[ANN] ArmoryGuide.com - Simplifying Armory Setup

[super3]

Launching ArmoryGuide.com today. Figured it could be a kinda late Christmas present for you guys. Just wanted to make setup a little easier for newbies. In the future(and based on your feedback), I'll be adding videos and more advanced features.

Beginners Guide:
0. Welcome to Armory Guide
1. Installing Bitcoin-Qt
2. Installing Bitcoin Armory
3. Setting up a Test Wallet
4. Receiving Bitcoin
5. Restoring Test Wallet
6. Sending Bitcoin

Cold Storage:
1. Installing Offline Armory
2. Setting Up an Offline Wallet
3. Watching-only Wallets
4. Offline Transactions

Screenshot:


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[super3]

Reserved for roadmap.

[xephyr]

Why? All the help most need is already available at the Armory website. The developer is also available here on the forum for any questions not already covered.

[goatpig]

Why? All the help most need is already available at the Armory website. The developer is also available here on the forum for any questions not already covered.

95% of the support emails are about common setup issues. We can spend more time developing Armory if those users can get Armory working without having to ask for our assistance.

[super3]

Why? All the help most need is already available at the Armory website. The developer is also available here on the forum for any questions not already covered.

95% of the support emails are about common setup issues. We can spend more time developing Armory if those users can get Armory working without having to ask for our assistance.

Could you please post a list of the common setup issues that you receive? Please rank them by frequency, and I will tackle them in that order.

[goatpig]

Could you please post a list of the common setup issues that you receive? Please rank them by frequency, and I will tackle them in that order.

1) Can't get Armory to sync.

There's no 2.

[super3]

Could you please post a list of the common setup issues that you receive? Please rank them by frequency, and I will tackle them in that order.

1) Can't get Armory to sync.

There's no 2.

Can you generalize some of the solutions or at least what normally causes that to happen for users?

[goatpig]

This is what I deal with most of the time on the support channel:

1) bitcoind is installed in a non standard folder. You need to point that to Armory in the File -> Settings menu. On Windows, in the current version, you have to point at the folder containing the daemon (bitcoind.exe), not just the top Bitcoin installation folder. This bug will be fixed in 0.91

2) The blockchain is in a non standard folder. This is an issue regardless of bitcoind (auto managed) or BitcoinQt (no management). You need to point Armory to the raw blockchain files, either through the Files -> Settings menu, or by using the --satoshi-datadir command line argument

3) Some users have modified bitcoin.conf, usually to reduce connectivity. Armory connects as a node so bitcoind needs to allow it in. The common approach is to add listen=1 in bitcoin.conf. I prefer bind=127.0.0.1. Worst case scenario, getting rid of the .conf (rename it to something else for instance) fixes the issue.

Note that in auto manage, Armory tries to query bitcoind status through the JSON-RPC API, and it sets its own log/password in bitcoin.conf for that purpose.

4) "It's been sitting here for hours synchronizing". By far the most annoying state to fix, since I have personally never ran into it, and I have sync'ed the blockchain and Armory's DB from scratch quite a few times. Same goes with the other devs, we just don't run into these, so we don't really get to observe the bug.

There are 5 cases essentially:

4.a) Some users just don't realize how long it takes to download and verify the blockchain. Thats 10-20% of the user base.

4.b) A certain amount of users (can't really give you figure because they get mixed with case 4.d) do not properly set their system clock, resulting in bitcoind never fully syncing with the network.

4.c) Syncing Armory without a wallet loaded. Don't do that. Create a mock wallet if you have to.

4.d) Corrupt DB. Armory's DB somehow got corrupted. Most users experience an Armory freeze and/or crash when it runs into the corrupt data. At this point start Armory in offline mode (use the --offline command line argument) and click on Help -> Rebuild and Rescan Databases. If Armory still crashes, you have to manually delete the databases folder in Armory's datadir. I'd say 10% of our users run into this.

4.e) Messed up blockchain. This is our main concern currently. Even though bitcoind reads the raw files properly, Armory chokes on them somewhere. Our issue is that we never got a blockchain in that state to observe the issue, so we haven't gotten around fixing it. We have yet to find someone willing to upload 14GB worth of blockchain to us either =P. At any rate, the solution to this issue is to delete the blockchain raw files and let bitcoind resync. About 10-15% of our user base runs into this.

[super3]

This is what I deal with most of the time on the support channel:

1) bitcoind is installed in a non standard folder. You need to point that to Armory in the File -> Settings menu. On Windows, in the current version, you have to point at the folder containing the daemon (bitcoind.exe), not just the top Bitcoin installation folder. This bug will be fixed in 0.91

2) The blockchain is in a non standard folder. This is an issue regardless of bitcoind (auto managed) or BitcoinQt (no management). You need to point Armory to the raw blockchain files, either through the Files -> Settings menu, or by using the --satoshi-datadir command line argument

3) Some users have modified bitcoin.conf, usually to reduce connectivity. Armory connects as a node so bitcoind needs to allow it in. The common approach is to add listen=1 in bitcoin.conf. I prefer bind=127.0.0.1. Worst case scenario, getting rid of the .conf (rename it to something else for instance) fixes the issue.

Note that in auto manage, Armory tries to query bitcoind status through the JSON-RPC API, and it sets its own log/password in bitcoin.conf for that purpose.

4) "It's been sitting here for hours synchronizing". By far the most annoying state to fix, since I have personally never ran into it, and I have sync'ed the blockchain and Armory's DB from scratch quite a few times. Same goes with the other devs, we just don't run into these, so we don't really get to observe the bug.

There are 5 cases essentially:

4.a) Some users just don't realize how long it takes to download and verify the blockchain. Thats 10-20% of the user base.

4.b) A certain amount of users (can't really give you figure because they get mixed with case 4.d) do not properly set their system clock, resulting in bitcoind never fully syncing with the network.

4.c) Syncing Armory without a wallet loaded. Don't do that. Create a mock wallet if you have to.

4.d) Corrupt DB. Armory's DB somehow got corrupted. Most users experience an Armory freeze and/or crash when it runs into the corrupt data. At this point start Armory in offline mode (use the --offline command line argument) and click on Help -> Rebuild and Rescan Databases. If Armory still crashes, you have to manually delete the databases folder in Armory's datadir. I'd say 10% of our users run into this.

4.e) Messed up blockchain. This is our main concern currently. Even though bitcoind reads the raw files properly, Armory chokes on them somewhere. Our issue is that we never got a blockchain in that state to observe the issue, so we haven't gotten around fixing it. We have yet to find someone willing to upload 14GB worth of blockchain to us either =P. At any rate, the solution to this issue is to delete the blockchain raw files and let bitcoind resync. About 10-15% of our user base runs into this.

Thanks! I'll get one of my writers on this right away. 

I'm currently finishing up the offline tutorials, then I have to add some videos.
I'll add a common problems section for this after that, so you can just refer users to the guides.

If have any more common problems and solutions just add them to the topic and they will be added to the roadmap

[super3]

Added cold storage section. Will now get started on the common problems section.

[super3]

We have completely revamped the site. http://armoryguide.com/
We have a bootstraping the blockchain guide up, and some other small guides. Will start working through the rest of the list.

[Automatic]

Your blur is pretty poor on step #5.

Also, I'd recommend turning the default fee down from 0.0005 to 0.0001.

[super3]

Your blur is pretty poor on step #5.

Also, I'd recommend turning the default fee down from 0.0005 to 0.0001.

Broken by design. Just a little easter egg. If you can import the private keys the funds on there are yours.
Good point on the fees.

[OlliBrandt80]

Thanks for posting guide book how to install it. Although there are a lot of information on site it is easy to read from one place.

[spin]

Your blur is pretty poor on step #5.

Also, I'd recommend turning the default fee down from 0.0005 to 0.0001.

Broken by design. Just a little easter egg. If you can import the private keys the funds on there are yours.
Good point on the fees.

Funds are gone
Never mind the letters that were blurred.  The QR-code reveals all

[super3]

Ha ha. The goal is to hide private keys all over the website. Have a little fun while also learning how to use Armory. Hopefully we will get a few more donations to fund this as people are now starting to visit the site. I may or may not have funded one of the addresses. Lets see how long it takes.