slow blockchain!!!

[pfunk]

I had to restore my wallet with .dat file and download whole blockchain over.  The first 100k went very fast, but it's been stuck on 136k for a few hours now.  I still have to get to 209K.  I purchased some coinage friday and didnt receive them by the time i ran into the problem so my first question is
1. is this transaction still in the chain somewhere(vendor verified transaction went through)?
2. does this seem like it's taking a long time (probably only downloaded 20k in last 5 hours)?

thanks

[MooC Tals]

Just leave the computer on over night. Get a good night sleep at the same time.

It took a while for me too.

[payb.tc]

1. is this transaction still in the chain somewhere?

you can look up your receiving address on blockchain.info to confirm that the coins have been sent to it.

[DannyHamilton]

1. is this transaction still in the chain somewhere(vendor verified transaction went through)?

To see all transactions received into the blockchain at your address, you can copy and paste this link into your browser.

http://blockchain.info/address/YOURADDRESSHERE

Replace the YOURADDRESSHERE text with your actual bitcoin address before hitting [ENTER]

2. does this seem like it's taking a long time (probably only downloaded 20k in last 5 hours)?

The early days of bitcoin had relatively few transactions per block, so validation of the blocks as they download runs pretty quickly for the first two-thirds of the blockchain or so. Then the most recent one-third of the blocks or so takes MUCH longer to validate.  The explosion of high volume low value transactions created by popular services such as SatoshiDice causes the blockchain to processes much slower with the more recent blocks.  It should complete eventually, but depending on the specs of your particular system could take as much as several days to finish.

[pfunk]

one more thing, under "receive coins" the address isn't there.  I have it i think on the receipt from the deposit from zipzap but it's not in the wallet, is this a problem?

[DannyHamilton]

one more thing, under "receive coins" the address isn't there.  I have it i think on the receipt from the deposit from zipzap but it's not in the wallet, is this a problem?

Yes, this is a problem.  You are sure you are using your original backed up wallet.dat file?  It sounds to me like you deleted everything and re-installed the bitcoin-qt program.  If you still have a backup of your original wallet.dat file you can still get your coins.  If you know what the private key was that was associated with your bitcoin address, then you can import it into this new wallet.  If you don't have a copy of your original wallet.dat file, and you don't have the private key, then you will never be able to access those coins.  They are lost to the blockchain forever.

[DannyHamilton]

If you still have the backup of your original wallet.dat from before reinstalling bitcoin-qt, I would stop/exit/quit the bitcoin-qt program.  Wait for it to completely finish shutting down.  Then delete the wallet.dat that is currently in the appdata directory. Finally, copy the backed up wallet.dat into the appdata directory and start bitcoin-qt back up.

[payb.tc]

If you still have the backup of your original wallet.dat from before reinstalling bitcoin-qt, I would stop/exit/quit the bitcoin-qt program.  Wait for it to completely finish shutting down.  Then delete the wallet.dat that is currently in the appdata directory. Finally, copy the backed up wallet.dat into the appdata directory and start bitcoin-qt back up.

just to be safe, i recommend against EVER deleting a wallet.dat.

your hard drive is terabytes, your wallet.dat is killobytes.

instead, rename it old_wallet_2012_11_27.dat and put it somewhere safe.

[DannyHamilton]

If you still have the backup of your original wallet.dat from before reinstalling bitcoin-qt, I would stop/exit/quit the bitcoin-qt program.  Wait for it to completely finish shutting down.  Then delete the wallet.dat that is currently in the appdata directory. Finally, copy the backed up wallet.dat into the appdata directory and start bitcoin-qt back up.

just to be safe, i recommend against EVER deleting a wallet.dat . . . instead, rename it old_wallet_2012_11_27.dat and put it somewhere safe.

Good advice.

[pfunk]

everything i deleted is still in recycling bin, what should I do?  can you tell me step by step?  im new to this troubleshooting stuff never had a problem before with btc wallet.  what i did was delete everything in the bitcoin folder then just dragged the .dat file from my flashdrive back into the folder and opened wallet up.  it started but there weren't any addresses in it.  would it be in the deleted files?  how do i know which one?  theres an "addr" .dat file, would that be it?

[pfunk]

also what is the private key associated with the address?  how do i find this?

[DannyHamilton]

everything i deleted is still in recycling bin, what should I do?  can you tell me step by step?  im new to this troubleshooting stuff never had a problem before with btc wallet.  what i did was delete everything in the bitcoin folder then just dragged the .dat file from my flashdrive back into the folder and opened wallet up.  it started but there weren't any addresses in it.  would it be in the deleted files?  how do i know which one?  theres an "addr" .dat file, would that be it?

No, not the "addr" .dat file.  Your bitcoin adresses and private keys are in the wallet.dat file.  When did you put the wallet.dat on the flashdrive?  It sounds like the one from the flashdrive might not have your addresses and private keys.  You may want to make a backup copy of  the wallet.dat file from the trashbin before you lose it.

[DannyHamilton]

also what is the private key associated with the address?  how do i find this?

The private key is what allows you (or anyone) to spend the bitcoin that is associated with the bitcoin address.  Whoever has the private key can spend the coin, so you don't want to leave that where a thief or hacker can get at it.  The bitcoin-qt program hides the private key in the wallet.dat file.  It doesn't show it to you, but when you send coins the program uses the private key that is stored in wallet.dat to sign the transactions so that they will be considered valid transactions on the bitcoin network.  Once you get your bitcoin-qt program running with the correct addresses, I'll give you instructions on how you can get access to your private keys so that you can keep them safe on a piece of paper or something if you want.  That way if you ever lose your wallet.dat (and all backups), you can still get access to your bitcoins.

For now, since you don't have the private keys stored separately anywhere lets focus on getting your proper bitcoin addresses back.

[DannyHamilton]

So, when did you put the wallet.dat file onto the flashdrive?  Was that something you did in the past to backup your wallet?  Days ago? Weeks ago? Months? Years?  Was it something that you just put onto the flashdrive right before you put stuff into the trashbin?  Did you do anything before putting stuff into the trashbin? (such as re-installing bitcoin-qt, or deleteing files from appdata?)

I'm trying to figure out why you thought the wallet.dat you are using should have your addresses, and why it doesn't.  It seems like you must have mixed up some steps in your process.

[pfunk]

I backed up the flash drives After my last transaction because the blocks chain was taking so long that I thought there could possibly be a problem so I backed up my DAT file. Okay so earlier the wallet had a problem loading the block chain index and i talked to somebody on the forum that told me type in % app data % then go to the bitcoin folder and delete everything in it then take the .DAT file off my flash drive and copy it over there I did that Reopened my wallet and everything seem to be working fine.  After it started loading I noticed that my addresses weren't there so now I still have everything in the recycling bin what do I do next what do I need to delete from the btc folder now and replace?

[DannyHamilton]

. . . what do I do next what do I need to delete from the btc folder now and replace?

Hang on. Lets not rush into deleting stuff and moving stuff around if you don't understand what you are doing.  That is how you got into the situation in the first place.  Lets get a better understanding of what you have and where your addresses are...

I backed up the flash drives After my last transaction because the blocks chain was taking so long that I thought there could possibly be a problem so I backed up my DAT file. Okay so earlier the wallet had a problem loading the block chain index and i talked to somebody on the forum that told me type in % app data % then go to the bitcoin folder and delete everything in it then take the .DAT file off my flash drive and copy it over there . . .

Ok, this is the part that has me confused.  If you didn't know where your %appdata% folder was then how did you back it up to the flashdrive?  What is on the flashdrive? How did it get there?  You say you "backed up the flash drives", but I don't know what you mean by this.  What did you copy to the flashdrive, where did you copy it from?

[pfunk]

Ok so first of all my hard drive crashed two weeks ago. Someone restored it and I had all old files on .old file. I could still get to my wallet. I decided to buy some coins Friday. When I got home I checked to see if they posted, Rey had not so I was looking around and saw the option to backup wallet. At this time I backed it up on a flash drive. Saturday night I left my CPU on because the blockchain was about 40k behind(I'm guessing from being down 2 weeks). Sunday morning my wallet was stuck on "loading blockchain index". I joined this forum and the advice I got was to delete everything from the bitcoin folder and transfer the .dat file I had on flashdrive bak to the bitcoin folder. I opened my wallet and it seemed to work (I was unable to open before). Then I realized that addressed weren't there. Now I think my hd failed again because it says "startup repair", your computer was unable to start. I'm typing this on iPhone.

[pfunk]

I got my computer back and running. So what is your advice?  What should I do next?

[pfunk]

when i type %appdata% and open bitcoin folder it has both wallet.dat files, the one that i backed up created on 11/23 and another one that says modified 11/26.

I don't know what to do

[DannyHamilton]

I got my computer back and running. So what is your advice?  What should I do next?

It sounds like the flashdrive should have a good copy of your wallet.dat based on the events you've described.  Now we need to figure out what happened when you copied it off the flashdrive into the %appdata%/roaming/bitcoin directory...

When you use the "Backup Wallet" option in Bitcoin-Qt, I think you get a "Save As" box, right?  Which means you get to choose the name of the wallet file when you save it?  I'm not much of a Windows user, but isn't Windows case sensitive on filenames?  (meaning that as far as Windows is concerned, WALLET.DAT and wallet.dat are 2 different files?)

It is possible that when you copied the file to the %appdata%/roaming/bitcoin directory, you used a filename that Bitcoin-Qt didn't recognize.

Can you look at your %appdata%/roaming/bitcoin directory and list all the filenames that are in there right now?