That is very perplexing indeed. Would you be willing to allow me to remote desktop into your computer to figure this out?

It is important to verify the integrity of Bitcoin Core. Even if you download it from bitcoin.org, it may have been modified in transit or even on your local network by malicious attacks and malware.

You should ensure that the release that you are about to install is signed by the Bitcoin Foundation.

Now that you have proceeded from this step, I suggest you enlist the help of senior members of this forum and let them have a look at the log files or access your program.

Did you happen to download an infected copy of bitcoin-core? Specifically, check the PGP key of the downloaded file?
 I have not come across one yet but it is certainly possible that some no good fraudster is using a modified bitcoin-core executable and stealing people's money.

You data directory is /Users/test/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin. This is where everything should be. Put a backup of your wallet.dat in that folder.

If your wallet is encrypted, the one that Bitcoin Core is using is not encrypted.

Take one of your backups and put it in the data directory. Make sure that you replace the walet.dat file that is already there. You should also check the creation dates of the wallet.dat files (I don't know how to do this on a Mac). The file with the oldest creation date (note, Creation, not Modified) is most likely to be your wallet.

Also, it would probably be a good idea for us to see the debug.log file again.

Hi,
If the message really is "no more free memory" that should be referring to memory, e.g. RAM, not disk space.  However with 8GB of RAM, you should not be running out of memory.  Was that the exact message?

And, how much free disk space do you have?  (That was one reason I asked earlier if you had an external hard disk drive attached because it was possible that you had done so in order to hold the block chain and avoid running out of disk space).

It is possible that since the program quit because you had no more free memory that it isn't current and you might need to do a rescan.

One suggestion for you to consider would be to dump the private keys from your wallet.dat files and then find the address that had your balance and use a different lightweight wallet (e.g. one that doesn't need the entire block chain). This would avoid all the delays doing a rescan or re-downloading the block chain.

Bitcoin Core is pretty hardware intensive, especially when it has to index the blocks (as with downloading or reindexing). I wouldn't say that this is normal per se, but it certainly is not uncommon nor unexpected.

It will get quite warm verifying all the blocks, yes. 

Which Mac are you running, out of curiosity?

That is correct. Because the "blocks" folder was missing, it needs to redownload the entire blockchain since that is stored in the "blocks" folder.

Yes, that is good.

No, you don't have to. All of the files I told you to copy earlier can be deleted from the desktop.

That is correct. Because the "blocks" folder was missing, it needs to redownload the entire blockchain since that is stored in the "blocks" folder.

Yes, that is good.

No, you don't have to. All of the files I told you to copy earlier can be deleted from the desktop.

Yes, it will be downloading the blocks. And that is good keeping it Application Support.


Btw, keep your backups.

That is a problem, but sure, continue anyways. Did you happen to delete anything between the time when this problem happened and now?

That is a problem, but sure, continue anyways. Did you happen to delete anything between the time when this problem happened and now?

Got it.

So the data directory that Bitcoin Core is using (for some reason) is /Users/test/Desktop. This is where you should put your wallet.dat file. If you have multiple wallet.dat files, make sure that you use the one that has the older creation date as that should be the one with your Bitcoin.

I highly recommend that you copy the data directory files to the default directory. First, go to Settings > Options and then click Reset Options in Bitcoin Core. Then shut it down. Then copy the following folders and files from /Users/test/Desktop to /Users/test/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin:
If some of those files don't exist, that is fine. The only files and folders that matter here are blocks and wallet.dat. If the Bitcoin folder doesn't exist, make it.

When you next start Bitcoin Core, it should be using the default data directory. To check if it is, open the debug.log file and look for the line with today's date and "Using data directory". The path listed should be the default one (/Users/test/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin)

Got it.

So the data directory that Bitcoin Core is using (for some reason) is /Users/test/Desktop. This is where you should put your wallet.dat file. If you have multiple wallet.dat files, make sure that you use the one that has the older creation date as that should be the one with your Bitcoin.

I highly recommend that you copy the data directory files to the default directory. First, go to Settings > Options and then click Reset Options in Bitcoin Core. Then shut it down. Then copy the following folders and files from /Users/test/Desktop to /Users/test/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin:
If some of those files don't exist, that is fine. The only files and folders that matter here are blocks and wallet.dat. If the Bitcoin folder doesn't exist, make it.

When you next start Bitcoin Core, it should be using the default data directory. To check if it is, open the debug.log file and look for the line with today's date and "Using data directory". The path listed should be the default one (/Users/test/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin)

That should confirm my suspicion that the data directory is your desktop. That is a problem though and I still need to see the log.

Go to http://pastebin.com/. Paste it into the box, click "create a new paste" and then share the link of that paste.

Well that is a problem. That is the default data directory for Bitcoin, and when it first runs, it should make the folder there. However, because Bitcoin Core did run, that means that the data is going elsewhere.

Since you mentioned that the wallet.dat file was on your desktop, do you also see any folders named "blocks" "database" or "chainstate" on the desktop? Any files named peers.dat, banlist.dat, or debug.log? It may be possible that the desktop somehow became Bitcoin Core's data directory.


I guarantee you that the debug.log file contains absolutely no information that puts any of your Bitcoin at risk. It is intentionally designed to be shared with others in order to diagnose issues. The only "vital information" are the paths to the data directory and the wallet, which is what we are looking for right now. If you don't feel comfortable posting them publicly, feel free to PM me the file.

The issue is that we cannot do so without knowing the data directory. Right now the only way (that I can think of) to find the data directory is to use the debug.log file.

If you didn't put them there, where did you download Bitcoin Core?  Did someone else have access to the computer?

knightdk did a great job answering your questions and if you have downloaded the real version of Bitcoin Core, it behaves as he explained as to where it puts (or allows you to put) the wallet.dat.

The folder is called "Application Support". It should be there by default on all Macs.

Back those up, just in case.

Multibit does not use wallet.dat files


An external drive means anything that is used for storage that isn't any of the internal hard drives. This could be a network share, a USB flash drive, a USB hard drive, your Time machine, etc.

This is not how Bitcoin Core, or most software for that matter, work. Software do not just search the entire computer for certain filenames (unless they are viruses). They will only look for the filename in specific folders, folders that usually the software made itself. Because the wallet.dat files were not in the data directory (which should be ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin), it does not see those files.

When you first started Bitcoin Core, you should have seen something that asked where you wanted the data directory. Did you change that to something other than the default location?

Did you, at any point, go to Settings and click on the button for "Reset options"? (Don't do that now, we just need to know).

Can you please provide the contents of the debug.log file? If you go to Help > Debug Window in Bitcoin Core, you should see a button labeled "Open" under something like "debug file". Click that and it should open the debug.log file. Copy the entire contents into a post here. If it does not fit, go to http://pastebin.com/, make a new paste, and post the link here.