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I'm running Linux Mint 17.3 and I'm trying to update my ethereumwallet. I'm around 1.4 million blocks behind, so I started the ethereumwallet last night before going to be and I see that after 8-9 hours up updating it's moved from 2.6million to 2.7million of 4million blocks. so by my math it's going to take somewhere between 104-208 hours to finish updating my node. so googling took me to "How can I get a geth node to download the blockchain quickly?"

where they said to use "geth --fast --cache=1024 --jitvm" well "geth" did nothing for me so I tracked down the ethereumwallet executable in the "opt" folder and launched with those flags only I increased the cache to "10240" (10GB) of system ram alloted. Sadly it doesn't seem to make any difference. my internet connection is not the problem I have 175mb/s and routinely download steam games at 23MB/s. Also my system is not the problem as I have 16 threads of 4.1ghz Ryzen rockin! Also Hard Drive is not the problem as I have around .5TB of 2.3GB/s NVME available lol... Please help, I can't let it sit here for the next week grinding.

sean
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  • ok so I just went over the numbers again and in 1 minute I got only 20 blocks, so 1 block every 3 seconds (maybe to small of a sample) so by my back of the envelope calculations it's going to take 1088.4 hours or 45.35 days to finish updating the blockchain ;-( also I'm not sure the flags are working cause geth is only using 3.2GB of memory – sean Jul 18 '17 at 13:39
  • ok so I found the geth in the username/.config/Ethereum Wallet/Binaries/geth/unpacked/ directory but I get an error saying "flag provided but not defined: -jitvm" – sean Jul 18 '17 at 13:56
  • be aware that there are many "trial and error" comments, that propose to "try here and there" - noone has yet a specific definition on how to do a root cause analysis. On you setup: did you start from scratch with "geth --fast", or did you have already some data in the .ethereum folder? That can have the effect, that "--fast" doesn't work. It needs a clean folder. Also: during the DAO Hack, millions of (SPAM or attack) transactions were generated, that can lead to the delay exactly at this point in time. Also it seems, it is not your hardware, others have done well with such high end systems. – pebwindkraft Jul 18 '17 at 14:11
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    Also, which version of geth, OS and GO do you use, this would help others to better understand (and I think, geth 1.6.6 avoids/skips the million DAO tx). The topic appears often here, you may want to read links to "go-ethereum". Also: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/issues/14571 - as I said, people are working on it, but no clear path to root cause analysis... – pebwindkraft Jul 18 '17 at 14:14
  • I already had about 50% of the blockchain I think from my last update around 8 months ago. I never tried to run from the terminal, only use the ethereumwallet listed under my programs in Linux Mint.I updated the version this morning when I opened it and it prompted me to update so i assume it's the latest. I'm sorry I don't know what version of gest I have or was using. thank you for your reply, I appreciate you taking the time to provide education and insight. – sean Jul 19 '17 at 05:06

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You're syncing at the heart of last October's DDOS arrack. Somewhere between 2,350,000 and 2,400,000. Someone wrote a contract that created millions of new dummy smart contracts. You just have to wait it out. It will speed up again after 2,500,000 or somewhere.

One note: don't repeatedly kill geth and restart. Some of the block take a very very long time. If you kill it the block just has to start over. Use --verbosity 5 flag and you will see what's going on. It will help you be more patient.

Thomas Jay Rush
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  • I am new to Ethereum and the whole blockchain thing. I wondering if there are any precaution mechanism that has been placed to prevent any future DDOS attacks on the Ethereum network. If not isn't this a security threat ? – Illep Jul 19 '17 at 04:37
  • I think you are correct I got home from work about 12 hours after original post and it was cruising, right now it's doing about 400 blocks/minute. I'm currently at 3,775,000 of 4,041,064 so hopefully will be done in the morning. thank you for your time I sure appreciate the responses. – sean Jul 19 '17 at 04:58