Requesting help: Electrs not starting, keeps cycling

StartOS Support
1

I’m on a Mac Mini, Intel, Sequoia 15.6.1
Server One shows that everything is up to date. Bitcoin Core 29.1.0 and Health check is good
But, on the dashboard, under Services, on the top right, Electrs keeps churning and does not seem to start. The blue wheel keeps churning.

I’ve restarted the Server One, but still having issues.

Also, in the Market Place, under Community Registry, it says that Bitcoin Knots is installed (in blue letters). I do not remember installing it. With all the current controversy I was interested and thought to look if it was available, found it in Community Registry and it showed “installed”.

I mention Knots in case it may be part of the problem. In Knots, when I click View Install, it takes me to Bitcoin Core. I’m assuming that Knots integrates with Core??

Please advise.

2

You can read more about why Knots and Core both look like they’re installed here.

As for Electrs, are you sure Bitcoin is in a good state? Is it really just Electrs that isn’t working right? Normally when Electrs isn’t working it’s because of Bitcoin.

If it is just Electrs, you may want to look in Electrs → Logs for the exact error and let us know here. We can then suggest a solution.

3

Thank you StuPleb. The Service Log messages listed below seem to be a set that continue to cycle every minute or two.

2025-09-17T06:54:25-04:00 Starting electrs 0.10.9 on x86_64 linux with Config { network: Bitcoin, db_path: “./db/bitcoin”, db_log_dir: None, db_parallelism: 1, daemon_auth: UserPass(“bitcoin”, “”), daemon_rpc_addr: 172.18.0.123:8332, daemon_p2p_addr: 172.18.0.123:8333, electrum_rpc_addr: 0.0.0.0:50001, monitoring_addr: 127.0.0.1:4224, wait_duration: 10s, jsonrpc_timeout: 15s, index_batch_size: 10, index_lookup_limit: None, reindex_last_blocks: 0, auto_reindex: true, ignore_mempool: false, sync_once: false, skip_block_download_wait: false, disable_electrum_rpc: false, server_banner: “Welcome to electrs 0.10.9 (Electrum Rust Server)!”, signet_magic: f9beb4d9 }
2025-09-17T06:54:25-04:00 [2025-09-17T10:54:25.725Z INFO electrs::metrics::metrics_impl] serving Prometheus metrics on 127.0.0.1:4224
2025-09-17T06:54:25-04:00 [2025-09-17T10:54:25.725Z INFO electrs::server] serving Electrum RPC on 0.0.0.0:50001
2025-09-17T06:54:25-04:00 [2025-09-17T10:54:25.827Z INFO electrs::db] “./db/bitcoin”: 244 SST files, 56.48793188 GB, 7.026883 Grows
2025-09-17T06:54:27-04:00 [2025-09-17T10:54:27.178Z INFO electrs::chain] loading 914482 headers, tip=000000000000000000003b9ee01acf19676ca411be8223c9e25fd1b75f6deb77
2025-09-17T06:54:28-04:00 [2025-09-17T10:54:28.060Z INFO electrs::chain] chain updated: tip=000000000000000000003b9ee01acf19676ca411be8223c9e25fd1b75f6deb77, height=914482
2025-09-17T06:54:28-04:00 [2025-09-17T10:54:28.316Z INFO electrs::db] closing DB at ./db/bitcoin
2025-09-17T06:54:28-04:00 Error: electrs failed
2025-09-17T06:54:28-04:00
2025-09-17T06:54:28-04:00 Caused by:
2025-09-17T06:54:28-04:00 0: bitcoind RPC polling failed
2025-09-17T06:54:28-04:00 1: daemon not available
2025-09-17T06:54:28-04:00 2: JSON-RPC error: transport error: unexpected HTTP code: 401

4

Regarding Knots: Thank you for giving me that linked information. From what I read and knowing that I did not go through the 4 steps which, as I understand it, activates (“re-install”) Knots, am I correct in assuming that Knots is not at work on my server with Core?

5

Hi

Try to to stop Electrs, then open config and hit save. Let me know if that helped.

6

That worked! Thank you!

1 Like
7

My electrs keep crashing. I tried unplugging and restarting everything with no luck. I tried what you suggested also but that doesn’t seem to help either. What value do you suggest for " Index Lookup Limit".

8

Cold unplugging the server is a good way to create new and worse issues. There’s a restart button under System.

As for Electrs, you’d have to look in the logs to work out what the error is. If you’re happy to do so, a quick work around is to uninstall Electrs and install it again. It’ll take about a day to reindex. If you have any wallets attached to it, they’ll have to be updated with the new .onion address. This suggestion is based on the assumption that the index is corrupted… often caused but unexpected power loss.

1 Like
9

This is all helpful info. Thank you for taking time to respond.