Version 0.6.0 released

[theymos]

@Gavin: The linked version has still the Beta flag in the version string, perhaps you forgot to re-label it.

All Bitcoin releases are considered beta.

[gorgo1]

Thanks for the updated version of the client Gavin.Installing now.

[Jeremy West spendbitcoins.com]

Initial network synchronization should be much faster
(one or two hours on a typical machine instead of ten or more
hours).

Here's something I've been wondering for awhile now, but only now remember when I'm actually on the forums...

Would it make sense to include a version for new adopters to download which includes an up-to-date (at time of release) blkindex file rather than a blank blkindex file so that they are nearly synced at installation?

[slothbag]

Awesome work Gavin and team.. 

The fast block download is a huge improvement.  Even my low powered atom PC managed to catch up on 24 hours of blocks in just under a minute.

Any chance of getting the relative block count progress bar added back in as a configurable display option for the majority who liked it v0.6.1 perhaps.

Keep up the good work!

[Cusipzzz]

kudos to all the developers!

[rjk]

Initial network synchronization should be much faster
(one or two hours on a typical machine instead of ten or more
hours).

Here's something I've been wondering for awhile now, but only now remember when I'm actually on the forums...

Would it make sense to include a version for new adopters to download which includes an up-to-date (at time of release) blkindex file rather than a blank blkindex file so that they are nearly synced at installation?

The new version downloads the blocks much faster now, but if that is still too slow you can download a nightly here: http://eu1.bitcoincharts.com/blockchain/

[Pieter Wuille]

The new version downloads the blocks much faster now, but if that is still too slow you can download a nightly here: http://eu1.bitcoincharts.com/blockchain/

If you're going to suggest people to download the block chain database (bypassing all verification that bitcoin does when it fetches blocks from peers), it may be advisable to suggest using -checkblocks -checklevel=6 when starting up the first time. -checklevel is a new option that allows much more thorough verification.

Otherwise, if somehow such a download (by bad luck or malicious intent) gets corrupted, and many people download their chain from that point, a particular block could put them all at once on a block chain fork.

[Mushoz]

Just upgraded, and it seems to be stuck at 8 connections even though port 8333 is open. Version 0.5.3.1 under same settings worked fine. Any ideas?

False alarm - after 5 minutes or so it started going up.

Same problem here. Getting stuck on 8 connections sometimes. uPnP doesn't seem to be working as well as it used to.

[Pieter Wuille]

Same problem here. Getting stuck on 8 connections sometimes. uPnP doesn't seem to be working as well as it used to.

The reason is IRC being deprecated and defaulting to off. This will indeed mean less very fast incoming connections, but better connectivity for longing-living listening nodes (as others don't rely on recently IRC-advertized nodes, but on the addresses propagated through the network).

[Mushoz]

Same problem here. Getting stuck on 8 connections sometimes. uPnP doesn't seem to be working as well as it used to.

The reason is IRC being deprecated and defaulting to off. This will indeed mean less very fast incoming connections, but better connectivity for longing-living listening nodes (as others don't rely on recently IRC-advertized nodes, but on the addresses propagated through the network).

I see. Is it possible to get more than 8 connections on the initial download of the chain? The number of connections finally went past 8 when the download was very close to being finished. Maybe that had something to do with it?

[Pieter Wuille]

I see. Is it possible to get more than 8 connections on the initial download of the chain? The number of connections finally went past 8 when the download was very close to being finished. Maybe that had something to do with it?

There's no point in that: downloading the chain will not go faster with more connections - one good one suffices. In fact, incoming connections have a much larger chance of wanting to request your block chain, slowing your sync down further.

[Portnoy]

Any chance of getting the relative block count progress bar added back in as a configurable display option for the majority who liked it v0.6.1 perhaps.

+1

[Mushoz]

I see. Is it possible to get more than 8 connections on the initial download of the chain? The number of connections finally went past 8 when the download was very close to being finished. Maybe that had something to do with it?

There's no point in that: downloading the chain will not go faster with more connections - one good one suffices. In fact, incoming connections have a much larger chance of wanting to request your block chain, slowing your sync down further.

I know it will only use 1 connection at a time for downloading, but with more connections there's a bigger chance you get connected to a fast peer, right?

[Pieter Wuille]

I know it will only use 1 connection at a time for downloading, but with more connections there's a bigger chance you get connected to a fast peer, right?

No, it just uses whatever node is the first that tells you about a new block. That is almost always the first node you connect to.

[minorman]

Good work devs.
Bitcoin just keeps getting better...

[Daily Anarchist]

After issuing the sudo apt-get upgrade command I get the following message

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  bitcoin-qt
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

Anybody know why it's not allowing me to upgrade as normal?

[LightRider]

Thanks again for all of your effort devs!

[Daily Anarchist]

After issuing the sudo apt-get upgrade command I get the following message

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  bitcoin-qt
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

Anybody know why it's not allowing me to upgrade as normal?

Problem solved! Just had to issue the install-qt command instead. There were some outdated dependencies holding it up, which I later autoremoved after replacing them with more recent dependencies during installation.

[Dusty]

Great news, thanks!

[D.H.]

I installed v0.6.0 and apparently someone had finished the Swedish translation so I got it in Swedish, great! BUT, there seems to be a problem with the "&" that is included in some strings to indicate the shortcut key. For example, the "Send coins" tab looks like this in the Swedish translation: "amp; Skicka bitcoins". So, it seems that "&" has been used in the program instead of just "&".

It looks right on Transifex from what I can see, and in some places it works, for example the "New address" button on the "Receive coins tab" looks right.