I think 0.6.0rc1 broke my blk0001.dat, blkindex.dat or something else not located in .bitcoin/ (is there something else?)
When I get home I will also delete these files. (I have a 170190+ blockchain here that I will try first, before downloading the whole thing again)
I thought this too.. but mine did recover after ~5 min after installing rc2. Also for those of you wondering about the bitcoind response time, I believe these lines of code will print out when there is trouble in main.py arond line 152:
def set_real_work1():
my_time = time.time()
work = yield getwork(bitcoind)
my_time2 = time.time() - my_time
if (my_time2 > 0.2):
print "slow bitcoind: %.02f" % (my_time2,)
Mine are usually under 0.2 seconds, but on occasion take up to 2 seconds, which is interesting.