Bitcoin Forum

I may have gotten ahead of myself and I've gotten myself in a jam.
I downloaded the bitcoin software and then proceeded to buy bitcoins from get-bitcoins. I bought them through BoA's direct bank account service.
My bank account shows the withdrawal, but my wallet is still empty and when I enter my address in the block explorer search, it shows no transactions for my address.
On my bitcoin screen, it shows no connections and 130451 blocks.
I'm guessing I missed a step setting up bitcoin and have searched the forum boards to solve it, but I have not found simple instructions on how to set it up.
Please help.
Thanks

not sure how long get-bitcoin takes to verify your deposit, but probably a few days.

If he has sent you the coins, your Client has not downloaded the full blockchain yet. Your only at 130451. At the time of writing the current block is 153568

Cheers

Thanks Yankee for responding so quickly.
It seems that I need to download the block chain, but I have yet to find specific instructions on how to do that.
Can you help?

If blockexplorer doesn't show a transfer to your address, you didn't receive your coins yet.

As for your client, it's not done downloading. Give it some time, and if it seems stuck for a few hours, backup your wallet.dat, delete blk0001.dat, addr.dat and blkindex.dat and restart the client.

As long as you have connections, itll download the chain. Could take a few hours up to a day.
Alternatively, you can manually download the block chain here http://eu1.bitcoincharts.com/blockchain/ but be very careful.


7under, go to blockexplorer.com/address/INSERT_BITCOIN_ADDRESS_HERE and check if it shows your transaction, and which block its in.


 

Thanks ovidiusoft.
The block count has been stuck for a couple of days.
I don't know how to do those actions. I truly am a newbie. There are no tabs on the bitcoin screen that appear to take me to an area where I can perform those tasks. And the "help" tab is useless.
Someone please take a minute to guide me through this.

Because you have 0 connections you may be using an outdated client.  Anything older than version 0.24 will likely have trouble finding peers. You can install a newer client or use a "fallback node".  That is a node still running an old version, check here.: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Fallback_Nodes

ovidiusoft,
I tried the solution you suggested and now there are no blocks and no connections.
Meanwhile, getbitcoins sent me an e-mail that my coins have been sent. Also, when I used the block explorer, it shows I have the coins.
But my bitcoin program doesn't show anything.
After deleting the items as you suggested, do I need to do anything other than restarting bitcoins?

No, the client should connect to the network, detect peers and start downloading the blocks. At some point you will also "see" the bitcoins that were sent to you. Unfortunately, I don't know what to tell you to do if after a few hours the client still doesn't connect and download the blockchain. It's possible you have an aggressive firewall? Or an antivirus?

if you do not want to wait, you can use a lightweight client that does not download the blockchain: http://ecdsa.org/electrum
you can configure it to use port 80 if you are behind a firewall

He's a newbie, you should explain to him how to import his private keys to Electrum.

seriously?
I know that it can be done (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50936.msg617974#msg617974), but I cannot recommend to do that, unless you really know what you're doing.

Then, for the moment he's stuck with the standard client, since he already has home bitcoins sent to him... BTW, that's a good idea for the future: have an option in the GUI to selectively import addresses to Electrum.

Just manually download the block chain here http://eu1.bitcoincharts.com/blockchain/ but be very careful.

Once you do that, your coins will appear, simple.