Whether to upgrade or continue syncing version 12?

[Blinken]

I have bitcoind version 120100 on my Debian machine, which was less than year out of date. Recently, I turned it on again and it started syncing and appeared to be doing so from the beginning, starting at block 1. After nearly 4 days it is at 372 K out of 452 K blocks and slowing down.

(1) I thought it was supposed to sync starting where it left off, not at Block 1 ?

(2) Should I upgrade to 13 ? My concern is that if I upgrade, it is going to want to download the whole goddamn block chain again which could take 2 weeks. I need to do some BTC transactions, so I need it working.

(3) If I upgrade, is there any way to start where I am (block 372 K) and not have to start at the beginning? What is the procedure? There are two programs bitcoind and bitcoin-cli in /usr/local/bin/bitcoin. Can I just turn it off, replace these two files, then turn it on again, or is it more complicated than that? I assume it must be because there is a /usr/local/bin/bitcoin-qt directory and I guess the junk in there needs to all be updated too somehow.

Thanks for any assistance.

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[achow101]

I have bitcoind version 120100 on my Debian machine, which was less than year out of date. Recently, I turned it on again and it started syncing and appeared to be doing so from the beginning, starting at block 1. After nearly 4 days it is at 372 K out of 452 K blocks and slowing down.

(1) I thought it was supposed to sync starting where it left off, not at Block 1 ?

Did it say that it was reindexing or syncing? If it was reindexing, it was not actually syncing, although I don't know why it was reindexing unless you have -reindex in the startup command or reindex=1 in your Bitcoin.conf. Are you sure that it is using the right data directory if you set a custom one?

(2) Should I upgrade to 13 ? My concern is that if I upgrade, it is going to want to download the whole goddamn block chain again which could take 2 weeks. I need to do some BTC transactions, so I need it working.

If you double check that the datadir is correct, the bitcoin.conf and the startup command don't have reindex anywhere in them, then it will use the blockchain that is already there.

(3) If I upgrade, is there any way to start where I am (block 372 K) and not have to start at the beginning?

Yes. It will by default pickup wherever the previous version left off. It should always do that unless something is broken, i.e. wrong datadir or reindexing.

What is the procedure? There are two programs bitcoind and bitcoin-cli in /usr/local/bin/bitcoin. Can I just turn it off, replace these two files, then turn it on again, or is it more complicated than that? I assume it must be because there is a /usr/local/bin/bitcoin-qt directory and I guess the junk in there needs to all be updated too somehow.

Thanks for any assistance.

What OS are you using? If you are using Ubuntu, you can install it from the PPA.

[jackg]

I have bitcoind version 120100 on my Debian machine, which was less than year out of date. Recently, I turned it on again and it started syncing and appeared to be doing so from the beginning, starting at block 1. After nearly 4 days it is at 372 K out of 452 K blocks and slowing down.

(1) I thought it was supposed to sync starting where it left off, not at Block 1 ?

(2) Should I upgrade to 13 ? My concern is that if I upgrade, it is going to want to download the whole goddamn block chain again which could take 2 weeks. I need to do some BTC transactions, so I need it working.

(3) If I upgrade, is there any way to start where I am (block 372 K) and not have to start at the beginning? What is the procedure? There are two programs bitcoind and bitcoin-cli in /usr/local/bin/bitcoin. Can I just turn it off, replace these two files, then turn it on again, or is it more complicated than that? I assume it must be because there is a /usr/local/bin/bitcoin-qt directory and I guess the junk in there needs to all be updated too somehow.

Thanks for any assistance.

It's expected to resync if there was an error in the data that was stored? If the data stored is corrupted for example then the entire blockchain will need redownloading.
I think the new version of bitcoin software is supposed to be faster at syncing than the old version and I think the new version just verifies block headers rather than reinstalling the entire blockchain. It'll take slightly longer on the first start but not an extremely long amount of time (maximum of about 30 minutes providing there are no errors).

[Blinken]

I think it is syncing. Here is getinfo:

bitcoin-cli getinfo
{
  "version": 120100,
  "protocolversion": 70012,
  "walletversion": 60000,
  "balance": 0.00000000,
  "blocks": 377559,
  "timeoffset": -5,
  "connections": 10,
  "proxy": "",
  "difficulty": 60813224039.44035,
  "testnet": false,
  "keypoololdest": 1486652066,
  "keypoolsize": 101,
  "paytxfee": 0.00000000,
  "relayfee": 0.00001000,
  "errors": ""
}

There is no bitcoin.conf file

The transactions in the beginning of the debug log look like this:

2017-02-09 14:54:35 UpdateTip: new best=000000002e76e88e6ca526f324505fae2cc8245af31e92279f031a6019270512  height=145  log2_work=39.189847  tx=146  date=2009-01-11 17:08:20 progress=0.000000  cache=0.0MiB(145tx)
2017-02-09 14:54:35 UpdateTip: new best=000000006e7fe1ebbae18fd9ea0c8b696f1fec8e5de738ef47af1299374a081c  height=146  log2_work=39.199694  tx=147  date=2009-01-11 17:14:35 progress=0.000000  cache=0.0MiB(146tx)
2

Now they look like this (2 days 5 hours later):

2017-02-11 19:37:08 UpdateTip: new best=000000000000000010a3471f31dee73dd3dae6cc6ad3e3b777cf345944e64c81  height=378020  log2_work=83.447492  tx=87028389  date=2015-10-08 16:58:15 progress=0.661854  cache=8.9MiB(1683tx)
2017-02-11 19:37:14 UpdateTip: new best=000000000000000010817d21730f70439213848cca0662384b5a9093ce6674de  height=378021  log2_work=83.44752  tx=87029928  date=2015-10-08 17:14:05 progress=0.661865  cache=16.7MiB(5837tx)
2017-02-11 19:37:20 UpdateTip: new best=00000000000000000baf6e3006fd05a1c5dbca3d430012180f8098cbe8b8ce22  height=378022  log2_work=83.447549  tx=87031804  date=2015-10-08 17:33:24 progress=0.661879  cache=27.4MiB(10803tx)
2017-02-11 19:37:26 UpdateTip: new best=00000000000000000ffea82eaf0ea92f0c00a3a55e6e954da211a4afb8ff1326  height=378023  log2_work=83.447577  tx=87033392  date=2015-10-08 17:36:26 progress=0.661886  cache=31.7MiB(14785tx)

[jackg]

I think it is syncing. Here is getinfo:

bitcoin-cli getinfo
{
  "version": 120100,
  "protocolversion": 70012,
  "walletversion": 60000,
  "balance": 0.00000000,
  "blocks": 377559,
  "timeoffset": -5,
  "connections": 10,
  "proxy": "",
  "difficulty": 60813224039.44035,
  "testnet": false,
  "keypoololdest": 1486652066,
  "keypoolsize": 101,
  "paytxfee": 0.00000000,
  "relayfee": 0.00001000,
  "errors": ""
}

There is no bitcoin.conf file

The transactions in the beginning of the debug log look like this:

2017-02-09 14:54:35 UpdateTip: new best=000000002e76e88e6ca526f324505fae2cc8245af31e92279f031a6019270512  height=145  log2_work=39.189847  tx=146  date=2009-01-11 17:08:20 progress=0.000000  cache=0.0MiB(145tx)
2017-02-09 14:54:35 UpdateTip: new best=000000006e7fe1ebbae18fd9ea0c8b696f1fec8e5de738ef47af1299374a081c  height=146  log2_work=39.199694  tx=147  date=2009-01-11 17:14:35 progress=0.000000  cache=0.0MiB(146tx)
2

Now they look like this (2 days 5 hours later):

2017-02-11 19:37:08 UpdateTip: new best=000000000000000010a3471f31dee73dd3dae6cc6ad3e3b777cf345944e64c81  height=378020  log2_work=83.447492  tx=87028389  date=2015-10-08 16:58:15 progress=0.661854  cache=8.9MiB(1683tx)
2017-02-11 19:37:14 UpdateTip: new best=000000000000000010817d21730f70439213848cca0662384b5a9093ce6674de  height=378021  log2_work=83.44752  tx=87029928  date=2015-10-08 17:14:05 progress=0.661865  cache=16.7MiB(5837tx)
2017-02-11 19:37:20 UpdateTip: new best=00000000000000000baf6e3006fd05a1c5dbca3d430012180f8098cbe8b8ce22  height=378022  log2_work=83.447549  tx=87031804  date=2015-10-08 17:33:24 progress=0.661879  cache=27.4MiB(10803tx)
2017-02-11 19:37:26 UpdateTip: new best=00000000000000000ffea82eaf0ea92f0c00a3a55e6e954da211a4afb8ff1326  height=378023  log2_work=83.447577  tx=87033392  date=2015-10-08 17:36:26 progress=0.661886  cache=31.7MiB(14785tx)

It is syncing now then based on that info.
The config file is stored separately but is no longer needed. It was probably either an error or corrupted block chain that made it resync.