[CHALLENGE] Run A Bitcoin Node: 14 Days To 14 Merits

[NotATether]

Progress: (valid as of the creation date of this post)

Code:

Day 3:
Shishir99

Day 5:
oktana
spiker777

Day 6:
SilverCryptoBullet
apogio

Day 9:
Ultegra134
tech30338
DYING_S0UL

If you see any error in the progress report like your name isn't listed correctly, and so on, please let me know so I can fix it.

[Ultegra134]

Does it actually make any noticeable difference to the overall percentage though? I suspect what is happening is that when you restart you are simply interrupting the sampling process, and so when you restart Core thinks it is running faster than it is.

I've also noticed than restarting Bitcoin Core seems to boost the progress per hour, while indeed there's a difference in the total progress as well. However, I've noticed that it only last a few seconds and seems to get stuck after a while, and it seems to halt for a few seconds. From my understanding, it's purely visual and the halt is due to the start-up "boost" of a few seconds.

[Shishir99]

it’s tempting to do when I see progress increase of 0.02 per hour.

I can't think of any reason why shutting down and restarting would improve things.

I guess, I know why and when it happens.
This is what noticed during the block download. When my Bitcoin core downloads the blocks, the main interface that shows the Number of blocks left: gets frozen for a few minutes. When it starts updating the number of blocks again, the download speed decreases (sometimes it stops downloading the blocks). Now, when the Number of blocks left: gets frozen, we think it's not updating anymore. But this is the time when Bitcoin core downloads the blocks at full speed.

The possible reason for boosting the progress is, that when we restart the Bitcoin Core, It shuts down without updating the number of blocks left. But, once we start the Bitcoin core again, it synchronizes the downloaded blocks first and then starts downloading the next blocks and the number of blocks left gets frozen again or updated very slowly. I assume it happens due to the low RAM or CPU power.

DAY 4

[Ultegra134]

Day 10:


{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 788918,
  "headers": 825653,
  "bestblockhash": "00000000000000000003e3aebd73c27bb3da00e64a34a4755189442d3e97d0c5",
  "difficulty": 48005534313578.78,
  "time": 1683622397,
  "mediantime": 1683620069,
  "verificationprogress": 0.9134302543868694,
  "initialblockdownload": true,
  "chainwork": "000000000000000000000000000000000000000047ef235959686b5c46d7e672",
  "size_on_disk": 31632268059,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 773745,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 34999369728,
  "warnings": ""
}

I almost finished synchronizing. Currently at 91.5% and 34 weeks behind. It'll probably be fully synchronized in the upcoming 5 to 6 hours at most. I might consider increasing the prune block storage to 40 or 50 GB from 35, as we have a couple of days more till the end of the challenge. I wish I could download more, but my internet speed sucks big time.

[spiker777]

Day 6:

Code:

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 370317,
  "headers": 825665,
  "bestblockhash": "0000000000000000129bde658557c03015f4d0a6b9f290fe9cb46382b3265064",
  "difficulty": 52699842409.34701,
  "time": 1439850758,
  "mediantime": 1439848584,
  "verificationprogress": 0.08432399889509086,
  "initialblockdownload": true,
  "chainwork": "00000000000000000000000000000000000000000009592827025c22a0819ea0",
  "size_on_disk": 49146497620,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 0,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 299999690752,
  "warnings": ""
}

Edit: just checked rame usage in task manager, Bitcoin Core using only 500 MB. while Google Chrome using a whooping 2 GB ram. lol

Chrome is an awful browser for many reasons, and resource usage is one of them.

In Bitcoin Core, go to Settings -> Options and check the size of the database cache you have set. Increase this if you want Core to use more RAM (you'll need to restart Core after you change this setting).

Just changed my cache to 2 GB lets see if the progress will improve. sorry I missed your post before.

[oktana]

Mmm. But when I do this, I normally see little changes though. And it’s tempting to do when I see progress increase of 0.02 per hour.

Does it actually make any noticeable difference to the overall percentage though? I suspect what is happening is that when you restart you are simply interrupting the sampling process, and so when you restart Core thinks it is running faster than it is.

Sometimes it makes noticeable difference, if it didn’t, I wouldn’t even do it more than once after first try. It could be at 0.02% increase per hour but if I restart it, it could rise up to about 0.50% increase per hour. So it always feels like it’s stuck and just needs help. I sometimes take a screenshot so I can monitor if there’s progress. And most times, it really is stuck until you restart Bitcoin Core.

But logically, what Loyce said would be true because restarting it reloads everything and that sounds like extra work to what is supposedly running.

[DYING_S0UL]

Sometimes it makes noticeable difference, if it didn’t, I wouldn’t even do it more than once after first try.

Not just noticeable but highly noticeable. There was a time when I had 7.00% progress per hour after restarting Bitcoin core. I was shocked because my average progress was 0.50% per hour. I was wondering WTF just happended. After a minute or two, it went below 1% per hour. Lol  .


DAY 10 progress:

[oktana]

Sometimes it makes noticeable difference, if it didn’t, I wouldn’t even do it more than once after first try.

Not just noticeable but highly noticeable. There was a time when I had 7.00% progress per hour after restarting Bitcoin core. I was shocked because my average progress was 0.50% per hour. I was wondering WTF just happended. After a minute or two, it went below 1% per hour. Lol  .

I think I’ve seen this one you’re narrating. I think it’s a different case entirely for me. I’m using an external drive that could get disconnected mistakenly, it happens when the hard drive gets suddenly disconnected and then I run Bitcoin Core again. I notice that if I was at 22% progress, it’ll start from 20% and will have a really high hourly progress, which I think is because it’s trying to verify the files again as it was untimely disconnected. Once it gets to where it was supposed to be, it drops the speed to the average you’ve been getting.

[tech30338]

Day 10

Code:

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 825735,
  "headers": 825735,
  "bestblockhash": "000000000000000000001c49961b120924f5d9fbdb1133e024dcb0d45d86be20",
  "difficulty": 73197634206448.34,
  "time": 1705213523,
  "mediantime": 1705206428,
  "verificationprogress": 0.9999977432784773,
  "initialblockdownload": false,
  "chainwork": "00000000000000000000000000000000000000006585d110f171c18ffe4634a8",
  "size_on_disk": 4864753983,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 823264,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 4999610368,
  "warnings": ""
}

[SilverCryptoBullet]

Day 7

Code:

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 825181,
  "headers": 825739,
  "bestblockhash": "00000000000000000001a79d1975ec91e1b56d917ba0b7d512d85f7ba2987b9c",
  "difficulty": 73197634206448.34,
  "time": 1704917250,
  "mediantime": 1704914960,
  "verificationprogress": 0.998251616877296,
  "initialblockdownload": true,
  "chainwork": "000000000000000000000000000000000000000064f5bf2381acc5abe99aa04e",
  "size_on_disk": 4588482660,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 823349,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 4999610368,
  "warnings": ""
}

[apogio]

DAY 7:

Code:

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 825744,
  "headers": 825744,
  "bestblockhash": "0000000000000000000058f2d949be5b6d75e4bdadc63b7e4d237653c55a436b",
  "difficulty": 73197634206448.34,
  "time": 1705221913,
  "mediantime": 1705217709,
  "verificationprogress": 0.9999968387607164,
  "initialblockdownload": false,
  "chainwork": "00000000000000000000000000000000000000006588283b277a0a0b617f8529",
  "size_on_disk": 614468712878,
  "pruned": false,
  "warnings": ""
}

[oktana]

Guys always make sure that you close your node properly or you could run into issues where it will start “Replaying blocks” and you’ll see a whole lot of “Rolling Forward” files in your debug. This can go on for hours (depending on how much cache that wasn’t flushed to your disk yet). Check this issue on GitHub

DAY 6

Code:

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 492565,
  "headers": 825750,
  "bestblockhash": "000000000000000000355b4701129a311ea26a2031a4bda1ae33cfab6b206002",
  "difficulty": 1452839779145.919,
  "time": 1509504213,
  "mediantime": 1509498223,
  "verificationprogress": 0.2807833463700093,
  "initialblockdownload": true,
  "chainwork": "000000000000000000000000000000000000000000a79f3d2b7ebd71520ad75a",
  "size_on_disk": 130402407155,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 330303,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 399999238144,
  "warnings": ""
}

[bayu7adi]

Can I join the list? Here's my progress after 1 hour and 30 minutes. The stats show a pretty accurate increase per hour, starting at 0.5%, and now it's up to 3%, making me feel like things are picking up speed.

Starting to be interested in installing Bitcoin core (again) , because previously I failed to install Bitcoin core because it required a lot of data and time. Seem many people are just starting out now, I don't think it's too late to install this on my PC.

Day 1

[Shishir99]

The possible reason for boosting the progress is, that when we restart the Bitcoin Core, It shuts down without updating the number of blocks left. But, once we start the Bitcoin core again, it synchronizes the downloaded blocks first and then starts downloading the next blocks and the number of blocks left gets frozen again or updated very slowly. I assume it happens due to the low RAM or CPU power.

Did you guys notice what I have posted and did you try to check if it's the same for you? My progress is getting slower day by day. For some unknown reason, I found out that my laptop was shut down in the morning but I kept it open. It happened two days in a row now. When I start it again, Seems like it was opened from sleep mode even though the sleep mode is disabled. I am not sure what is going on. My current progress is 61.77% on 5th day.

Day 5

[DYING_S0UL]

Did you guys notice what I have posted and did you try to check if it's the same for you? My progress is getting slower day by day. For some unknown reason, I found out that my laptop was shut down in the morning but I kept it open. It happened two days in a row now. When I start it again, Seems like it was opened from sleep mode even though the sleep mode is disabled. I am not sure what is going on. My current progress is 61.77% on 5th day.

Hey! It's the same for me. I always kept the bitcoin core running overnight but when I woke up in the morning the screen was totally black (sleep mode). I faced this 3-4 times, even today. I had some work outside. So around 8 o Clock (morning time) I started running it again and went outside, returned home around 4 o Clock (evening), again SLEEP mode.

Note: Auto sleep mode and other settings are set as "never/disable" and I'm 100% sure electricity wasn't interrupt either. Weird. 

64% for me, same as you, progress decreased.

[NotATether]

I will most likely end up posting the status update tomorrow, was really busy today.

[Ultegra134]

Day 11:

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 814042,
  "headers": 825793,
  "bestblockhash": "000000000000000000013902669e8f35ff1394c199a78596367d686fbb992fd9",
  "difficulty": 61030681983175.59,
  "time": 1698398340,
  "mediantime": 1698396906,
  "verificationprogress": 0.9730707396047651,
  "initialblockdownload": true,
  "chainwork": "00000000000000000000000000000000000000005a995cc4f93d60110259230b",
  "size_on_disk": 33296668610,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 796892,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 34999369728,
  "warnings": ""
}

Edit: Corrected the day

[spiker777]

Day 7 Progress:

Code:

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 384397,
  "headers": 825799,
  "bestblockhash": "00000000000000000e06a104fdeb607b6868c1e42e8ac6790f6df623ee1ae472",
  "difficulty": 65848255179.70261,
  "time": 1447992116,
  "mediantime": 1447989961,
  "verificationprogress": 0.09807451218037552,
  "initialblockdownload": true,
  "chainwork": "0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000c527e40425dd70e76cffc",
  "size_on_disk": 57907086612,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 0,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 299999690752,
  "warnings": ""
}

Sorry OP! I wasn't able to run the node today for longer than 2 hours. It is completely fine if you don't count my Todays progress.

[DYING_S0UL]

DAY 11 progress:

I don't know what happened but the progress per hour decreased. I'm doing other internet related stuff, and everything seems to be working fine but for some reasons the progress looks like it got stuck. Tried restarting the bitcoin core, doesn't help. I guess, I'll have to wait for it to fix everything on it's own.

[tech30338]

Day 11

Code:

{
  "chain": "main",
  "blocks": 825862,
  "headers": 825862,
  "bestblockhash": "0000000000000000000224c1c9f87ed8fd68e9f3ea7378ec0372fa8b52e7f918",
  "difficulty": 73197634206448.34,
  "time": 1705298015,
  "mediantime": 1705294946,
  "verificationprogress": 0.9999929757073898,
  "initialblockdownload": false,
  "chainwork": "000000000000000000000000000000000000000065a6d7f2cf74dccee836166f",
  "size_on_disk": 4963241663,
  "pruned": true,
  "pruneheight": 823340,
  "automatic_pruning": true,
  "prune_target_size": 4999610368,
  "warnings": ""
}