So here is the scenario.  I am doing some testing with a new coldcard Q.

I have created a "xPub / Watch Only Wallet" in Sparrow and this all works fine.  I am able to see and sign transactions via microSD drive.   All working on this method.

However when I plug the coldcard Q directly into the computer (changing the USB port setting to allow connection) and create a 'Connected Hardware Wallet' wallet, it can't find the transactions.  Likewise when I export the wallet json from the coldcard device and import it using 'Airgapped Hardware Wallet' I also do not see the transactions.

Should I be able to just directly connect the coldcard Q and see the transactions/balances from when it was used as a Watch Only Wallet?

somewhat confused on this, any help appreciated.

I was going to set it to 12000 but ended up setting it to 8000 for the above run.  Yes looks basically linear

Thanks, yes I see that, can get exact times with likes that show 'progress='...

Yeah, has really been a learning curve.  I initially would not have expected hardware to have such a prominent effect.

Here are the latest times.  I was hoping to finish in under 48 hours, was pleasantly surprised.
Hour 1: 8%
Hour 2: 15%
Hour 3: 28%
Hour 4: 40%
Hour 5: 52%
Hour 6: 62%
Hour 7: 70%
Hour 8: 78%
Hour 9: 87%
Hour 10: 95%
Hour 11: 100%

Thanks for that, I had looked at less expensive options also.

Status update:  the new system rips speed wise.  It got to 100% overnight.  So definitely was hw problem.  I really like the beelink SER5 max, looks well made.  I do not have hour by hour, if I re-index for any reason will post one. 

So my setup with the no wifi linux box is that I do a electrum transaction on one computer, then save it off and sign it on the second computer.  The second computer is an air-gapped not on-line linux that boots tails via a usb.  I use electrum on tails to sign anything.  It is just a way to have air gapped box. 

The particular reason I have these older lenovo systems is that I use them as off grid tails systems and they don't have any networking built in.  Not so good for adding RAM or making any modifications.  Pain is done now, money deducted from CC, waiting for the under 20 hour system to arrive   Will time the event once it gets here.....

lol, glad I am not the only one !

Actually when I said the first hour it is because I track from a crontab job each hour and before the first 'full' hour there was actually about 1/2 hour.

Still continuing to plug along, now at 74.59 doing just over 1% per hour. 

However another symptom of the system hardware being maxed out is now to do anything on the system I need to temporarily shutdown the bitcoind process.

So will report back after new hardware arrives and is set up. 

This was at the upper end of my hardware search, I am a bit annoyed I can't really find anything without windows on it, but so be it.  I would build one but for itx mini pc that looks like it is not fun. 

Thanks for all help + suggestions. 

So I am doing a pretty extensive test on existing system as follows:
1.)  Save off previous chainstate, blocks (bitcoin-core db) and restart from 0.
2.)  Now noted that initial progress to 50% or so is good, normal.
3.)  Once it starts slowing down I am stopping the bitcoind.service for 12 hours, giving it a rest.  This is just in case there is some kind of weird throttling going on.
4.)  After rest period restarting bitcoind.service.
5.)  If slow, then I am going to order this -> Beelink SER5 MAX RYZEN 7 5800H Mini pc office + Ram32GB + Storage 1TB

It is looking like about to order it, just waiting to confirm that progress is now slow .....

The surprising aspect for me is normally things either work or they don't.  This is one of those particular things that becomes more and more resource consuming as it goes along, still working but going slower and slower.

Ohh... had to double check that.  It is in a ThinkCentre M92P.  Need an upgrade, thanks
Most stuff yes.  For this I am going to use JoinMarket once I get this stable.  I have it installed but haven't started using it yet.

Progress running after 13 hours this time around is 53.13%.

500GB TOSHIBA MQ01ABF0

Interesting about the slow down under normal circumstances, makes sense.  I will see on this go round how progress is in a while.  I might get a 1000 mbps fiber dedicated separate line to troubleshoot further.

I am confused.  So now at the start of running fresh it is quick again.

First hour = 4.18% which is good.

Not sure what is happening.

getpeerinfo still showing several peers.

Any clues or hints on why it would run fast at the beginning and then slow down?  I am not using a firewall.

I saved off the blocks, chainstate and debug.log and restarted.  Will know soon, good idea

shows a blank list.  I see continual but slow progress, does this indicate a problem that the list is blank?





not sure what this is showing me.

After thinking about it for a while my thinking at this point is I am getting somehow throttled which fits the facts that initially I was seeing fairly normal progress.  It is being done in such a way as to not affect other activities I am doing on a separate computer. 

I have not used #free before but the numbers don't seem to look to bad and are similar to your outputs.  Still not explaining my slow times as far as I can tell. 


Also after updating the dbcache setting still ridiculously slow like .09% per hour.  Like 10 times too slow. 

So just as an update, I am running the bitcoind as a systemd job.  I also have a crontab job to track hourly the progress.  The internet speed is at some times better than others.  I get between .03% and .15% per hour of progress.

I will update the cache parameter setting and retry. 

OK, thanks, that tracks what I thought.

Thanks, great suggestion.  I will do this.  I am running the bitcoind as a systemd service and am able to gracefully shut it down and restart it.

Intel® Core™ i5-3470T CPU @ 2.90GHz × 4


OK, good info, thanks

Just did a test, down = 197.94 Mbps, wired fiber

I have a fairly robust dedicated pc running ubuntu:
Processor Intel Core i5
Memory 8gb
Disk 500 gb ssd

The progress started quickly with about 70% in a couple of days.  Then it slowed down dramatically to where now  like today for example it has downloaded not even 1% in the last 12 hours, maybe getting like 2% per day at this point.

Been checking to debug.log no errors, running continuously with percentage complete increasing as expected (just slow). 
Config:
prune=3000
dbcache=16384

Looking for any suggestions to try out.  Seems like at this rate it would take a few weeks to load, that seems too slow, or it this how long it seems to take nowadays?

Thank you, found the pertinent info in the debug.log.