bitcoin core 0.11.2 on windows never gets mor than 8-10 connections

[dhcernese]

I've read a lot of posts on this subject, so I feel a bit naive asking again. A week ago I had to start from scratch after restoring my wallet.  I let the client run overnight and sometimes all day.  The client only receives (in the debug window) ~ 2GB overnight.  I never observe more than 8 outgoing and 2 incoming connections.   Here's what I think is relevant that everyone asks about:

• windows firewall showing bitcoin-qt allowed
• netgear router showing UPNP is forwarding TCP port 8333
• http://www.yougetsignal.com/tools/open-ports/ says that my port 8333 is open
• https://bitnodes.21.co/ however says it cannot connect, and I can see in tcpview that it connection does come in to bitcoin-qt and immediate goes to CLOSE_WAIT

Maybe that last clue might suggest to someone where I can go from here?
(while typing this dazzlepod.com is trying to connect to bitcoin-qt and also getting CLOSE_WAIT as do some others)

At this rate, I won't catch up for ~ 2 weeks, if ever.
[edit] i'm watching tcpview while i posting.. ..some connections do establish.  some go to SYN_SENT/LAST_ACK, i'm assuming most of this is all normal.  I restarted the client just before posting this, and it seems that it's doing better in the last 15 minutes than it was some previous hours.  however, i still don't understand i can't establish more than ~2 incoming and 8 outgoing.

[dhcernese]

i did an experiment and completely disabled the windows firewall.. ..and bitnodes.21.co says it can connect.  i'll leave it this way for a while and see what happens. [edit] that must have been random, it doesn't connect any more.

[achow101]

Bitcoin Core by default only allows 8 outgoing connections and 255 connections total. You already have 8 outgoing, so the rest will be incoming. Incoming connections only happen if others want to connect to you. In order to be someone that they connect to, you generally have to be for several days so that the DNS seeds will get your IP address and so that people can know about you and connect to you.

Something might also be wrong with your firewall that may be limiting it to only 10 connections.

[dhcernese]

thanks, if that's true.. ..why is nobody providing blocks?  these 8 peers provide nothing for 5-10 minutes at a time or more.  i feel like i'm trying to catch up and i'm stuck with bad neighbors 

[achow101]

thanks, if that's true.. ..why is nobody providing blocks?  these 8 peers provide nothing for 5-10 minutes at a time or more.

Blocks come at 10 minute intervals on average so that could be the data that you are getting. However you should be seeing data for transactions.

[dhcernese]

thanks, if that's true.. ..why is nobody providing blocks?  these 8 peers provide nothing for 5-10 minutes at a time or more.

Blocks come at 10 minute intervals on average so that could be the data that you are getting. However you should be seeing data for transactions.

i'm still 1 year and 18 weeks behind.  yesterday i was 1 year and 19 weeks behind.

[shorena]

thanks, if that's true.. ..why is nobody providing blocks?  these 8 peers provide nothing for 5-10 minutes at a time or more.

Blocks come at 10 minute intervals on average so that could be the data that you are getting. However you should be seeing data for transactions.

i'm still 1 year and 18 weeks behind.  yesterday i was 1 year and 19 weeks behind.

#1 connections are low during the initial sync, thats normal.
#2 is your CPU or your disk maxed out? Because if thats the case you might have an answer why you dont get any new blocks. If your machine is busy verifying and writing the blocks it has it can not request more.

[achow101]

thanks, if that's true.. ..why is nobody providing blocks?  these 8 peers provide nothing for 5-10 minutes at a time or more.

Blocks come at 10 minute intervals on average so that could be the data that you are getting. However you should be seeing data for transactions.

i'm still 1 year and 18 weeks behind.  yesterday i was 1 year and 19 weeks behind.

So you are still syncing. Try opening Help > Debug Window and then the Network Traffic tab in Bitcoin Core. It will show you how much you have sent and received. A lot of times the entire block data you still need to sync is downloaded at the very beginning. It just takes Bitcoin Core a while to process the data that it has received. In that case, the bottleneck is not on the network but on your CPU or Hard drive.

[dhcernese]

thanks, if that's true.. ..why is nobody providing blocks?  these 8 peers provide nothing for 5-10 minutes at a time or more.

Blocks come at 10 minute intervals on average so that could be the data that you are getting. However you should be seeing data for transactions.

i'm still 1 year and 18 weeks behind.  yesterday i was 1 year and 19 weeks behind.

#1 connections are low during the initial sync, thats normal.
#2 is your CPU or your disk maxed out? Because if thats the case you might have an answer why you dont get any new blocks. If your machine is busy verifying and writing the blocks it has it can not request more.

It's a quad-core running at ~ 25% or less, my disk is a hardware raid mirror that is active (~3-10MB/s) but not excessively busy, process explorer confirms most of that disk io is bitcoin-qt, could it really be that slow?  ug.

[dhcernese]

In case anyone else can benefit, I have made the following modifications, I'm still syncing:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\KeepAliveInteral 5000(decimal; was -1)
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\KeepAliveTime 1200000(decimal; was -1)
• Increased the client cache from 100MB to 200MB

This has made a noticeable difference in receiving enough blocks to keep my disk busy.  At least now it's catching up about 10 weeks a day.  About 10x it was before.  Could be coincidence, but I do notice that the debug window network traffic does show more received than before.. ..and the disk io in process explorer is a consistent 10MB/s with spikes at predicable intervals.  I guess that's all my io subsystem can handle.