Start9 problem (rebooting)

DIY Community Support
1

Something is wrong.

I bought an Intel NUC 8 i5 with 8GB RAM and a Samsung 2TB SATA drive.
Installed version 0.3.5.1 without any issues, launched it.
Everything was fine until around block 750,000 — after that, the speed dropped to 1 block every 15–40 seconds.

It was like that for a few days, and then progress stopped due to a corrupted block. I performed a blockchain reindex.
A day later, the same thing happened again, and then again the next day.

I reinstalled everything and started over — same issue, but this time it reached block 850,000, and then it started shutting down (the cooler continued running at minimum speed). It kept rebooting every few minutes after restart.
I tried installing the alpha version — it worked, but the same problem persisted.

After reading up, I thought maybe it was the power supply or CPU overheating. I replaced the thermal paste and did everything I could on my end.
Started fresh again — reached around block 750,000 — and the same issue occurred.

I bought a Geekom A5 with 16GB RAM and a Samsung 4TB drive. Installed without any issues. Sync speed was faster, everything was great — until block 912,734. Then a reboot — validation, sync for about 5 seconds, and another reboot.

I moved the drive to another computer (the first one) and tried there over Wi-Fi — same issue.
I started it, monitored the logs — it processed a few blocks and then stopped. I’d wait a few seconds and restart it. That way I made it to block 915,873 — and then a corrupted block appeared.

Also, there was connect() to 172.18.0.1:9050 failed after wait: Connection refused (111)for a few days while I was observing, and this also caused reboots.

Now, out of curiosity, I’m trying to install the alpha version on an NVMe and a 2TB SSD for data — unsuccessfully. Some kind of RPC Wi-Fi error.

I’m tired. If you have any explanation for this, I’d be happy to listen, or tell me what alternatives are there? thanx

2

I’m confused… first you suggest you were getting disk corruption issues, then later… you don’t really say… is the device rebooting itself? Or maybe losing power and starting up again?

Firstly, 8GB is not enough to run Bitcoin is 2026. You’ll need 12GB or more. You should aim for having RAM roughly at the same amount as the UTXO set.

Repeated corruption issues when running Bitcoin usually points to some sort of disk or RAM issue. You can test for RAM fairly easily by removing one stick at a time (you can’t do this since you don’t have enough RAM to begin with). SSDs are trickier. I can tell you from experience that even the highest end components have a failure rate high enough that if you regularly buy PCs you’ll see at least once or twice in your lifetime.

For power loss… I’d check your power supply has the amps needed to power heavy lifting of syncing Bitcoin.

For both power consumption and corruption, Bitcoin is a heck of a quality control tool, it unearths even the slightest issue.

3

I had thoughts about this, but the disk is new and all the blocks are in excellent condition, the power supply is original and sufficient, the computer doesn’t shut down under load in Windows, you can max it out and nothing crashes for a long time.

Start9 works perfectly until I start and sync the Bitcoin blockchain.

I understand your confusion, but I’ve been playing around with this for probably two weeks now and I can’t figure out what’s wrong. It’s the same on both devices with 8 and 16 GB of RAM.
Everything is fine until block 750,000 — then connection problems appear, Tor disconnects, reboots, and this happens across devices whose components I swap between to find the error.
If I’ve run into the situation where I bought both devices and both have problems, then I’m a lucky guy )

4

That’s a lot! I see why you are tired. You may have several unrelated issues going on here. Let’s focus on one at a time. Neither of those machines have been reported working on our user provided Known Good Hardware list.

Keep in Mind that StartOS is designed for, and tested by us, only on machines that we sell. If you choose to run StartOS on untested hardware, you are the test case, and we appreciate you.

We’re likely going to retrace some steps you may have already done. This will be necessary to get a bearing on what’s going on. We’ll also have to work on this over a number of days, as some of the processes will take a long time. Let’s focus on the Geekom A5, With StartOS 0.3.5.1-nonfree. If this is not already installed, please do so. We don’t want to be running “almost beta” software when troubleshooting. You can upgrade to 0.4.0 later, as we get into our public beta stage. After installing the OS, install, configure, and start Bitcoin. Please let me know what edition you are running, and if you have set any specific config options. For the 16 GB machine, I’d recommend settings the Database Cache to 12288 MB during the IBD. This is not absolutely necessary, but it will speed up the verify process. The down side is, a hard power cycle will be more likely to cause corruption, so we need to be careful about that. Make sure you have stable power! I’d recommend against installing anything else while we are troubleshooting. At the first sign on trouble, I’d like to see the Bitcoin logs.

5

Thank you, yes I saw the list of devices but I bought based on what was available to me.
I’ll try again, I’ll observe, if the same error occurs I’ll provide a more detailed explanation of what’s happening and how it behaves.

Thanks again, have a good day.

6

I’m not suggesting that you just “try again.” Let me walk with you each step of the way. What Bitcoin edition (Core or Knots) and what config options are you going to set?

7

I need a little time, but I’ll install the latest version of knots that’s available for download.
I’ll try setting Database Cache to 12288 MB.
I won’t install anything else during synchronization.
What other advice would you give?
Either way, the result will be tomorrow..
upd: on geekom a5 16 gb 2tb-ssd 0.3.5.1 nonfree

1 Like
8

You can see the progress in the logs. Just let me know if anything looks even questionable. The first 75% will go fast. (relative) Blocks are much more full, and complex in the later days. They’ll take much longer to verify. “Be patient,” is always the best advice.

9

Just following up. How is this going so far?

10

Currently, everything is fine, the process is a bit slower than before, but so far without any issues. I’m waiting for block 912734, as that’s where problems occurred.

System Uptime
0 Days, 21 Hours, 10 Minutes, 25 Seconds
Blockchain Sync Summary
835806 / 943214 (72.10%)

upd: 18 hours later

Blockchain Sync Summary

879761 / 943324 (84.26%)

waiting..

1 Like
11

So… unfortunately, the last block on the screen is 912693, then the screen goes blank and the system reboots. This happens when connected in kiosk mode, because via the local hostname I see even less
What else should I try to do?

If it is indeed a disk problem, can I migrate from this one to another drive and continue on it without having to start everything from scratch? Or I’ll still try to find a NUC 10 or 11 (that will be the next step)

12

When it boots back up does the IBD continue?

13

yes, its boots up and continue to work as always up until block 912… then its stops like its thinking or downloading for 5 seconds and screen goes black, when its starts as normal

14

Certainly seems like a hardware problem. I would rule out a RAM issue.

  1. Stop the Bitcoin service.
  2. Shutdown the server. System>Shutdown.
  3. Physically remove half the RAM.
  4. Boot StartOS.
  5. Set the database cache to 6,144 (assuming you now have 8GB of ram.)
  6. Start the Bitcoin service.

If it happens again, swap RAM, and repeat.

Keep in mind that the IBD will go much slower with less RAM.

1 Like
15

I would be interested to see the Bitcoin logs, the Kernel logs, and the OS logs. You can DM them to me if you’d prefer.

16

Of course, but how do I write directly? I can attach files here if that’s convenient

17

You can attache them here. They don’t contain critical private info.

18

for now, it went little farther and still works … but can’t download bitcoin logs “RPC ERROR: Deserialization Error missing field 'MESSAGE at line 1 column 263”
I hope this would work, and I can’t find an option to attach file that I downloaded )
its hard to live with iq of 58, but I’m trying ..

bitcoin logs - nothing special, everything normal, sometimes there messaging about peer staling block download, new outbound etc.

19

Download, and attache the entire logs please.

20

please, tell me how — I can’t drop it, I don’t see any way to upload anything except photos here

or..if u like: