Bitcoin Core stuck at 'Connecting to peers' after lengthy sync

[zlin776]

I am running Bitcoin Core on Linux Mint, using a 1TB SSD. I typically get to around 50% sync, then I get stuck at 'Connecting to peers', and it appears that I am unable to connect to the network.

I have deleted my 'Blocks' and 'Chainstate' folders a couple of times, completely reinstalling Core, but the same problem occurs.

The debug log states the following:
2022-11-23T23:01:47Z connect() to 127.0.0.1:9050 failed after wait: Connection refused (111)

I have scoured the forum posts from various sources to no avail.

Any suggestions?

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[jackg]

Are you using it via tor or not?.

Have you tried deleting peers.dat when this happens or disabling antivirus (there might be a workaround for this if you run it in a virtual machine so you can keep your main machine secure but your virtual machine quarantined and sandboxed. Also deleting the blocks folder generally helps.more than deleting chainstate.

[zlin776]

Are you using it via tor or not?.

Have you tried deleting peers.dat when this happens or disabling antivirus (there might be a workaround for this if you run it in a virtual machine so you can keep your main machine secure but your virtual machine quarantined and sandboxed. Also deleting the blocks folder generally helps.more than deleting chainstate.

Could you point me in the direction for instructions to use via Tor?

Tried deleting peers.dat to no avail.

I do not have any antivirus or firewalls enabled (Linux)

[vv181]

It seems the problem is on Tor's side. How do you install and configure Tor?

If the same log still concurred, try to trace both Bitcoin and Tor logs. Also, try to restart the tor process.

Code:

sudo tail -F /var/log/syslog | grep tor -i # monitor tor log
sudo systemctl restart tor # restart tor

[ETFbitcoin]

Are you using it via tor or not?.

Have you tried deleting peers.dat when this happens or disabling antivirus (there might be a workaround for this if you run it in a virtual machine so you can keep your main machine secure but your virtual machine quarantined and sandboxed. Also deleting the blocks folder generally helps.more than deleting chainstate.

Could you point me in the direction for instructions to use via Tor?

if you already reach 50% sync without changing Bitcoin Core setting since you start sync process, doesn't that mean you already configure both Tor and Bitcoin Core? Anyway, as first step you should check whether Tor is running or not using this command.

Code:

sudo systemctl status tor

If the status isn't "active", it means Tor either either isn't running or unable to start. To check Tor log, you can either use command provided by vv181 or use this command.

Code:

sudo journalctl -b | grep -E 'Tor|tor'