0.8.2rc1 ready for testing

[Gavin Andresen]

Bitcoin-Qt version 0.8.2 release candidate 1 is now available from:
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.8.2/test/

This is a maintenance release that fixes many bugs and includes
a few small new features.

Please report bugs using the issue tracker at github:
  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues


How to Upgrade

If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait
until it has completely shut down (which might take a few minutes for older
versions), then run the installer (on Windows) or just copy over
/Applications/Bitcoin-Qt (on Mac) or bitcoind/bitcoin-qt (on Linux).

If you are upgrading from version 0.7.2 or earlier, the first time you
run 0.8.2 your blockchain files will be re-indexed, which will take
anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours, depending on the speed of
your machine.

0.8.2 Release notes

Fee Policy changes

The default fee for low-priority transactions is lowered from 0.0005 BTC
(for each 1,000 bytes in the transaction; an average transaction is
about 500 bytes) to 0.0001 BTC.

Payments (transaction outputs) of 0.543 times the minimum relay fee
(0.00005430 BTC) are now considered 'non-standard', because storing them
costs the network more than they are worth and spending them will usually
cost their owner more in transaction fees than they are worth.

Non-standard transactions are not relayed across the network, are not included
in blocks by most miners, and will not show up in your wallet until they are
included in a block.

The default fee policy can be overridden using the -mintxfee and -minrelaytxfee
command-line options, but note that we intend to replace the hard-coded fees
with code that automatically calculates and suggests appropriate fees in the
0.9 release and note that if you set a fee policy significantly different from
the rest of the network your transactions may never confirm.

Bitcoin-Qt changes

* New icon and splash screen
* Improve reporting of synchronization process
* Remove hardcoded fee recommendations
* Improve metadata of executable on MacOSX and Windows
* Move export button to individual tabs instead of toolbar
* Add "send coins" command to context menu in address book
* Add "copy txid" command to copy transaction IDs from transaction overview
* Save & restore window size and position when showing & hiding window
* New translations: Arabic (ar), Bosnian (bs), Catalan (ca), Welsh (cy),
  Esperanto (eo), Interlingua (la), Latvian (lv) and many improvements
  to current translations

MacOSX:
* OSX support for click-to-pay (bitcoin:) links
* Fix GUI disappearing problem on MacOSX (issue #1522)

Linux/Unix:
* Copy addresses to middle-mouse-button clipboard


Command-line options

* -walletnotify will call a command on receiving transactions that affect the wallet.
* -alertnotify will call a command on receiving an alert from the network.
* -par now takes a negative number, to leave a certain amount of cores free.

JSON-RPC API changes

* listunspent now lists account and address infromation.
* getinfo now also returns the time adjustment estimated from your peers.
* getpeerinfo now returns bytessent, bytesrecv and syncnode.
* gettxoutsetinfo returns statistics about the unspent transaction output database.
* gettxout returns information about a specific unspent transaction output.


Networking changes

* Significant changes to the networking code, reducing latency and memory consumption.
* Avoid initial block download stalling.
* Remove IRC seeding support.
* Performance tweaks.
* Added testnet DNS seeds.

Wallet compatibility/rescuing

* Cases where wallets cannot be opened in another version/installation should be reduced.
* -salvagewallet now works for encrypted wallets.


Thanks to everybody who contributed to the 0.8.2 release!

APerson241
Andrew Poelstra
Calvin Owens
Chuck LeDuc Díaz
Colin Dean
David Griffith
David Serrano
Eric Lombrozo
Gavin Andresen
Gregory Maxwell
Jeff Garzik
Jonas Schnelli
Larry Gilbert
Luke Dashjr
Matt Corallo
Michael Ford
Mike Hearn
Patrick Brown
Peter Todd
Philip Kaufmann
Pieter Wuille
Richard Schwab
Roman Mindalev
Scott Howard
Tariq Bashir
Wladimir J. van der Laan
freewil
gladoscc
kjj2
mb300sd

[John (John K.)]

Stickied.

[WikileaksDude]

Keep calm and Test.

Brutal effort on this 0.8.2 release.

[vindimy]

Will be testing it on my home PCs and servers.

Thanks to devs for the work they put in and the shit they put up with. Especially the shit.

[Searinox]

Deployed and mining. I understand the risks and I've backed up my wallet. I just want to see how this affects my p2pool mining latency.

[mc_lovin]

The most crucial version ever?  

Hopefully this all goes smoothly!

[twobits]

So no changes that might fix reliability of the index then?

[davout]

* -walletnotify will call a command on receiving transactions that affect the wallet.

Nice !

[gmaxwell]

So no changes that might fix reliability of the index then?

In particular, two bugs were fixed that would cause crashes and might have cause database corruption on Windows (problem with multiple open files) and MacOSX (running out of file descriptors). These may fix or at least improve the leveldb database reliability problems on these two platforms but we're not sure.

Feedback on the RC here would be helpful. E.g. "I had crashes and index corruption on $operatingsystem before and I am (not) still having them."

[twobits]

So no changes that might fix reliability of the index then?

In particular, two bugs were fixed that would cause crashes and might have cause database corruption on Windows (problem with multiple open files) and MacOSX (running out of file descriptors). These may fix or at least improve the leveldb database reliability problems on these two platforms but we're not sure.

Feedback on the RC here would be helpful. E.g. "I had crashes and index corruption before and I am (not) still having them."

All right, because 0.8.1 has been usable for me, so I was disappointed to see nothing that indicated fixes in the changes posted.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=184125.0

[Caesium]

* Fix GUI disappearing problem on MacOSX (issue #1522)

Confirm this works, that used to be really annoying, thanks.

It's still not perfect; I have "Minimize windows into application icon" enabled, and if you minimise the window then click on the app dock icon it doesn't un-minimise it whereas other apps do. You need to select Show/Hide from the menu to see it again with Bitcoin-QT. But at least it's not possible to get stuck in a situation where you can't see the UI anymore.

[bx5a]

* Fix GUI disappearing problem on MacOSX (issue #1522)

Confirm this works, that used to be really annoying, thanks.

It's still not perfect; I have "Minimize windows into application icon" enabled, and if you minimise the window then click on the app dock icon it doesn't un-minimise it whereas other apps do. You need to select Show/Hide from the menu to see it again with Bitcoin-QT. But at least it's not possible to get stuck in a situation where you can't see the UI anymore.

Confirming the minimization issue.

[rme]

Good update, welcome the 0.0001 fee

[molecular]

I used newest git and recompiled. "About" says v0.8.0-318-g8c6bbb3-beta. That ok?

[zvs]

nm, fixed.   

[morningtime]

Looks good!

[GrapeApe]

Deployed and mining. I understand the risks and I've backed up my wallet. I just want to see how this affects my p2pool mining latency.

When I start it up there is a message that says not to be used for mining. Can someone tell me why?

[Pieter Wuille]

When I start it up there is a message that says not to be used for mining. Can someone tell me why?

Non-release builds carry that warning (and this is just release candidate).

[fornit]

works fine on win7 64bit.
either i got a lucky first connection or network is much improved. DL for 10 hours of blocks was less than a minute from startup, with 4x3ghz phenom cpu at 75% load (blockchain on ssd). so it might actually have been the cpu bottlenecking, which would be a pretty awesome improvement. (and new work for the developers *g*)

[gmaxwell]

(and new work for the developers *g*)

Pieter already has new signature validation code that speeds up the cpu bound part of recent chain syncup by 6x on 64-bit. It's just going to take a lot of testing and review before it can be integrated.