Why nodes are not upgrading?

[nerioseole]

To miss an upgrade or two, I understand.  But to still be running a Bitcoin node at version 0.6, 0.7 or 0.8.x...  

I was looking at the peers tab on my Bitcoin-core today - and was amazed on how many "old" nodes there are.  The 0.8.x series was released in Dec 2013 - 1.5 years ago... Are they all Windows XP worshippers?  They don't read the news, they live in a cave?  I get the "don't be the first one to upgrade" - "wait for a stable version first" type of talk, but 1.5 years... really?  Upgrades are free... just to let you know...

Please use this post to indicate the current Bitcoin-Core version you are using, and most importantly, why (or why you are not upgrading to the latest version).    

[Amph]

they fear to screw something and need then to redownload the whole blockchain, it did happen sometime with new version, i know it happened to me from 0.9.3 to 0.1

i was forced to rebuild, really annoying

[NorrisK]

they fear to screw something and need then to redownload the whole blockchain, it did happen sometime with new version, i know it happened to me from 0.9.3 to 0.1

i was forced to rebuild, really annoying

Can't you make a copy (albeit a very large copy) of the blockchain in case it goes wrong? And just paste it back in case something messes up?

[Amph]

they fear to screw something and need then to redownload the whole blockchain, it did happen sometime with new version, i know it happened to me from 0.9.3 to 0.1

i was forced to rebuild, really annoying

Can't you make a copy (albeit a very large copy) of the blockchain in case it goes wrong? And just paste it back in case something messes up?

yeah i have a copy but even in that case there is a remote chance that it will screw up on the last part of the synching

i don't know why these random problem occur, i think it has to do with some drivers in widnows 7 or antivirus that do some conflict...

[Lauda]

Can't you make a copy (albeit a very large copy) of the blockchain in case it goes wrong? And just paste it back in case something messes up?

I'm pretty sure that a good part of nodes do not have enough space to experiment with that. A friend of mine is actually just about to run out of space, and I've also seen someone mention it around here for their node as well.
I can't understand why they aren't upgrading. I always try to upgrade. The last time I was with 0.9.3 and didn't bother to upgrade to 0.10.2 until the blockchain had split. Upgrading is recommended, just not maybe to the latest version at the day of release (it can have a handful of bugs).

[elvizzzzzzz]

I'm running 0.8.6-1 (when I run bitcoind)

That is the current version on Debian|Jessie.

I run Debian|Jessie because I prefer init.d and Xfce

I will probably move to one of the non-systemd distros like Antix when the dust settles a little.
I'm not looking to start a flamewar here, just offering a reasoned answer to a question.

[S4VV4S]

Don't like to be told what to do.  Bitcoin fine with me - why upgrade?

LOL!
Fair enough. But sometimes it's good to be up todate just in case something happens.
Like the "fork of July" for example.

[Kakmakr]

In a way the developers has to be blamed for this.
If people are hesitant to upgrade, because they had to download the whole blockchain again, with newer updates, it had to be beta tested to prevent these situations.
In most software like FireFox or Tor these upgrades are so easy, you do not even have to think about it. The developers must make this node upgrades easier.  

[Meuh6879]

ALL P2P network have depreciate version running on ... it's the versality of this P2P network.
But, at the end, the P2P network always work.

look on the eD2k network for example ... since 1999.
16 years after, always work without any issues even with depreciate client.

[scarsbergholden]

Most likely not everyone will update but setup a new node just to test out the improvements before updating their complete set of nodes or which ever they have setup with older versions, i get it that it could be pretty annoying the rebuilding process and i guess they have to counter this type of fire backs from the community with a easy upgrade setup for nodes.

[pedrog]

I'm running 0.8.6-1 (when I run bitcoind)

That is the current version on Debian|Jessie.

I run Debian|Jessie because I prefer init.d and Xfce

I will probably move to one of the non-systemd distros like Antix when the dust settles a little.
I'm not looking to start a flamewar here, just offering a reasoned answer to a question.

I'm also on Jessie, and  Wheezy, it's really simple to upgrade, you don't have to use the repo version, just download from bitcoin.org, extract or version and run it, it's as painless as it gets.

[Meuh6879]

  not every nodes are ... with the authorisation or the owner. 

[Last of the V8s]

http://log.bitcoin-assets.com/?date=25-06-2015#1176645

19:38:19 mircea_popescu: there has been no version of bitcoin released past 0.5.3 ; we are releasing the first one. it's 0.5.4

19:38:22 mircea_popescu: that's all there is to it.

[yeponlyone]

not every nodes are ... with the authorisation or the owner. 

This. We had one at the university, a small room which no-one used in the basement but still had a network connection. It was running for... a very long time

But people who does things like that, need to realize they can hurt the network by not upgrading. I wonder what is the best option: on out of date note which is running than no node at all if the network was attacked or had some other major problem?

[cypherdoc]

i'm not going to upgrade my nodes until we get a resolution to this block size issue.