New to Goldcoin - Syncing issues

[redoak]

EDIT: My address:
Dzruwyvh5DZdbeXA1mQdvZAUtg8zM3Mk5i

First I'd like to thank MicroGuy, kreno777, and Stouse49 for their help in posting a download link of the current client so I could download the wallet while the website was still down.  (By the way, the website seems to be back up but the download links still seem to be broken, in case that's important to know; I figure the download link will start working soon).

I'm new to GoldCoin - it seems like an interesting concept!  Gold has inherent value and a cryptocurrency that models its total supply as well as mining rate after those of gold...hm...interesting possibilities, I'm thinking! 

I'm having a few road bumps, though, setting up my wallet.   It doesn't seem to sync at all well using my satellite connection.  When I start up the client, it downloads a few blocks, but progress stops without any indication within a few seconds, even with multiple peers.  It still looks like it's trying to download, just it gets hung up within a seconds of starting the client up.  When I close the program and reopen it, it's saved previous progress but stops again after a few blocks.

I started using my phone's 4G connecton tethered to my computer instead.  It worked much better, but still hung up occasionally (I wonder why).

But, it still said that my wallet and transactions were out of sync, even though the download indicator at the bottom went away.  I know it got close to finish (somewhere above 90%), but I wasn't looking at it when it stopped downloading. 

I uninstalled the client, deleted the contents of "AppData\Roaming\GoldCoin (GLD)", and reinstalled the client ( http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=04725874712927936330 )

I'm not sure what to do - I don't want to use up my phone's bandwidth considering how the problem may be elsewhere.  The satellite's not bad really, I usually can get 12 megabits/s if not 18, which ought to be plenty for this purpose, right?  I'm wondering if the high (550-750~ms) ping is the issue. 

I usually get connected to at least half a dozen peers if not a score of 'em.  I forwarded port 8333 from my router to this computer, but not sure what that does.

On another subject, typing "getpeerinfo" into the console, I'm not sure what all that info means.  I can't seem to find specific info on the web, but I'm mainly just curious about what "inbound" status means.  Earlier all my peers had that as false, making me wonder if that could be a problem, but now a lot of them say true also.

I'd really appreciate any help on this.

I would post a Goldcoin address (50 GLD sounds good to me!) but I'm not if I should do that till I get this current wallet synced correctly.

[dustint]

if the download indicator goes away and you are still not in sync it might still be downloading blocks.  You can check by hovering your cursor a couple times in the bottom right hand corner of the wallet to check the block #.  The most current block is 233660.  I have noticed sometimes when syncing a wallet if it stops on a block I usually just have to wait a bit and it starts again.

[kreno777]

Hi redoak

Firstly, its a pleasure to assist.

Secondly, I will share my experience with the wallet syncing.

I installed the wallet using a 3G connection in November for the SA conference, it installed without a hitch and synced perfectly. However before then, I installed it onto a machine with an ADSL line and found that i had to restart the wallet sometimes once or twice before the sync bar would pop up and start syncing. Once it started to sync, i would leave it running and it would stay synced. I noticed however that if i had more than one wallet running off the same ADSL line, one of the two would not sync and i would have to restart it a few times to then get it going "strange, I know". Eventually i would get them synced and all would be well after that. The point to this is that it seems if something is using the same port or you are using another wallet on another PC on the same line, syncing can become bothersome. "This is just my experience with the wallet on an ADSL line"

On a 3G connection however, I must say that it always worked well, however in about the last 2 or 3 weeks it has been taking long to start syncing. Case in point, last night i started my wallet up and about 1hr later it hadn't started to sync up yet. What i did is leave it open and found this morning it was synced.

I think the most recent cause for the syncing is due to the block times taking so long. Im not 100% sure but i think the wallet seems to start syncing at the start of a new block "this is a thumb suck statement i must add, but my experience up to this point has indicated this is when my wallet starts syncing". If this is the case then it can take a couple of hours to start syncing, waiting for the next block to tick over. Once again, im not 100% sure if this is the case, but it does appear to be that way !!!

The reason for the long block times at the moment have been caused by massively high hashing power on the network, which pushed up the mining difficulty extremely. The mining power was then removed and the rest of the block was left to a smaller amount of hashing power to complete it, which now can take hours, with the last block being completed +/- 10hrs ago. This problem should rectify itself once the system starts to readjust itself and correct the difficulty to the smaller hashing power.

I know this has been an essay, but my advice at the moment is try all the little things to try and get your wallet to sync, im sure it will start eventually. Also regarding all the other little problems, im sure they will eventually correct themselves and also we have the new wallet to look forward to, which i believe should be a major improvement.

Hope this all helps in some way.

PS: I have the android wallet installed on my cell phone and this works perfectly every time, not sure why, but it just works via the data connection or the wifi. lol

[redoak]

if the download indicator goes away and you are still not in sync it might still be downloading blocks.  You can check by hovering your cursor a couple times in the bottom right hand corner of the wallet to check the block #.  The most current block is 233660.  I have noticed sometimes when syncing a wallet if it stops on a block I usually just have to wait a bit and it starts again.

Last time it got to where I couldn't see the download indicator anymore and the last indication was >90% I think.  After reading what you said, I started making notes of exactly which block numbers it was on, and it really is progressing, initially glacially, and then the speeds would oscillate a bit.  It was 14% last night to 49% today.  Thanks for the suggestion.  Now it's at 2% an hour or so.  The night before I think it had hung up completely, which started me down the road of, "Is it even doing anything?"  I'm glad it's working and don't mind if it takes a couple of days so long as I know it's moving.

The reason for the long block times at the moment have been caused by massively high hashing power on the network, which pushed up the mining difficulty extremely. The mining power was then removed and the rest of the block was left to a smaller amount of hashing power to complete it, which now can take hours, with the last block being completed +/- 10hrs ago. This problem should rectify itself once the system starts to readjust itself and correct the difficulty to the smaller hashing power.

Are the slower processing times caused by blocks that were made during times of high mining difficulty?  Or are you talking about the then-current difficulty?  I'm still trying to wrap my head around what the client is checking when it downloads the ledger and how.  I know I shouldn't, but sometimes I resent when miners flooding into altcoins with their "ASIC arrays," so to speak. 

Hm... I should try out the Android app now that it's back up.

I look forward to the new wallet!  I hear that it'll be part of the Kickstarter project!  Speaking of which, I find coordinating the reward tiers to be the make-or-break of a project, along with the rest of its promotion.  I once saw a project that I really believed in (and I think a lot of other people would too) fall short of its goal.  I think it was because the reward tiers were spaced too far apart (like $10, $50, $100, or $5, $25, $50), along with unimaginative rewards, and too-expensive perks.  I'm thinking flashdrives and T-shirts.  Or tours of "HQ," café lunches with GLD's developers, some GLD?  Just throwing some dime-a-dozen ideas here, they could be ridiculous ideas or good ones, I dunno.

What about coordinating some exchanges to put GLD back on another exchange besides Cryptsy?  I'd read some posts where GLD fell below the 500/day trade volume that some exchanges had.  Maybe we could coordinate exchanges between each other like someone else suggested earlier.

Sorry, a lot of ideas all in this thread. 

[Jybrael]

Hi there mate. Welcome to GoldCoin Forum. I am new here myself and well kind of also having a similar issue with the wallet not synching and kept trying eventually it just caught up slowly again and started downloading blocks.

[qPad]

My wallet have been laggin a bit too, so I just restarted the wallet everytime it happend and then it started to run again.

Try that and see if it works.