Sync eats bandwidth but No progress on block download

[Philopolymath]

So I have great internet service and core wallet sync always shows plenty of peers

But Syncing new core wallet is taking forever.....0.02%/hr means 4 months to download a new core wallet...
Meanwhile my bandwidth is still getting eaten....by peers uploading? I guess?

Turning off network activity stops both up and download....Strange I thought it should still download/sync? It did in past?


Is it my peers preventing my download/sync speed?
Bad or useless seed nodes?
Bad enough I need to use 250+ Gig for full node core wallet (I will Prune the shit out of that of course)

Any suggestions how to get better peers or nodes for sync?
WITHOUT having my bandwidth eaten by uploading to other peers?

[Philopolymath]

nevermind solved...

I added a shit load of good nodes to my config...
found here...https://bitnodes.earn.com/nodes/leaderboard

WRONG ....NOT SOLVED...

Problem persists..

[rpstatic]

WITHOUT having my bandwidth eaten by uploading to other peers?

If you still want to limit the upload speed, you can find a good summary of options in this article.
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7750/how-can-i-limit-bandwidth-usage-in-bitcoin-qt-client

The easiest way is to disable the upload with listen=0 (append this to you bitcoin.conf).

[Philopolymath]

Ah yes thanks
 listen=0 stops the upload bandwidth....


But I still can't get any download speed for blocks sync...

16-18 connections from the highest ranked (closest) nodes to Montreal

and I still only get 0.04% progress/Hr.

so it will take 12  hours to download 10 hours worth of blocks WTF?

[HCP]

But I still can't get any download speed for blocks sync...

16-18 connections from the highest ranked (closest) nodes to Montreal
and I still only get 0.04% progress/Hr.
so it will take 12  hours to download 10 hours worth of blocks WTF?

That progress meter that you're looking at isn't just pure "download" speed of your internet connection... it also incorporates the validating of blocks.

What sort of storage device does your setup have? Is it a traditional HDD or is it an SSD? Internal or External?

The things that typically affect the sync speed tend to be:
- Storage read/write speed
- CPU speed
- Internet Bandwidth

Bitcoin Core does a LOT of reading/writing from/to your storage... as it has to download and then validate each and every block. An SSD will generally sync significantly faster than an HDD (given identical CPU/bandwidth). The CPU is also important due to all the number crunching required to validate the downloaded blocks. Bandwidth is still important, but probably less so than the others as generally, with a broadband connection, you can download (~1 Mbyte) blocks faster than your CPU can validate them.

[Philopolymath]

I see....
I use a 512Gb HP SSD..(config has prune set to 5G)
processor is AMD Fx 6300 six core@ 3.8Mhz
And Bandwidth is usually good for 20+ Mbps

I run no widgets and keep this comp very clean of junk..it is only for monitoring mining and wallet storage/admin.
NO programs or software other than windows 7.


So I doubt very much it is my system or bandwidth bogging me down.
I recently moved...previously at my last home this comp could download 10-12%/Hr.
With same internet provider..same service package etc..

Nor does the problem seem to be related to time of day net traffic...
I also tried a VPN a few times but got even worse performance.

[HCP]

Well that is very strange... As you say, that setup should, in theory, sync "OK". Are you currently trying to sync from scratch or just catch up the last few days/weeks?

[Philopolymath]

I was recovering a wallet to a new SSD disk so doing the whole core wallet
Damn near 300Gb..I have 150Gb/month limit... so spread it out over 3 months...last of which was at new home when sync speed went in toilet.

I'm convinced it's peer/node related as I have had some fast times when adding high-ranked Foreign (far away) nodes.
Seems my local "found" nodes are given priority... but they often suck..
local high ranks are unstable/spotty

[HCP]

It's also possible you've just synced past the mostly empty blocks of the early years when it syncs really quickly as there isn't as much data to validate... and now you've run into the generally full blocks of 2016-2017

I'm not sure if it is still true, but the % progress thing was based on number of blocks... not size of data. That is to say, Bitcoin Core has no way to know how "big" the blockchain is when it is syncing... only how "long" it is (ie. total number of blocks). So it looks like it syncs really fast as it does all the empty blocks, then slows down when it hits all the full blocks.

If you've been doing this on and off... it's likely you just keep hitting sections in time of full blocks and it looks like it is syncing slowly.

[Philopolymath]

Ah true...good point.