How do I "restart with -reindex-chainstate."?

[Axdiamond]

Downloading the 577GB blockchain on a late 2013 MacBook Pro is impossible.  Even at 450Mbps internet, the processor slows down at 86% and never finished even 3 weeks later.

A family member with a newer mac downloaded the blockchain weeks ago.
I copied all 577GB from them today.

They are using Mac OS 10.9 and an OLDER bitcoin core release from at least a year ago.

Now the OLDER but completely up to date blockchain data is NOT compatible with the latest version 25.
I get this error at startup:

"Error: Unsupported chainstate database format found. Please restart with -reindex-chainstate. This will rebuild the chainstate database."

Redownloading the blockchain is not an option.
How do I make this work?
How can I restart "with -reindex-chainstate" when the version 25 locks up with that error message then quits after I hit "ok"?

[NotATether]

It depends on how you installed Bitcoin Core.

If it is through a DMG file, the Bitcoin Core executable will be located somewhere in /Applications. In that case, locate the binary (it should be called something like Bitcoin Core or bitcoin-qt) and use one of these methods to pass the -reindex-chainstate argument to it via Terminal.

If installed by homebrew or some other command-line method, it will be in /usr/bin or /usr/local/bin, and you can simply run: $(which bitcoin-qt) -reindex-chainstate in Terminal.

[LoyceV]

Downloading the 577GB blockchain on a late 2013 MacBook Pro is impossible.  Even at 450Mbps internet, the processor slows down at 86% and never finished even 3 weeks later.

Your internet speed doesn't matter here, the limitations are CPU, disk and RAM (dbcache). The hardware is old, but 10 years should still be doable. My laptop is old, but 16 GB RAM and SSD makes all the difference.

"Error: Unsupported chainstate database format found. Please restart with -reindex-chainstate. This will rebuild the chainstate database."

Did you also copy the chainstate directory? I've never had any problems when upgrading Bitcoin Core to a newer version, so it could be something went wrong with your copy.

Redownloading the blockchain is not an option.

Just a heads up: -reindex-chainstate is going to take a while too.

Are you sure you want to use Bitcoin Core if your computer has such a hard time with it? Electrum for instance is much lighter to run.

[DaveF]

Keep in mind what I posted over a year ago: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5399730

Yes you can get it running on a 2013MBP but it's never going to be good. Just due to the way Apple did things the hardware in that unit was not the fastest out there. It will be a good learning experience for you, but it's never going to be a good way to run core.

And running something like the reindex is going to take a long time due to hardware limitations.

-Dave