Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Technical Support
Re: Database corrupt on re-start [Was: Bitcoin-qt cannot read the database, closing]
by
tfeagle
on 05/01/2018, 08:07:32 UTC
I did not delete anything.  I'm not familiar enough with BitCoin-QT files (yet) to know what is appropriate to delete.
If the reindex fails, you should delete the highest numbered blk*.dat and rev*.dat files in the blocks/ folder in the datadir.


Ah.  Thank you.  If simple "-reindex" fails, then I will delete the content that you describe.  Good to know. 


I think maybe for small users like me, with no understanding of application internals, BitCoin-QT application may not be sustainable. 
This rarely happens and is usually not Bitcoin Core's fault. In many cases, it is just spurious/random corruption (cosmic rays, random bit flipping, etc.). Other times it is a hardware problem.

I have no blame for the software or for the developers.  Crypto-coin applications are non-trivial.  That being said, non-recoverable errors appear to be increasing in frequency, out in the world.  (This is my gut feel.  I have no hard data.)  Blockchain is 150 GBytes now, approx.  Grows daily.  5 Megabit FIOS connection will download new blockchain in 2-3 days, if I am lucky.  Reindex also appears to take a long time.  I don't know exact duration, yet.  If reindex takes 1-2 days to run, but has a high chance of failure, then the most reliable recovery process is to always download a new blockchain.  Maybe dedicate a netbook or laptop...keep hot spare blockchain ready at all times.  Alternately, I can quit use of personal wallet, and rely upon exchanges.  This solution (no personal wallet) is not happy for me.  If my crypto-coins are always on deposit in an exchange or coin-bank, and I must use traditional processes to buy/sell, then I might as well simply stay with fiat.  Wallets exist that do not require a complete blockchain...but at some level these depend upon existence of a trustworthy blockchain at some third-party entity.  Seems as though exchanges are starting to fulfill this need.  Not much different from central bank for fiat, in the long run.