Bitcoin crashes after downloading the blockchain

[mrich8]

Bitcoin 0.7.2 on Windows XP. A few days ago the computer crashed. When I rebooted it, Bitcoin would not run. It had some BS error about the database and not enough disk space, but there is plenty of space. So I trashed the blockchain and everything except the wallet.dat and let it download again. It runs fine, I can see all of my transactions in the list, unconfirmed, until it gets to the very end of the blockchain, then it crashes with several exceptions that do not detail anything specific. If you try to load again it might do a Rescanning that takes a long time and then crashes again. One time it said the wallet.dat was corrupted and then crashed.

Just now I tried to load the program and it does load but the blockchain stopped downloading from around 6/27/2012, around block 185,000. Now I let it download the other blocks while I sleep.

Is it really a corrupted wallet.dat? Is there any remedy? I have a backup but it is a few months old. How does that work if I have to use the backup? Does it "fill in" with the coins I sent and received since then? What about new address used to receive coins not in the wallet backup?

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[deepceleron]

I suspect that your computer is crashing because of a hardware problem. Lemme guess which one:

1. Overclocking CPU
2. Laptop

Bitcoin does not have any error message relating to disk space; when it runs out of space to download the blockchain it just crashes. Such an error would be from the operating system. Errors in the disk file allocation table may report incorrect free space to you or to applications.

Bitcoin cannot run on a computer that has hardware problems. Laptops commonly fail because they have undersized cpu coolers that get plugged up with lint. Overclockers usually overclock until just before the computer crashes all the time, but Bitcoin won't tolerate a CPU that makes even occasional calculation errors from overclocking. Your computer crashing will also cause disk file system problems, you should do a disk check on each drive, and reboot when prompted.

As long as you have a recent backup of wallet.dat on a different media, your bitcoins are safe. There are 100 addresses pre-created in a keypool, only if you have made more than 100 transactions or manually added more addresses since the wallet backup may there be loss.

[mrich8]

I suspect that your computer is crashing because of a hardware problem. Lemme guess which one:

1. Overclocking CPU
2. Laptop

No. This is a dedicated computer which only runs a mining program and Bitcoin. It is not overclocked, it is not a laptop. It is a well ventilated desktop.

Bitcoin does not have any error message relating to disk space; when it runs out of space to download the blockchain it just crashes. Such an error would be from the operating system. Errors in the disk file allocation table may report incorrect free space to you or to applications.reboot when prompted.

Here is an exact error I received a few times:

EXCEPTION: 11DbException
Db::get: Not enough space
C:\Users\Owner\Desktop\Bitcoin\bitcoin.exe in AppInit()

Now when I load it, I get a "Runaway Exception" after it sits there for several hours not downloading any blocks.

[kjj]

Try -salvagewallet first.

The usefulness of your backup depends on your keypoolsize (default: 100) and how many keys you've used since the backup.  Every time you ask for a new address, you use one key from the pool.  Every time you send and get change, you use one key from the pool.  If your wallet isn't busy, a backup from a few months ago may still be fine.  Try -salvagewallet first anyway.

The "not enough space" message probably doesn't mean what you think it means.  Check your db.log file for clues.

[zvs]

Try -salvagewallet first.

The usefulness of your backup depends on your keypoolsize (default: 100) and how many keys you've used since the backup.  Every time you ask for a new address, you use one key from the pool.  Every time you send and get change, you use one key from the pool.  If your wallet isn't busy, a backup from a few months ago may still be fine.  Try -salvagewallet first anyway.

The "not enough space" message probably doesn't mean what you think it means.  Check your db.log file for clues.

hmm, I've always put 'keys=0' in my config file, to stop wallet bloat

[deepceleron]

Try -salvagewallet first.

The usefulness of your backup depends on your keypoolsize (default: 100) and how many keys you've used since the backup.  Every time you ask for a new address, you use one key from the pool.  Every time you send and get change, you use one key from the pool.  If your wallet isn't busy, a backup from a few months ago may still be fine.  Try -salvagewallet first anyway.

The "not enough space" message probably doesn't mean what you think it means.  Check your db.log file for clues.

hmm, I've always put 'keys=0' in my config file, to stop wallet bloat

This is a very bad idea. When you send a payment, the remainder of an input is sent back to you to a new address. Normally this is sent to one of 100 reserve pool addresses that are pre-created. If you make a backup of your wallet with no reserve keys, as soon as you start spending money, you will be receiving change back at addresses not in your backup, making your backup instantly obsolete, and guaranteeing the loss of funds if you need to use the backup.

[John (John K.)]

Try -salvagewallet first.

The usefulness of your backup depends on your keypoolsize (default: 100) and how many keys you've used since the backup.  Every time you ask for a new address, you use one key from the pool.  Every time you send and get change, you use one key from the pool.  If your wallet isn't busy, a backup from a few months ago may still be fine.  Try -salvagewallet first anyway.

The "not enough space" message probably doesn't mean what you think it means.  Check your db.log file for clues.

hmm, I've always put 'keys=0' in my config file, to stop wallet bloat

This is a very bad idea. When you send a payment, the remainder of an input is sent back to you to a new address. Normally this is sent to one of 100 reserve pool addresses that are pre-created. If you make a backup of your wallet with no reserve keys, as soon as you start spending money, you will be receiving change back at addresses not in your backup, making your backup instantly obsolete, and guaranteeing the loss of funds if you need to use the backup.

This. I usually set keys=100 to make my backups easier.

[mrich8]

I am starting to think the wallet is not corrupted. I backed up the current wallet and deleted everything Bitcoin related from the computer. Then I installed again and let it download the blockchain with a new empty wallet. When it gets somewhere near the end, Bitcoin still crashes with exceptions!

So it could be a bad CPU (but I did not overclock), or more likely some bad RAM or a drive corruption.