Armory - Discussion Thread

[etotheipi]

What branch should I checkout? blkchainagain? It looks like master is still .77

I am looking at line 29 of cppForSwig/Makefile, and it has "libpython2.6.a" in it.  Is this how you meant to do it? shouldn't this be dynamic based on the installed version or something?

When I run "make swig", it (expectedly) errors out with:

Code:

g++ -shared -lpthread  UniversalTimer.o BinaryData.o FileDataPtr.o BtcUtils.o BlockObj.o BlockUtils.o EncryptionUtils.o libcryptopp.a libpython2.6.a CppBlockUtils_wrap.o -o ../_CppBlockUtils.so
i686-apple-darwin11-llvm-g++-4.2: libpython2.6.a: No such file or directory
make: *** [swig] Error 1

I do have libpython2.7.a in "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/config/libpython2.7.a"  What is the proper way to put that in the Makefile?

Also, it would be really nice if the dependency directory was easy to change.  Something like a variable at the top of the file just like in the Satoshi client Makefile.  I'm always having to edit the Armory Makefile to change the paths to "/usr/local/include" for my Mac.

Ahh.  I was getting sick of compiling four different versions of Armory because of issues with the python versions.  So, I modified the makefile to statically compile it in so that the python-version on the user's computer would no longer matter.  Thus I won't have to split out different versions for python2.6 and python2.7 systems anymore.  

I didn't really want to do this, but I've also had so many complaints/crashes due to it, and python is small enough, that static compiling makes sense.  I see it doesn't come without consequences, though...

I'm really bad with makefiles, if you didn't notice.  However, it changes very rarely.  So you should be able to modify the Makefile once, and "git pull" the changes without overwriting it.  I suspect you're doing a fresh checkout everytime, but if you pull instead, it will merge the new version with the Makefile changes you've made.  It keeps the changes even when you switch between branches.

EDIT:  On that note I just tested the .deb compiled on my 10.04 machine on 12.04 -- it previously didn't work due to this python-version issue, but now it does!  I'm keeping it! 

EDIT2:  Let's compromise -- can you send me your Makefile with the modifications you would recommend?  At the moment I'd just be taking a shot in the dark, because I don't fully understand the variability of the environments you are in.  But I'll see what you're trying to do and I'll accommodate

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[Gladamas]

Oh, one more thing, I'm not sure if this is intentional or not but the Armory process closes completely when I close the main Armory window, rather than minimizing to the system tray.

[Red Emerald]

EDIT2:  Let's compromise -- can you send me your Makefile with the modifications you would recommend?  At the moment I'd just be taking a shot in the dark, because I don't fully understand the variability of the environments you are in.  But I'll see what you're trying to do and I'll accommodate

I had been using "git stash", then "git pull", then "git stash apply"

I put up a pull request on github awhile ago.  You can see the simple changes I made there.  I give you full right to license that code however you want if that is still a concern for you.

https://github.com/etotheipi/BitcoinArmory/pull/3

Mostly it's just sticking "$(DEPSDIR)" wherever you have "/usr"

It also has a little check to set the $DEPSDIR with brew if it detects a mac.

This works for me on master and tablesorter, but I'm not having luck with blkchainagain.  I'll try more tomorrow and also test out the binaries on ubuntu.

[molecular]

I asked before but I don't think it's been answered: what branch to test? master is 0.77 it seems.

[etotheipi]

I asked before but I don't think it's been answered: what branch to test? master is 0.77 it seems.

Oh yeah, sorry.  Branch is blkchainagain.   I release installers, but forget people like to compile it themselves...

EDIT2:  Let's compromise -- can you send me your Makefile with the modifications you would recommend?  At the moment I'd just be taking a shot in the dark, because I don't fully understand the variability of the environments you are in.  But I'll see what you're trying to do and I'll accommodate

I put up a pull request on github awhile ago.  You can see the simple changes I made there.  I give you full right to license that code however you want if that is still a concern for you.

Holy crap you're right.  I totally forgot that you did that!  Okay, I'll look at it and make the appropriate changes.  There's no reason not to.

Oh, one more thing, I'm not sure if this is intentional or not but the Armory process closes completely when I close the main Armory window, rather than minimizing to the system tray.

I never implemented "minimize to try" -- I'm sure it's not too difficult, though.  It's a feature I never used (or wanted to use) but if others like it, I might be able to crank it out in an hour

[Gladamas]

Ya, unconfirmed balances are acting weird (as you already know). I had 1.037 BTC in my wallet, sent 1.032 somewhere with 0.004 fees, and the change does not show up in my balance (says I have only 0.00006902 BTC.) Transaction: http://blockchain.info/tx-index/9787329/2f87eea52093b0abf8fc47f471e197ea1ec0e780476b9ec62d8574a3cee2a450. I'm using the test-release 0.79.99.

[etotheipi]

The current Armory version cannot parse transactions with inputs directly from mined coins. Maybe you could add that functionality? (For P2Pool payouts, etc.)

Can you clarify the issue?  I just stepped through the code in the debugger using an address that receives P2Pool payouts, and at the very least, it seems to be computing "Full", "Spendable" and "Unconfirmed" correctly.   But I don't have a wallet to actually display such outputs to see how that information is making it to the user interface.

(1) Are the mined transactions showing up in the ledger?
(2) They should be displayed with a little pickaxe.  I assume they're not...?
(3) Do those inputs change the balances shown at the bottom in a way you would expect?
(4) Do you have difficulty spending transactions from wallets that receive mined transactions?

[Red Emerald]

I got armory 0.79.99.1 compiled in Lion!

I couldn't get it compiled with brew's python, but it compiled with the system python.


When I double click a p2pool payout it says:

This is a non-standard transaction, which cannot be interpretted by this program.  DO NOT ASSUME that you own these Bitcoins, even if you see your address in any part of the transaction.  Only an expert can tell you if and how these coins can be redeemed! 

If you would like more information, please copy the information on the next window into an email and send it to alan.reiner@gmail.com.

[Gladamas]

The current Armory version cannot parse transactions with inputs directly from mined coins. Maybe you could add that functionality? (For P2Pool payouts, etc.)

Can you clarify the issue?  I just stepped through the code in the debugger using an address that receives P2Pool payouts, and at the very least, it seems to be computing "Full", "Spendable" and "Unconfirmed" correctly.   But I don't have a wallet to actually display such outputs to see how that information is making it to the user interface.

(1) Are the mined transactions showing up in the ledger?
(2) They should be displayed with a little pickaxe.  I assume they're not...?
(3) Do those inputs change the balances shown at the bottom in a way you would expect?
(4) Do you have difficulty spending transactions from wallets that receive mined transactions?

Let me answer your questions within the next 12 hours as I'm not currently mining with P2Pool 

[etotheipi]

Okay, I have posted all four testing versions on the github download page.   I highlighted "four" because there are no longer different installers based on distro, only 32-bit vs 64-bit.  That's a lot easier for everyone...

Armory 0.79.99.1 Downloads Page

Please download them and check them out.  As far as I can tell, everything works as the previous versions have, but with the better blockchain utilities underneath.

One particular improvement I noticed, is that it doesn't have a problem "drinking from the firehose" anymore:  if the Satoshi client is still getting sync'd, Armory doesn't have a problem consuming all the new block data -- well maybe a little bit, but nothing like before.  I do need to add a warning or flag to identify that Bitcoin-qt is still sync'ing.

I have removed an warning in the GUI related to P2Pool, and made a minor bug/code change that might affect P2Pool display.  Still doesn't display coinbase transactions properly, but it looks like it at least won't try to spend them before 120 confirmations.  Can anyone verify that?

Also added "Help-->About".  Finally

[payb.tc]

However, there is no option for setting where Armory should look for the Bitcoin-Qt/bitcoind home directory.  Armory autodetects based on environment variables -- specifically "os.getenv('APPDATA')" in Windows, "os.getenv('HOME')" in Linux.  Looking at the code now, I don't see why I can't add an option for this, it just isn't in version 0.77-alpha.    I have added to my list of things for the next release -- add a customizable bitcoin-home option.  

Until then, if you are really anxious to try, you can permanently change your "APPDATA" environment variable to point to "Z:\appdata" from the control panel (search for "environment" in the upper-right corner).  

If you are constantly changing your "APPDATA" directory depending on your context, you can dynamically change it from the command-line using the "set" command.  I'm not familiar with the mechanics of doing this through launchers/shortcuts.  You might have to make a .bat file that says

Code:

set APPDATA=Z:\appdata
C:\path\to\installed\Armory.exe

Or just wait a week.  I'll have a major release out with this option added.

hi, did you get a chance to add this appdata switch? i'd love to try it out again.

thanks.

[etotheipi]

hi, did you get a chance to add this appdata switch? i'd love to try it out again.

Oh, yes I did!  Sorry I forgot to mention it.

Armory homedir:  "--datadir=Z:\newdir"
Satoshi homedir:  "--satoshi-datadir=Z:\newdir"

[payb.tc]

hi, did you get a chance to add this appdata switch? i'd love to try it out again.

Oh, yes I did!  Sorry I forgot to mention it.

Armory homedir:  "--datadir=Z:\newdir"
Satoshi homedir:  "--satoshi-datadir=Z:\newdir"

wow, awesome... so ignoring the registry stuff, this can now be a totally portable app? if so, the last missing piece of the portability puzzle is distributing it in some other form other than .msi

[Raoul Duke]

wow, awesome... so ignoring the registry stuff, this can now be a totally portable app? if so, the last missing piece of the portability puzzle is distributing it in some other form other than .msi

http://legroom.net/software/uniextract

Enjoy!

[check_status]

I've got a gig of RAM this time instead of four and Armory doesn't want to open, 1:15:00 hours and still loading. Is this a hang or normal functioning?

Edit: Going on 3:00:00+ hours and Armory still hasn't opened. Hmm.
Can I just kill python?

[etotheipi]

I've got a gig of RAM this time instead of four and Armory doesn't want to open, 1:15:00 hours and still loading. Is this a hang or normal functioning?

Edit: Going on 3:00:00+ hours and Armory still hasn't opened. Hmm.
Can I just kill python?

Ugh!  That's definitely not normal functioning.  What are your system specs?  1 GB of RAM?

It sounds like I better hold off on beta, and take the new blockchain stuff a bit further -- along with insta-loading between restarts.  Luckily, the changes I made are 95% of what I need to save an index to disk, or start saving this data into a DB engine.  I have been hesitant to pull a DB engine in, but it seems like now is the time.  (it will probably mean installing a new dependency on the offline system, though).

...

Thanks for being patient, guys.  This has turned out to be a more elusive problem than I originally thought it would be

[Gladamas]

The current Armory version cannot parse transactions with inputs directly from mined coins. Maybe you could add that functionality? (For P2Pool payouts, etc.)

Can you clarify the issue?  I just stepped through the code in the debugger using an address that receives P2Pool payouts, and at the very least, it seems to be computing "Full", "Spendable" and "Unconfirmed" correctly.   But I don't have a wallet to actually display such outputs to see how that information is making it to the user interface.

(1) Are the mined transactions showing up in the ledger?
(2) They should be displayed with a little pickaxe.  I assume they're not...?
(3) Do those inputs change the balances shown at the bottom in a way you would expect?
(4) Do you have difficulty spending transactions from wallets that receive mined transactions?

OK, I got a payment from P2Pool.

1. Yes.
2. No pickaxe. On the very left of the ledger, the little rectangle that shows how many confirmations the transaction has received is functioning like it was a normal transaction. (I moused over the transaction and it said that it had only 40 confirmations, yet the box on the left was green with a check mark.) The weird thing is that when I double-clicked or right-clicked the transaction to open the window with the transaction info, Armory crashed (I'm using Windows 7, it said that "Armory has stopped responding, checking for solutions to the problem... (5 seconds later) Click "Close window" to close the program.") I could double-click the comment field and enter/change the comment just fine without Armory crashing.
3. Yes, at 40 confirmations the P2Pool payout amount was shown as unconfirmed and not spendable.
4. With only 40 confirmations, it would not let me spend coins from that mined payout. ("You just tried to spend 0.0205 BTC, including fee, but you only have 0.00004858 BTC (spendable) in this wallet!")

I also encountered another bug unrelated to mined coins. If you send coins to an address you own (your coins "doing a lap"), with zero confirmations the coins do not show up in your 'Unconfirmed' or 'Maximum Funds' balance (and of course not in your 'Spendable Funds' balance either). (I tested this using coins not from my P2Pool payout, and all of the inputs to the transaction had >6 confirmations.)

I'll edit this post when I receive >120 confirmations on the P2Pool payout transaction, and 1 and >6 confirmations on the test send-coins-to-self transaction.

EDIT: I can open the transaction information for non-mined-coin-input payments just fine.

[etotheipi]

The current Armory version cannot parse transactions with inputs directly from mined coins. Maybe you could add that functionality? (For P2Pool payouts, etc.)

Can you clarify the issue?  I just stepped through the code in the debugger using an address that receives P2Pool payouts, and at the very least, it seems to be computing "Full", "Spendable" and "Unconfirmed" correctly.   But I don't have a wallet to actually display such outputs to see how that information is making it to the user interface.

(1) Are the mined transactions showing up in the ledger?
(2) They should be displayed with a little pickaxe.  I assume they're not...?
(3) Do those inputs change the balances shown at the bottom in a way you would expect?
(4) Do you have difficulty spending transactions from wallets that receive mined transactions?

OK, I got a payment from P2Pool.

1. Yes.
2. No pickaxe. On the very left of the ledger, the little rectangle that shows how many confirmations the transaction has received is functioning like it was a normal transaction. (I moused over the transaction and it said that it had only 40 confirmations, yet the box on the left was green with a check mark.) The weird thing is that when I double-clicked or right-clicked the transaction to open the window with the transaction info, Armory crashed (I'm using Windows 7, it said that "Armory has stopped responding, checking for solutions to the problem... (5 seconds later) Click "Close window" to close the program.") I could double-click the comment field and enter/change the comment just fine without Armory crashing.
3. Yes, at 40 confirmations the P2Pool payout amount was shown as unconfirmed and not spendable.
4. With only 40 confirmations, it would not let me spend coins from that mined payout. ("You just tried to spend 0.0205 BTC, including fee, but you only have 0.00004858 BTC (spendable) in this wallet!")

I also encountered another bug unrelated to mined coins. If you send coins to an address you own (your coins "doing a lap"), with zero confirmations the coins do not show up in your 'Unconfirmed' or 'Maximum Funds' balance (and of course not in your 'Spendable Funds' balance either). (I tested this using coins not from my P2Pool payout, and all of the inputs to the transaction had >6 confirmations.)

I'll edit this post when I receive >120 confirmations on the P2Pool payout transaction, and 1 and >6 confirmations on the test send-coins-to-self transaction.

Thanks Gladamas,

I have been checking the code and everything you said makes sense
(1) Good
(2) I just noticed I actually commented out the pickaxe code because of an issue exposing the correct information from the C++ code to the GUI.  I will work on doing that.
(3) I noticed some crashes with double-clicking on some types of transactions, so I put in a fix in 0.79.99.1.  Could you upgrade to the latest and tell me if it still crashes?
(4) That's what I would expect.  The C++ code is flagging it correctly (as unspendable), and thus won't return it in the "spendable" balance.  I just need to fix the ledger display it seems...

I will dig into the zero-confirmation issue a little bit more, today.  I have noticed it doesn't show zero-confirmation transactions in the balances, despite having them in the ledger.  I think I know where to look...

Thanks, that was really useful!

[Gladamas]

(3) I noticed some crashes with double-clicking on some types of transactions, so I put in a fix in 0.79.99.1.  Could you upgrade to the latest and tell me if it still crashes?

Upgraded to Armory 0.79.99.1, still crashes when I double-click my P2Pool transaction from before. I should be getting another P2Pool payout soon so I'll test on that and see if it crashes.

And even with my 0.005 fee my 3-input, 2-output (including change) test transaction (send-coins-to-self) is still not in a block after 50 minutes. Then again there has only been 3 blocks in that time frame.

EDIT: Two Deepbit blocks 15 seconds apart and my test transaction has two confirmations. It now shows in my 'Unconfirmed' and 'Maximum Funds' balance, but not in my 'Spendable Funds'.

[etotheipi]

And even with my 0.005 fee my 3-input, 2-output (including change) test transaction (send-coins-to-self) is still not in a block after 50 minutes. Then again there has only been 3 blocks in that time frame.

EDIT: Two Deepbit blocks 15 seconds apart and my test transaction has two confirmations. It now shows in my 'Unconfirmed' and 'Maximum Funds' balance, but not in my 'Spendable Funds'.

It sounds like what was displayed in this case was as expected (except for the "unconfirmed balance" at zero confirmations).  Is this correct?  The issue was actually time to first-confirmation of the network, not Armory itself.

As for the crashing, I'm going to try to insert a watching-only P2Pool-receiver address into a watching only wallet and investigate it myself...