Building headless Bitcoin and Bitcoin-qt on Windows

[phelix]

Just a small comment or question, I always used MinGW 4.7.2 (way before you've written this guide) and have now switched to 4.8.1 even and everything is still working fine. So why do you suggest MinGW 4.6? Also I'm using Qt 5.1 currently, which needs MinGW 4.8.1 to successfully compile Qt.

Hmm... I had a lot of odd trouble with MinGW 4.7 and 4.8, too. I wonder what's going wrong there.

I think for the official build they use MinGW 4.2? or 4.4 in the meantime? Anyway it was quite far behind.

[1715125129]

1715125129

[1715125129]

1715125129

[old c coder]

Just a small comment or question, I always used MinGW 4.7.2 (way before you've written this guide) and have now switched to 4.8.1 even and everything is still working fine. So why do you suggest MinGW 4.6? Also I'm using Qt 5.1 currently, which needs MinGW 4.8.1 to successfully compile Qt.

For building LevelDB I use this syntax in MinGW Shell:
cd /c/Users/Diapolo/bitcoin.Qt/src/leveldb
TARGET_OS=NATIVE_WINDOWS make libleveldb.a libmemenv.a

to clean old files before re-building:
TARGET_OS=NATIVE_WINDOWS make clean

Dia

It seems when us "Window-ers" go sourceforging for a mingw, all I see is
Download mingw-get-inst-20120426.exe (662.7 kB) at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/latest/download?source=files
And that "latest" one that I know about, is 4.6.2? So that is what I use on Windows. Perhaps you are Linux/Unix-ing a Windows version of bitcoind & bitcoin-qt?

Also, as I said, since I don't frequent
http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/5.1/5.1.0/
I didn't see the July 3rd release of
http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/5.1/5.1.0/qt-windows-opensource-5.1.0-mingw48_opengl-x86-offline.exe

Back in April of this year, the latest I found was
http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/4.8/4.8.4/qt-win-opensource-4.8.4-mingw.exe
at
http://download.qt-project.org/official_releases/qt/4.8/4.8.4/

and it worked for me, so I stayed with it so far.
I did download Qt creator 5.0.2, at that time, which seemed to be the latest for Windows,
actually it "abouts" as Qt Creator 2.7.0 based on Qt 5.0.2 (32 bit), built Apr 9 2013...

Interestingly, it opens up bitcoin-qt.pro and brings all the files up, etc. But it (Creator) seems to a be real performance dog, just like a Java Eclipse IDE. But I'm spoled by MS IDEs, free and otherwise! They can find all references, global search and replace etc. They just can't compile the code, yet! But that is a story for another day.

Ron

[Diapolo]

I only use the MSYS environment from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/ and use a MinGW compiler version from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/, namely a similar one that is mentioned on the Qt 5.1 download page (https://qt-project.org/downloads - The MinGW binary package includes a 32 bit MinGW-builds (gcc 4.8.0, dwarf exception handing, posix threading) toolchain.).

I'm a pure Windows-guy btw. ^^.

Edit: You know, to upgrade the MinGW version shipping with the MSYS environment (if you installed it's compiler suite) you need to do a "mingw-get update" followed by a "mingw-get upgrade" in the MinGW Shell.

Dia

[old c coder]

 

I only use the MSYS environment from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/ and use a MinGW compiler version from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/, namely a similar one that is mentioned on the Qt 5.1 download page (https://qt-project.org/downloads - The MinGW binary package includes a 32 bit MinGW-builds (gcc 4.8.0, dwarf exception handing, posix threading) toolchain.).

I'm a pure Windows-guy btw. ^^.

Edit: You know, to upgrade the MinGW version shipping with the MSYS environment (if you installed it's compiler suite) you need to do a "mingw-get update" followed by a "mingw-get upgrade" in the MinGW Shell.

Dia

So that makes 4 of us!   (nitro,chad,you and me)

If I understand you correctly, I download the small (166K) file mingw-builds-install.exe and somehow apply to the mingw environment I already have?

I'm downloading that monster ~600MB
qt-windows-opensource-5.1.0-mingw48_opengl-x86-offline.exe from somewhere off of your link
https://qt-project.org/downloads

But I won't "upgrade" until I've asked a few more questions, especially about mingW, or I'm forced to, or I'm desperate or bored

Ron

[CaptChadd]

How about a guide for how to clone Bitcoin? There is one for scrypt and it is very detailed but not much for Bitcoin. That is why we are seeing so many Scrypts.

I am working on a SHA-256 development project but being on Windows is a pain in the F-ing ass and Linux GPU driver suck.

Can we brainstorm and work together?

I can compile Bitcoin not problem but I cannot make any changes to it, as the compile then fails. I will try again tomorrow I think.

[Diapolo]

So that makes 4 of us!  (nitro,chad,you and me)

If I understand you correctly, I download the small (166K) file mingw-builds-install.exe and somehow apply to the mingw environment I already have?

I'm downloading that monster ~600MB
qt-windows-opensource-5.1.0-mingw48_opengl-x86-offline.exe from somewhere off of your link
https://qt-project.org/downloads

But I won't "upgrade" until I've asked a few more questions, especially about mingW, or I'm forced to, or I'm desparate or bored

Ron

I need to clarify a little, I'm sure you can use the Qt 5.1 bundle, which contains a MinGW 4.8 ready to use, but I chose mingw-builds-install.exe and downloaded 4.8.1-x32-posix-dwarf-2 and installed to D:\MinGW and I am using this one (You need to add this to your PATH environment variable: D:\MinGW\mingw32\bin).

I built ICU, OpenSSL as prequsites for Qt 5.1, then built Qt Creator and then the whole Bitcoin-stuff.

Dia

[old c coder]

How about a guide for how to clone Bitcoin? There is one for scrypt and it is very detailed but not much for Bitcoin. That is why we are seeing so many Scrypts.

I am working on a SHA-256 development project but being on Windows is a pain in the F-ing ass and Linux GPU driver suck.

Can we brainstorm and work together?

I can compile Bitcoin not problem but I cannot make any changes to it, as the compile then fails. I will try again tomorrow I think.

As to being able to make a change and be able to compile and run, perhaps this may help, if you are speaking of bitcoin-qt.

There may be a step between nitrogenetics' 4.1 and 4.2
See the file qtvars.bat in drive:\Qt\4.8.4\bin or where ever you installed Qt. You may need to "tailor" it to your specifications so that Windows knows where to "get stuff"? Just a thought.

I have no idea what it means to "clone Bitcoin". Nor what "scrypt" is. Nor what a GPU driver is, nor its relationship to SHA-256 on Windows or Linux?

Windows is no different from Linux or any other OS, if you have been in from the beginning and know all the historical, undocumented "gotchas", quirks, oddities, etc. Forward and back slashes, shell scripts in Linux vs .bat or .wsh scripts in Windows, etc. etc.

Ron

[CaptChadd]

I am getting this error.

Anyone know what it means please?

C:\Defaultcoin\Defaultcoin-Master>mingw32-make -f Makefile.Release
g++ -c -pipe -O2 -frtti -fexceptions -mthreads -fdiagnostics-show-option -Wall -Wextra -Wformat -Wformat-security -Wno-unused-parameter -DUNICODE -DQT_LARGEFILE_SUPPORT -DQT_GUI -DBOOST_THREAD_USE_LIB -DBOOST_SPIRIT_THREADSAFE -DBOOST_THREAD_PROVIDES_GENERIC_SHARED_MUTEX_ON_WIN -D__NO_SYSTEM_INCLUDES -DWIN32 -D_MT -DQT_DLL -DQT_NO_DEBUG -DQT_GUI_LIB -DQT_CORE_LIB -DQT_HAVE_MMX -DQT_HAVE_3DNOW -DQT
_HAVE_SSE -DQT_HAVE_MMXEXT -DQT_HAVE_SSE2 -DQT_THREAD_SUPPORT -DQT_NEEDS_QMAIN -I"..\..\Qt\4.8.4\include\QtCore" -I"..\..\Qt\4.8.4\include\QtGui" -I"..\..\Qt\4.8.4\include" -I"src" -I"src\json" -I"src\qt" -I"..\..\Qt\4.8.4\include\ActiveQt" -I"build" -I"build" -I"..\..\Qt\4.8.4\mkspecs\win32-g++" -o build\bitcoin.o src\qt\bitcoin.cpp
In file included from src/main.h:9:0,
                 from src/wallet.h:9,
                 from src/init.h:9,
                 from src\qt\bitcoin.cpp:11:
src/bignum.h:11:24: fatal error: openssl/bn.h: No such file or directory
compilation terminated.
mingw32-make: *** [build/bitcoin.o] Error 1

[Diapolo]

It means the header that is included is not found, straight forward error .
Check where your OpenSSL headers are, if you have them in your path or in the MinGW include dir.

Dia

[CaptChadd]

It means the header that is included is not found, straight forward error .
Check where your OpenSSL headers are, if you have them in your path or in the MinGW include dir.

Dia

That's the thing, they are in the path and I have checked all the known files to make sure everything is in place and pointed correctly.

It should be found and I cannot find out why, I does not make sense.

[wsmith366]

I remember that I had some sort of issue with the 0.8.99 version? I think it didn't like my block chain and insisted I reload all 246,000 of them, or maybe it wanted to "resync" them, whatever that means? Which took 24 hours on my system Not sure, but using 0.8.2 or 0.8.3 was much better. I actually think 0.8.2 or 0.8.3 are "better" than 0.8.1, which is where I began.

I don't think the 0.8.99 version from github is a "final" version ready for "consumption"? I use both
https://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/ download button
https://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/latest/download?source=dlp which is 0.8.3 or
some other github choice, such as
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/v0.8.3 you may have to "prowl" around the branches and tags tabs and fork->clone various until you find one with a version of 0.8.3 (in clientversion.h)

I find that selecting an 0.8.2 gets an 0.8.0 etc. Maybe it's me? I don't know.

Note that the layout from the sourceforge download is slightly different, but the general pattern is the same, so the directory where bitcoin-qt.pro is where one compiles from.

All that I do is make sure my 7 paths are correct in the .pro, then add the missing directory in the makefiles it produces and it compiles.

Compiling all of the sources takes ~15 minutes or so for bitcoind or bitcoin-qt on my system. If I am just changing a few files, much faster ~1 or so for one or two compiles and a "link" as it were.

Hope this helps

Ron

Hey guys, I'm back.

Still having an issue trying to get bitcoin to run.  In post #70 I detailed the BEX error I was getting.

So, I found an 8.3 version of bitcoin (checked clientversion.h to make sure it really WAS 8.3).  So I compiled it, and I'm still getting the same BEX error.  I even disabled DEP completely using the command line on my system. (Windows 7 64 bit, if that makes any difference).  It stops giving me the BEX error, but now I just get an APPCRASH error:

Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   bitcoin-qt.exe
  Application Version:   0.8.3.0
  Application Timestamp:   51e57100
  Fault Module Name:   StackHash_0a9e
  Fault Module Version:   0.0.0.0
  Fault Module Timestamp:   00000000
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Offset:   00cd38e8
  OS Version:   6.1.7601.2.1.0.768.3
  Locale ID:   1033
  Additional Information 1:   0a9e
  Additional Information 2:   0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789
  Additional Information 3:   0a9e
  Additional Information 4:   0a9e372d3b4ad19135b953a78882e789

For the record, I'm using MinGW (GNU bash ver. 3.1.17(1)), Active Perl 5.16.3 Build 1603 (64-bit), BOOST 1.54.0, DB 4.8.30 NC, Openssl-1.0.1e, and QT 4.8.5.

Am I using the wrong version of something?  Could my 64 bit system simply not like a custom-compiled bitcoin exe?  I know bitcoin will work on the system because I've installed it before. (Already checked to make sure the uninstall was clean)

Would a different version of bitcoin help at all?  Should I go all the way back to an 8.0 version?  Or would taking the .exe I made and running it, say, in a 32 bit XP virtual machine help at all?

And why does it seem to be crashing constantly on the StackHash 0a9e module?  What exactly is it here that windows just won't play nice with?

Any help would be appreciated....it's maddening to be so close to having it working.

[nitrogenetics]

Make sure you are compiling with gcc 4.6.2 if using precompiled qt 4.8.5 libraries.

Had a quick look at building with Qt 5.1 as suggested by Diapolo, but it seems BDB doesn't like gcc-4.8.0-dwarf-rev1 (also tried a precompiled gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev1 version from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/files/external-binary-packages/Qt-Builds/ with the same results) gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev2 works, now I'm trying to compile Qt 5.1 with gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev2 toolchain.

[Diapolo]

Make sure you are compiling with gcc 4.6.2 if using precompiled qt 4.8.5 libraries.

Had a quick look at building with Qt 5.1 as suggested by Diapolo, but it seems BDB doesn't like gcc-4.8.0-dwarf-rev1 (also tried a precompiled gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev1 version from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/files/external-binary-packages/Qt-Builds/ with the same results) gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev2 works, now I'm trying to compile Qt 5.1 with gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev2 toolchain.

Nice that you are playing around with Qt 5.1 also , here is my configure.bat call, perhaps we can exchange some information. I seem to be unable to use the -openssl-linked parameter, I don't get it to compile.

Here is my batch-file to compile Qt 5.1:

Code:

set QMAKESPEC=
set QTDIR=
set MAKE_COMMAND=

D:
cd Qt_5.1.0
RMDIR qtwebkit /S /Q
RMDIR qtwebkit-examples /S /Q
if not exist qtbase\.gitignore type nul>qtbase\.gitignore
START %CD%\configure.bat -prefix %CD%\qtbase -debug-and-release -developer-build -opensource -confirm-license -c++11 -opengl desktop -platform win32-g++ -qt-pcre -nomake demos -nomake examples -nomake tests -no-vcproj -no-strip -sse2 -sse3 -ssse3 -sse4.1 -sse4.2 -avx -avx2 -openssl -no-dbus -no-audio-backend -no-style-windowsce -no-style-windowsmobile
REM -fully-process
PAUSE

mingw32-make.exe -j 4
PAUSE

mingw32-make.exe -j 4 docs
PAUSE

mingw32-make.exe -j 4 install
PAUSE

[wsmith366]

Make sure you are compiling with gcc 4.6.2 if using precompiled qt 4.8.5 libraries.

Had a quick look at building with Qt 5.1 as suggested by Diapolo, but it seems BDB doesn't like gcc-4.8.0-dwarf-rev1 (also tried a precompiled gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev1 version from http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingwbuilds/files/external-binary-packages/Qt-Builds/ with the same results) gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev2 works, now I'm trying to compile Qt 5.1 with gcc-4.8.1-dwarf-rev2 toolchain.

Well, that would probably help.

I found a gcc 4.6.2 package....but I'm not quite sure how to go about rolling back Mingw's 4.7 package.  Looking at the info on mingw's site didn't help much, I still have no idea how to figure out what should be going where, since it appears there are files with 4.7.2 in the name sprinkled all over mingw's various directories.

Any input for someone more experienced with this program would be very helpful, I'm hesitant to mess with anything at this point for fear I'll accidentally nuke my whole mingw install.

Many thanks to nitrogenetics and old c coder, by the way, for being patient with us newbs.  Your advice is invaluable.

[nitrogenetics]

Nice that you are playing around with Qt 5.1 also , here is my configure.bat call, perhaps we can exchange some information. I seem to be unable to use the -openssl-linked parameter, I don't get it to compile.

Here is my batch-file to compile Qt 5.1:

Code:

set QMAKESPEC=
set QTDIR=
set MAKE_COMMAND=

D:
cd Qt_5.1.0
RMDIR qtwebkit /S /Q
RMDIR qtwebkit-examples /S /Q
if not exist qtbase\.gitignore type nul>qtbase\.gitignore
START %CD%\configure.bat -prefix %CD%\qtbase -debug-and-release -developer-build -opensource -confirm-license -c++11 -opengl desktop -platform win32-g++ -qt-pcre -nomake demos -nomake examples -nomake tests -no-vcproj -no-strip -sse2 -sse3 -ssse3 -sse4.1 -sse4.2 -avx -avx2 -openssl -no-dbus -no-audio-backend -no-style-windowsce -no-style-windowsmobile
REM -fully-process
PAUSE

mingw32-make.exe -j 4
PAUSE

mingw32-make.exe -j 4 docs
PAUSE

mingw32-make.exe -j 4 install
PAUSE

Ok, it seems I got it working, here is what I did:

-Installed MSYS2, cloned and configured qt-builds. See: https://github.com/Alexpux/Qt-builds/
-Modified buildall to get the latest x32-4.8.1-release-posix-dwarf-rev2.7z and x64-4.8.1-release-posix-seh-rev2.7z
-Built Qt 5.1.0 (took ~3.5 hours, qt-creator failed)

Code:

./buildall --qt-version=5.1.0 --opengl-desktop x32

-Built openssl (os must be manually specified)

Code:

./Configure mingw

-Built DBD (os must be manually specified)

Code:

../dist/configure --disable-replication --enable-mingw --enable-cxx --build=i686-pc-mingw32

-Built miniupnpc (double clic mingw32make.bat)
-Built leveldb (the usual way)
-Added dependency library locations to bitcoin-qt.pro, disabled leveldb generation then

Code:

qmake "USE_IPV6=-" bitcoin-qt.pro
mingw32-make -f Makefile.Release

Disabling ipv6 was necessary, otherwise compilation would fail

Code:

Makefile.Release:28913: recipe for target 'build/net.o' failed
mingw32-make: *** [build/net.o] Error 1

(You can see a more detailed error when building from qt-creator )

[nitrogenetics]

Well, that would probably help.

I found a gcc 4.6.2 package....but I'm not quite sure how to go about rolling back Mingw's 4.7 package.  Looking at the info on mingw's site didn't help much, I still have no idea how to figure out what should be going where, since it appears there are files with 4.7.2 in the name sprinkled all over mingw's various directories.

Any input for someone more experienced with this program would be very helpful, I'm hesitant to mess with anything at this point for fear I'll accidentally nuke my whole mingw install.

Many thanks to nitrogenetics and old c coder, by the way, for being patient with us newbs.  Your advice is invaluable.

Better starting from scratch on a clean vm (see first post)

[Diapolo]

Ok, it seems I got it working, here is what I did:

-Installed MSYS2, cloned and configured qt-builds. See: https://github.com/Alexpux/Qt-builds/
-Modified buildall to get the latest x32-4.8.1-release-posix-dwarf-rev2.7z and x64-4.8.1-release-posix-seh-rev2.7z
-Built Qt 5.1.0 (took ~3.5 hours, qt-creator failed)

Code:

./buildall --qt-version=5.1.0 --opengl-desktop x32

-Built openssl (os must be manually specified)

Code:

./Configure mingw

-Built DBD (os must be manually specified)

Code:

../dist/configure --disable-replication --enable-mingw --enable-cxx --build=i686-pc-mingw32

-Built miniupnpc (double clic mingw32make.bat)
-Built leveldb (the usual way)
-Added dependency library locations to bitcoin-qt.pro, disabled leveldb generation then

Code:

qmake "USE_IPV6=-" bitcoin-qt.pro
mingw32-make -f Makefile.Release

Disabling ipv6 was necessary, otherwise compilation would fail

Code:

Makefile.Release:28913: recipe for target 'build/net.o' failed
mingw32-make: *** [build/net.o] Error 1

(You can see a more detailed error when building from qt-creator )

I don't really like such all-in-one build-scripts, as I want to know what is going on. Can you try to build Qt with compiler x32-4.8.1-release-posix-dwarf-rev2 and my short batch file from above? I'm sure you need to compile OpenSSL before or need to change the -openssl switch into -no-openssl.

Didn't know there was an MSYS2, where did you get that?

Dia

[nitrogenetics]

I don't really like such all-in-one build-scripts, as I want to know what is going on.

It simply prepares system prerequisites and builds qt, it is also mentioned on the official wiki http://qt-project.org/wiki/MinGW-64-bit

Can you try to build Qt with compiler x32-4.8.1-release-posix-dwarf-rev2 and my short batch file from above? I'm sure you need to compile OpenSSL before or need to change the -openssl switch into -no-openssl.

I'll give it a try

Didn't know there was an MSYS2, where did you get that?

Dia

http://sourceforge.net/projects/msys2/
It's from the same authors of mingw-builds 

[wsmith366]

Well, that would probably help.

I found a gcc 4.6.2 package....but I'm not quite sure how to go about rolling back Mingw's 4.7 package.  Looking at the info on mingw's site didn't help much, I still have no idea how to figure out what should be going where, since it appears there are files with 4.7.2 in the name sprinkled all over mingw's various directories.

Any input for someone more experienced with this program would be very helpful, I'm hesitant to mess with anything at this point for fear I'll accidentally nuke my whole mingw install.

Many thanks to nitrogenetics and old c coder, by the way, for being patient with us newbs.  Your advice is invaluable.

Better starting from scratch on a clean vm (see first post)

Understood.  Though, I'm still unclear on how to make Mingw use the right gcc version.  Their website doesn't seem to have any specific directions for doing so, and all the pre-packaged mingw installers I can find come with gcc 4.7, which means I'd still have to manually patch it with gcc 4.6.2, correct?

[nitrogenetics]

You need to install mingw-get-inst-20120426 with pre packaged repositories
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/Installer/mingw-get-inst/mingw-get-inst-20120426/