Can't sync Bitcoin Core

[Don911]

I'm running Bitcoin Core 0.20.0 on MacOS 10.14.6. Yesterday when I started it, it synced for a while but then got stuck on block 634126. Then I got an error saying "Error reading database, shutting down". I also got a message from "DiskWarrior Hardware Test Notice" that there were bad blocks on the external SSD I use to store the Bitcoin core data. After rebooting, now Bitcoin Core is still stuck on block 634126. For about 20-30 min it said "Connecting to Peers". The "Syncing Headers" for another 10-15 min with 0 active peers. Then I had 4 active peers but still no syncing. And now 2 active connections and still stuck. I usually always have 8 active connections and syncing is fast. Any idea what's going on?

I'm not totally convinced that there is something wrong with the SSD. It seems to work fine accessing all kinds of other files. And it has happened to me a few times in the past that I have gotten reports of errors on external disks when they were in fact OK. Particular with Drive Genius and Drive Pulse. However, this is the first time I have gotten a "DiskWarrior Hardware Test Notice" message. SoftRAID XT says the disk is OK. I have 6 external drives attached via Thunderbolt 3.

[bob123]

You could try to read out the S.M.A.R.T. values of your Hard drive to check whether there is something wrong with it.

This is probably the fastest and easiest first step to troubleshoot.

[Don911]

You could try to read out the S.M.A.R.T. values of your Hard drive to check whether there is something wrong with it.

What do you mean by "read out the S.M.A.R.T. values"? The drive has passed the S.M.A.R.T. test in both Drive Pulse (Drive Genius 5) and SoftRAID XT. So I assume that is correct. Also, since the drive is APFS, and DiskWarrior does not support APFS, I can easily think the error was reported due to a 'glitch'. Also the SSD is a brand new 2TB Crucial MX500, so I doubt there is actually anything wrong with it.

So I think my Bitcoin Core problem is due to somethings else. But I could be wrong, obviously.

[ranochigo]

Are you resynchronizing the client? I find that my client doesn't want to connect to peers if I don't completely delete the data directory after a corrupted block. If you want to try, you can try deleting the data directory after backing up your wallet.dat first.

When you try to resync the client, disable anything that could probe your Bitcoin related files for the moment. If possible, try to create an exclusion for the directory. It is possible that your programs was the source of the corruption.

[Don911]

Are you resynchronizing the client?

Thanks for the suggestion. I overwrote the data folder with a backup from 10 days ago, and now it synced properly. So it must have been a corrupted file blocking the sync from going forward.