synchronizing network slowed to a crawl

[tradevice]

hello
yesterday I downloaded bitcoin client (regular one) and started to syncronize to network. Blocks remaining was dropping very fast. Now nearly 12 hrs passed and now remaning block numbers decrease very slowly. (it didnt hang, changing)
why is that? any idea
cheers

[1714792671]

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[1714792671]

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[1714792671]

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[1714792671]

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[Duderin0]

Do you get any error message?

[saddambitcoin]

hello
yesterday I downloaded bitcoin client (regular one) and started to syncronize to network. Blocks remaining was dropping very fast. Now nearly 12 hrs passed and now remaning block numbers decrease very slowly. (it didnt hang, changing)
why is that? any idea
cheers

It is because the earlier blocks are smaller (less transactions).  Overall you're downloading like 4gb.  Make sure you have port 8333 open so you can connect to more nodes. It took me more than a day to sync when i downloaded from scratch last week.

You can also use a client that does not need to download the entire blockchain like Electrum.  There are others.  Much to learn here!

edit to add: if you go take a look at Satoshidice you may understand why the most recent blocks have so many transactions.

[Graet]

also your client isn't just downloading the blockchain but also verifying it, the specs of your pc make a difference too

[Stephen Gornick]

why is that? any idea

Are you using an encrypted filesystem?    That's a performance killer for the bitcoin.org client, which uses BDB and does a LOT of i/o.

[tradevice]

thanks for kind answers
I dont use encrypted file system
my client shows 8 connections(is that too low?)

[SgtSpike]

thanks for kind answers
I dont use encrypted file system
my client shows 8 connections(is that too low?)

The bottleneck is in verifying all of the transactions.

The earlier blocks had 0 transactions, hence the quick verification - there was nothing to verify!  Many newer blocks have hundreds of transactions, which means your hard drive is crunching finding some (or all?) of the previous history for those transactions to verify that they are legitimate.

Be patient - it'll probably take 2-3 days to fully catch up, unfortunately.  There isn't really an easy way around this, besides using a "lite" client.

[saddambitcoin]

thanks for kind answers
I dont use encrypted file system
my client shows 8 connections(is that too low?)

8 connections happens to me a lot, and i keep port 8333 open for bitcoin all the time.  at its peak i have 50-60 connections.  check to make sure your port 8333 is open