RAM-Reduction & Backup Center Testing (version 0.89.99.16)

[etotheipi]

Yay picobit!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1139081/ArmoryTestingReleases/Armory.app.0.89.99.9-testing.tar.gz

That 40 MB tar.gz unpacks into a 136 MB Armory.app directory, which should be double-clickable to run Armory.  I successfully compiled it on my MacMini, after review the build-app.py script that picobit gave me, and then successfully running it.  There was a few hiccups in the build process, but it ultimately worked.  And kudos to picobit for not only giving me a script, but being diligent about creating and sorting log files for each command so I could easily figure out what went wrong.  

Please test it on your OSX system.  Especially on 10.9, and especially on any systems where the download from the webpage didn't work.  I want to find out if this .app works better than the one we originally got from higuys.  I'm hopeful based on els' statements that it worked on both 10.8 and 10.9, but I definitely need more empirical evidence.  

By the way, this is actually 0.89.99.9.  This has a feature merged in from CircusPeanut that fixes the broadcast issue people experience when using older versions of Armory on the offline computer.  The issue was that the core devs implemented a soft-rule requiring normalized signature padding, and older versions of Armory didn't do that.  Thus when you sign with the older version, the tx will be rejected if you are running Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoin 0.8.2 or newer.  This version works around that by exploiting the same transaction malleability that the core devs were trying to reduce!  It adjusts the signature padding of the already-signed transaction -- it changes the hash of the transaction but makes the transaction not only valid, but isStandard() so it will broadcast correctly.  

If you are experiencing that broadcast issue, you can:  (Linux) Pull the latest testing branch and use that (OSX) Use this .app (Windows) Wait for the next testing release.  

[etotheipi]

It is working for me on OSX 10.9, it is says "preparing database" so once is it finished I will reply, but it started! That is big plus!

Well just because it works on OSX, doesn't mean that the database/build/scan bugs are fixed.  I still have a lot of work to do on that front, but at least I have the tools now to debug it easier...

Unfortunately, one of the caveats of picobit's solution is the difficulty of passing command-line arguments.  I might "hack" something that will work from the menu:  Armory will check for a "rebuild.txt" or "rescan.txt" file at startup, if it finds it, it will delete it and then do the rebuild or rescan.  The menu option will simply write the file and then close the app.  This makes it fairly simple to force the rebuild or rescan, and also make it easy to induce it from within the app (I had problems before, trying to force this to happen after the app was already running). 

I'll make sure that's in the next version.  Unfortunately, we'll still need a real solution to the CLI-argument issue, since you can't set the --datadir this way. Though, for everything else, I suppose I could use an armory.conf file just like the bitcoin.conf file...

[Missionary]

I'll download and try that version on 10.9. Should I empty my Armory Library folder or just install the app using the old files?

[etotheipi]

Just to clarify about the OSX version I just made available through dropbox: that version was built by me, not picobit.  I used his script to do the building, but I reviewed it and confirmed that it's building directly from the github repo and downloads the build dependencies from standard locations. 

If this version is like the previous version, it should work 100% when it works (besides the fact that it's the new testing version with a few usability bugs).  I'll let people report their experiences with it, but I would guess it can be trusted as much as the Linux or Windows testing versions.   Those versions are pretty solid, besides the usability issues. 

So usual caveats about "testing version: use at your own risk", but I don't see a reason to trust this version less than the other ones already being tested.

[Red Emerald]

I'm testing out the .app now.  Awesome work!  I haven't had any time to play with Armory recently.  Hopefully bitcoind works for me without crashing and corrupting the block chain like it was last time I tried bitcoin on OSX.

[els]

Yay picobit!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1139081/ArmoryTestingReleases/Armory.app.0.89.99.9-testing.tar.gz

That 40 MB tar.gz unpacks into a 136 MB Armory.app directory, which should be double-clickable to run Armory.  I successfully compiled it on my MacMini, after review the build-app.py script that picobit gave me, and then successfully running it.  There was a few hiccups in the build process, but it ultimately worked.  And kudos to picobit for not only giving me a script, but being diligent about creating and sorting log files for each command so I could easily figure out what went wrong.  

Please test it on your OSX system.  Especially on 10.9, and especially on any systems where the download from the webpage didn't work.  I want to find out if this .app works better than the one we originally got from higuys.  I'm hopeful based on els' statements that it worked on both 10.8 and 10.9, but I definitely need more empirical evidence.  

By the way, this is actually 0.89.99.9.  This has a feature merged in from CircusPeanut that fixes the broadcast issue people experience when using older versions of Armory on the offline computer.  The issue was that the core devs implemented a soft-rule requiring normalized signature padding, and older versions of Armory didn't do that.  Thus when you sign with the older version, the tx will be rejected if you are running Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoin 0.8.2 or newer.  This version works around that by exploiting the same transaction malleability that the core devs were trying to reduce!  It adjusts the signature padding of the already-signed transaction -- it changes the hash of the transaction but makes the transaction not only valid, but isStandard() so it will broadcast correctly.  

If you are experiencing that broadcast issue, you can:  (Linux) Pull the latest testing branch and use that (OSX) Use this .app (Windows) Wait for the next testing release.  

It is working for me on OSX 10.9, it is says "preparing database" so once is it finished I will reply, but it started! That is big plus!

EDIT: Now it is Building the database!

this new (0.89.99.9) build is also working well for me on OS X 10.9.  awesome; very promising!

[Red Emerald]

I can't manage to get bitcoind built on OSX 10.9   My tap (https://github.com/WyseNynja/homebrew-bitcoin) doesn't seem to be working anymore.

I've downloaded the official bitcoin-qt binary and am getting the blockchain with it now.

[HowlingMad]

I dowloaded the Linux client and the version states 0.88.1-beta.  Is that right?

[Missionary]

I dowloaded the Linux client and the version states 0.88.1-beta.  Is that right?

That's the current stable version. If you want to use the test version, check the first post in this thread for instructions.

[Missionary]

I am happy to report that I have had success in running the OS X version posted by etotheipi. It rebuilt the database and I have successfully imported several wallets. The rescans still take about 20 minutes for each wallet import. However, after the initial import the client launches and syncs within 10-20 seconds!

The one bug I have found, is that during import I check the option for digital wallet import and then hit continue, but sometimes that does nothing. It's not until I hit cancel that the import is initiated. If I had clicked on continue several times, and thus chosen the same wallet file several times, it will give me an error saying that the wallet is already imported when I hit cancel.

[nnimmo]

Yay picobit!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1139081/ArmoryTestingReleases/Armory.app.0.89.99.9-testing.tar.gz

That 40 MB tar.gz unpacks into a 136 MB Armory.app directory, which should be double-clickable to run Armory.  I successfully compiled it on my MacMini, after review the build-app.py script that picobit gave me, and then successfully running it.  There was a few hiccups in the build process, but it ultimately worked.  And kudos to picobit for not only giving me a script, but being diligent about creating and sorting log files for each command so I could easily figure out what went wrong.  

Please test it on your OSX system.  Especially on 10.9, and especially on any systems where the download from the webpage didn't work.  I want to find out if this .app works better than the one we originally got from higuys.  I'm hopeful based on els' statements that it worked on both 10.8 and 10.9, but I definitely need more empirical evidence.  

By the way, this is actually 0.89.99.9.  This has a feature merged in from CircusPeanut that fixes the broadcast issue people experience when using older versions of Armory on the offline computer.  The issue was that the core devs implemented a soft-rule requiring normalized signature padding, and older versions of Armory didn't do that.  Thus when you sign with the older version, the tx will be rejected if you are running Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoin 0.8.2 or newer.  This version works around that by exploiting the same transaction malleability that the core devs were trying to reduce!  It adjusts the signature padding of the already-signed transaction -- it changes the hash of the transaction but makes the transaction not only valid, but isStandard() so it will broadcast correctly.  

If you are experiencing that broadcast issue, you can:  (Linux) Pull the latest testing branch and use that (OSX) Use this .app (Windows) Wait for the next testing release.  

I have been succeeded to install it on OSX 10.9. Thank you etotheipi.

[gweedo]

Just an update from me, I have built most the database, it says I have about 13mins but considering how long this took, I would say about ~4 more hours. But it is going and no problems so far!

OSX 10.9

[etotheipi]

Just an update from me, I have built most the database, it says I have about 13mins but considering how long this took, I would say about ~4 more hours. But it is going and no problems so far!

OSX 10.9

Interesting.  What's your system specs?  A few others have reported 30 minutes to build the database on OSX, which is actually faster than it's been working on my Linux system!  (about 40-50 min).  There's also a scanning operation after that, which is 10-20 min.  After that, it shouldn't need to rebuild or rescan again and should start up pretty quickly (unless you restore wallets or import private keys).

[etotheipi]

I think I found an issue from my log, it doesn't really detect my system specs correctly.

Code:

2013-11-03 23:01 (INFO) -- armoryengine.py:800 - Detected System Specs    : 
2013-11-03 23:01 (INFO) -- armoryengine.py:801 -    Total Available RAM   : -1.00 GB
2013-11-03 23:01 (INFO) -- armoryengine.py:802 -    CPU ID string         : Unknown
2013-11-03 23:01 (INFO) -- armoryengine.py:803 -    Number of CPU cores   : -1 cores
2013-11-03 23:01 (INFO) -- armoryengine.py:804 -    System is 64-bit      : Unknown
2013-11-03 23:01 (INFO) -- armoryengine.py:805 -    Preferred Encoding    : US-ASCII

I have 4gb and my number of cpu cores is a negative number.

Actually that's expected.  I didn't know how to query system specs in OSX so I just skipped it and left the sentinel -1 values.  It doesn't actually affect performance.  It's really just there to assist with troubleshooting when someone sends a log file, and not important for any actual runtime operations.

[etotheipi]

WOO! it works and got my little stash recovered, thank you so much!

Fwhew!  What a huge weight off my shoulders!  Having a reliable OSX package has been on my TODO list forever, and I had no idea where to start with it, or who to recruit to help with it.  If anyone feels inspired to donate based on the availability of OSX support, I ask that you send your donations to picobit.  ATI (Armory Tech, Inc) will also be sending him some BTC whether he wants it or not!  (in exchange for a copyright release on the build script) 

[Rampion]

Just tried new Armory on OSX, building database took aprox 30 minutes, next loads just a few seconds (5-10s)

I've been testing it and everything works fine, only problem is that some fonts are cut (see pics below). This problem existed on my system on all previous OSX builds/versions of Armory. Did any OSX user find a fix for this?

[picobit]

I've been testing it and everything works fine, only problem is that some fonts are cut (see pics below). This problem existed on my system on all previous OSX builds/versions of Armory. Did any OSX user find a fix for this?

Yes, it is somewhat annoying.  It usually goes away if you grab one of the corners of the window, then it resizes.  I looks like all fonts grow in size the first time the window gets focus, some windows (those with scrollbars) handle it better than others.

Just an update from me, I have built most the database, it says I have about 13mins but considering how long this took, I would say about ~4 more hours. But it is going and no problems so far!

OSX 10.9

Yes, it took many hours for me too (three or four year old MacBook, OS X 10..

But then restarting is much faster than it used to be - except that today it looks like it decided to rescan all the transactions (estimated: 30 min).

Edit:  That smiley was supposed to be version 10.8 

[etotheipi]

Yes, it took many hours for me too (three or four year old MacBook, OS X 10..

But then restarting is much faster than it used to be - except that today it looks like it decided to rescan all the transactions (estimated: 30 min).

Edit:  That smiley was supposed to be version 10.8 

I've designed it so that it only saves the wallet history on clean shutdowns while synchronized.  Otherwise it will have to rescan.  It is probably too aggressive in requiring rescanning when probably not necessary... but it's one of those things that can be really messy if it's doesn't work right... frustration is guaranteed, and someone could also lose coins (i.e. because Armory tells them they have X coins, when they actually have X+Y coins and they do something like delete the wallet thinking it's empty).  I'd rather require the rescan too much than deal with "missing" coins, etc.

[HowlingMad]

I dowloaded the Linux client and the version states 0.88.1-beta.  Is that right?

That's the current stable version. If you want to use the test version, check the first post in this thread for instructions.

Huh, I followed the instructions with "checkout testing" etc...  If I do "git checkout testing" I get the response "you are already using testing". 

I'll uninstall and try it again.

[etotheipi]

I dowloaded the Linux client and the version states 0.88.1-beta.  Is that right?

That's the current stable version. If you want to use the test version, check the first post in this thread for instructions.

Huh, I followed the instructions with "checkout testing" etc...  If I do "git checkout testing" I get the response "you are already using testing". 

I'll uninstall and try it again.

Then you're fine.  It's just to make sure you're on the branch with the latest testing code.  Once you're there, you can follow the rest of the instructions no problem. 

The only thing is that if you don't see "Version 0.89.99.9", you may not be up to date.  You can type "git pull origin testing", and then type "make" again and "python ArmoryQt.py".