Can't Sync Bitcoin QT AND No Blockchain File on PC

[SammyBlackstar]

My Bitcoin QT is stuck syncing at 98.97%. I last ran the program on April 17th and ran it recently to sync up.

I've uninstalled and re-installed.

When I re-install it automatically goes to 98.97%.

I've searched my computer but I don't seem to have the blockchain file on my computer at all to delete.

How do I reindex blockchain? I've google and search the forum but I don't understand the limited instructions that people have posted.

[1714896352]

1714896352

[1714896352]

1714896352

[zerodrama]

You'll need the bootstrap.dat file. Then you'll need to wait as it gets all the blocks. In my case, it wouldn't stay open until I replaced it with the Debian one.

[SammyBlackstar]

Anyone have a solution in detail of how to fix this ?

[Matt Corallo]

How do I reindex blockchain? I've google and search the forum but I don't understand the limited instructions that people have posted.

You can try (backing up and then) deleting all the files but the wallet in your data directory

You'll need the bootstrap.dat file. Then you'll need to wait as it gets all the blocks. In my case, it wouldn't stay open until I replaced it with the Debian one.

Which version of Debian, most of Debian's packages of Bitcoin are horribly out of date (to the point of potentially being risky to use)...

Something is definitely not right with Bitcoin, at least on my side. Since yesterday, all I'm getting after running Qt client are screens like one bellow:

You may also want to try clearing your data directory.

[Matt Corallo]

Started client with -reindex option instead, will report if issue is gonne or not once reindex is done.

I dont think reindex does what you think it does (unless you also cleared datadir)

[deepceleron]

2013-05-04 11:50:03 received block 00000000000000ff4aaa342f804a2731bb9f39a784a7f1d86685b35f144cd73a
2013-05-04 11:50:03 InvalidChainFound: invalid block=00000000000000ff4aaa342f804a2731bb9f39a784a7f1d86685b35f144cd73a  height=234477  work=1131399971692442463964  date=2013-05-04 11:47:02
2013-05-04 11:50:03 InvalidChainFound:  current best=0000000000000051e75ec922ddfed09dc3ca0a72f0e8bbc875d7b3fb370d7524  height=234410  work=1128500345104905542838  date=2013-05-04 01:24:51

This is the crux of the problem, your local blockchain database is corrupted and the client can't build on that. It doesn't have the intelligence to try to get the block 234410 again from the network and replace your screwed up version with the correct one.

You will need to delete the blocks and chainstate directories from your bitcoin data directory and attempt to resync the blockchain from the start. Typically this kind of random corruption indicates bad hardware, such as a bad sector on a hard drive or bad math from an overheating or overclocked CPU.

[Matt Corallo]

Reindex worked!

Dur, sorry.  Yes, reindex does a full reimport, however it uses local copies of blocks instead of redownloading them.

[Matt Corallo]

All is fine. Actualy, it better than fine since I finaly used -reindex, saved so many GBs of download bandwidth and avoided yet another HDD torture! 

-reindex still updates the whole block db, so even if it doesnt have to write the few GB in blk****.dat files, it still requires quite a bit of HDD torture, though it does it in less time compared to network download.