is wrong !

So it would be wisest and safest to use one everdaz wallet for sending and receiving small amounts, while transfering anz large longterm amounts to zour well encrzpted, backed up and permanentlz safelz store wallet _


Would that work in a shorcut target field, like this >
"D:\Temporary\Dark Messiah of Might & Magic - Multiplayer\mm.exe" -novid

P.S.
I think I changed mz Firefox language setting bz accident, anzone know where to change it back _
I hate accidental hotkezs !

P.P.S.
Fixed.

Yes.