Topic: BTCD is no more - page 101. (Read 1328507 times)

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Yes, once someone compiles it. I don't have a Mac.

Progress! Thank you, Matthew!

Will the same automatic .config creation be happening with the Mac download, too?

Hi All,

I took a break from debugging SuperNET-enabled BitcoinDark for Windows today to update the vanilla BTCD release with automatic BitcoinDark.conf generation.


WHAT THIS MEANS

If you don't know what a .conf file is, don't worry about it! Just download and unzip the executable, and run it. It will find peers quickly.

If you do know, it will check for BitcoinDark.conf on launch. If it finds it, it skips it. If it doesn't, it will create a 5 character random username and 15 character random password and generate a BitcoinDark.conf file with a list of nodes. I plan to update these nodes from time to time.

Azeh will update the official Bitbucket download soon, but for now I have uploaded it at:

https://mega.co.nz/#!U0d1QShC!W2RllvIRWPBYbMNbd0mgoo9LZRPfaI_gv7AwCGUCo3g


Source at github.com/laowais/bitcoindark

Matthew

Weird. Maybe it is only an issue on 10.9.5 and earlier. Maybe it has recently been fixed, and no one bothered to mention it. Maybe you downloaded the wallet from a different source than what is linked on the front page of this forum or the official website (I tried both). Maybe, you already had the system files in your Library from a previous installation. Whatever the case, I am not the only one who has had this issue. Lots of people have. In fact, I just did a new installation of a wallet a couple weeks ago on a fully updated 10.9.5 and still had the issue. That's what prompted me to finish the tutorial.

What system are you on?

UPDATE: It hasn't been fixed, at least not on 10.9.5 (one of the the most used OSs for Mac, as lots of people don't like Mavericks), because I just replicated the issue on another computer.

UPDATE #2: Mega download was only link listed on the front page for a very long time. That link is now repeatedly giving me a temporary error when trying to download from it, so hopefully someone is silently trying to fix the issue I mentioned. I am now trying the NEW Bitbucket download link (that wasn't there a couple of weeks ago). I will report back if that worked or not.

UPDATE #3: I just successfully downloaded the wallet from the Bitbucket wallet link in Safari, and I am happy to report the wallet appears to have opened.

UPDATE #4: The download link from the official BTCD website has also been changed from Mega to Bitbucket. The official website linked to the non-working Mega download forever (at least non-working if you used Safari), so that is showing some progress. Thanks, guys!

CONCLUSION: Don't use the Mega download link, the one that has been on the front page of this forum and the official website FOREVER, with Safari. Use the NEWLY posted Bitbucket link instead, and feel free to read the Mac tutorial if you don't know how to create a .config file, because that appears to still be a necessary step to get your wallet to synch.

FINAL CONCLUSION: Make an installation file that automatically creates a basic .config file for people, like almost every wallet has, and thanks for making the Mac wallet downloadable from Bitbucket. It appears the Mega link was the culprit (and has been for damn near forever).

Strange, i downloaded it last week trough Safari and it works like a charm.

I'm a holder, not a troll, and I also bothered to take a good deal of time to help solve some of these issues by donating a tutorial to this forum. I am not against anyone here. I am (and have been for a while) pointing out some really rudimentary things that need to be taken care of as soon as possible. I don't know how to program, so all I can do is write about what I guarantee will make for a better user experience.

Here is a dumb example you probably aren't aware of:
The wallet DOES NOT WORK when downloaded with Safari on a MAC. You absolutely must use another browser. If you don't use another browser, proper .config file or not, the wallet appears for a split second and then disappears. In fact, the system files needed to run the wallet won't even get created. There is nowhere to even put a .config file unless you use a browser other than Safari to do the wallet download. Are you going to tell me the problem is my ISP and network settings for that one?

That should be front page news, not buried in a tutorial somewhere for someone to discover after ripping their hair out. Better yet, fix the issue. Why is that even a problem? Do people have that same problem with other coins? I'd wager they don't. The last thing an even above-average person is thinking after downloading a faulty installation file is what browser he/she used to do the download, particularly when that browser is the default browser on a bazillion computers, like it or not. Following a poor Mac user figuring that one out on their own, the rest of the process of making a .config file is not as simple as just saving a text file, like it is on a Windows computer. People shouldn't need to go through that experience. It doesn't point to a rite of passage or a badge of honor they must "earn" to be involved in boutique crypto. It points to a faulty installation file that isn't as good as it could be (with just a little more work put into it). These are simple things that require a tiny bit of backtracking to fix. They should be fixed.

Thanks for the kind words. I'm okay. In fact, I was the one who wrote the Mac tutorial that is linked from the front page.

Crimson I agree with you. I had the same problems but now i don't remember how i solved them ( it was in January..) so i cannot help you. I only remember i had to read a lot of pages and OP and "make this" "no make this" "no go to github".... I only hope my wallet go on syncing,, I don't want to bother again with this stuff that are not part of my knowledge (I'd like to aks dev if they want a house (it's my skill..) like they give to other no skill people; no doors ready: you must know how to assemble a door  with all the pieces at floor!! - no roof: damn, you don't know how to build a roof? you have all the pieces.. or they prefer an house where i give you only a key and you can begin to use it? ). I think it's a common problem with a lot of altcoin dev: they assume a lot of people it's all day working or loving a pc or mac... If they could understand a lot of people have also other things to do perhaps they'll have a good success. One of the best story for me was with nxtty: incredibly stupid and funny. Btw time will tell, and time will reward who will understand this simple thing: a good altcoin must be easy to use or will remain for a little tribe.. perhaps happy, but little. And poor...

And it could be a LOT higher if you didn't simply assume people have messed up systems and all know as much as you do. That isn't the problem. My system is perfectly fine, and not everyone knows as much (or even close to as much) as you probably do. I still had trouble on three different computers, all with perfectly fine systems, one of them a brand new OS installation. The problem is that people with limited knowledge should be able to plug and play, but a lot of them can't. The numbers would go through the roof if they could. If all that is stopping that from happening is creating a SLIGHTLY better installation file, it's stupid not to do that. Why are you against that?

What happens after a price rise like BTCD just had is that a bunch of new people come in the door, lots without any advanced knowledge (other than being able to read a chart). Why not do everything possible to keep them? If they purchase BTCD, and then try (and fail) to get the wallet going on their computer, what do you think the next logical step is for them? Spending hours searching forums and waiting for people to reply to their posts? No, it's pressing the "sell" button.

Maybe the front page and website should be updated with an installation file that has the proper peers.dat file in it for everyone from the gate, rather than people needing to learn to search somewhere else... to go somewhere else... to get something else... to replace something else... and so on.

Ideally, the installation file would also create a basic .config file for both Mac and Windows. It would solve all of this.

Thanks from me too. I couldn't get my new wallet to synch until I downloaded that file.

Reality is different than your complaint. Tons of people only have Macs. Should we exclude them all from the coin unless they buy a different computer? I think not. Even people with Windows can often be found here asking basic questions just to get the wallet to work properly. Additionally, I know how to learn, but it still took me a month of asking questions on this forum before I was finally given instructions (that were not at all intuitive) that allowed my wallet to synch. Why should people be forced to jump through hoops to use something? Bitcoin, which you point out is still in beta, simply works after you press the install button. So does just about every wallet out there, beta or otherwise.

To be honest, I am happy I learned what I did to make things work. It has helped me along in my crypto universe, but a LOT of people won't take the time I did just to learn how to use something they don't fully understand to begin with. They will become frustrated, clog the forum with repetitive questions, and then move on. That is the sad reality.

If it is just a matter of a slightly better installation file for both Mac and Windows, why would you possibly argue against that?

I am no programmer, but I have used a lot of wallets, and it does lead me to this...

Isn't it possible to make a wallet that just works on both PC and Mac without having to create .conf files or be handed a mysterious file or a complicated tip from someone else? It seems most wallets don't require such things. They are just point and click, drag and drop to applications, and then it all works.  

Is the tech so complicated that it's impossible to have an installation file for Mac and Winows that just works for people out of the gate?

Is this just a matter of a slightly better installation file no one has taken the time to create? I know everyone is busy, but if it was a simple matter, it would probably be time well spent.

try replacing your peers.dat file with this one :

http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/494108/peers.dat

[divANN]

This week's bitcoindarkdice.net contribution to Bitcoindark dividends is 21.6 BTCD! Funds have been sent to Azeh for distribution on Wednesday.

Thanks for playing and staking! Go BTCD!

Obviously, I am too dump for these things. I spend about 5 hours, tried a zillion times and don't get it syncing.
Maybe a tip to the devs, if you want everyone to use BTCD ( even the dump people, like me) it might be a good idea to make the wallet a bit more easy to start and sync.

Now the data flow is much more sane, I was able to add Ddos protection pretty quickly.

I use leverage factors of 9, 81 and 729 for local, relay and global requests

you might see a pause for sending placebid/placeask as these are global requests
the leverage factor of 729 means it takes 729x CPU power to create a valid packet than to validate it

so with just 10 relay nodes, over 7000 servers will be needed to successfully attack and the attack would just slow things down
probably an easier attack is at the relay level, it "only" takes 81x the number of relay servers to saturate the relays, but the peer to peer comms already established wont be affected.

i expect we will start with about 30 relays, so 2000+ attacker CPU's at this level. Since any node can elect to become a relay too, under attack scenarios, more and more nodes can become a relay to make the attack more and more expensive or we can boost the leverage at the cost of higher average latency.

James

Been coding pretty intensely to create a general framework that allows all the specific usecases that I have thought about to be handled.
For people who are complaining of the delays, then I apologize that I am slow to get things completed. It is not from lack of hours though as I have put in about 5000 hours of work in the last 10 months. Maybe I am just a slow coder, or maybe this is not such an easy thing to do. I searched for things I can cut and paste to solve it, but there didnt seem to be any such thing.

However, things are inching toward the Tuesday. The framework described below is in testing with an InstantDEX/MGW/ramchains/Lchains agents and a set of decentralized load balanced servers. I am not doing the GUI or the Windows port or the installer, so I cannot speak to when all that will be done. I do feel that I am bugfixes away from a completed framework and then it will be onto specific agents for the pending usecases, eg. teleport, telepathy, etc.

The following is the basic, simplified explanation. You also need to know about the SuperNET agents described elsewhere as they are what plugs into all of this. ultimately agents will be able to be written in any of a dozen different languages and it wont have to know anything about networking, crypto, blockchains, etc. but it can take advantage of them.

you send in JSON, it returns JSON

this should be the key to understanding
now the cgi path has messy HTML handling that is needed to allow browsers/curl/GUI to be able to construct the JSON and push it into the blackbox. From HTML there are all sorts of restrictions so making a single localhost HTML to access two different ports, is actually an issue. the SuperNET cgi allows a single HTML to interface to any number of RPC interfaces in addition to the SuperNET API.

the API is pretty directly invoked via ./BitcoinDarkd SuperNET '{...}'

where the '{...}' is the JSON
so you dont have to understand HOW it is doing, but just what. like driving a car
so if something is broken, then what does that mean?

either the blackbox is broken (JSON -> return JSON is wrong) or the JSON being pushed into the blackbox is wrong

if that is the case, it could be the cgi glue layer
or the GUI
let me know if any questions. people often confuse the difficulty of getting it to work with the difficulty of using it

[GUI] <-> (cgi) <-> {API JSON blackbox}

curl bypasses the GUI and injects into the (cgi)
./BitcoinDarkd bypasses the (cgi) and injects into the {API JSON blackbox}

*** advanced stuff follows ***
now this {API JSON blackbox} is where the SuperNET agents are
the (cgi) actually spawns a new nanomsg connection with a special thread to accept the requests from the cgi, this is fully multithreaded
the SuperNET commandline goes through a parser and the BitcoinDarkd path also goes through a bit of processing
but they all end up in the same place called process_user_json
this processes the user's JSON

now things do indeed get a bit complicated....

I am pushing more and more things through the "busdata" path as that allows for modular authentication, encryption, and other privacy things
but it is still possible (not sure if I wont deprecate this) to directly invoke an agent by not having the "busdata" agent specified
let us ignore this as I expect to use the busdata for as much as possible as it makes for the same processing whether going out to the network or staying within the local node

the busdata path behaves a bit differently if you are running a relay node or not. if you are not, then it converts the user json into a binary format with whatever authentication that is specified and issues a load balanced call to the relays. one thing to note is that the client can specify a "broadcast":"allrelays" or "allnodes"
if it is a relay node, it broadcasts to all relays and then processes the request locally

back to the client path... it ends up at a specific relay node that processes it locally, but if the "broadcast" is specified, then it is broadcast to allrelays or allnodes
notice that in the case of "broadcast":"allrelays", this is having the same state as when the originating node was a relay
the relays are receiving the busdata packet and if it is an "allrelays" one they process it locally, if it is a "allnodes" global broadcast, they currently ignore it

the reason for this is that for something like InstantDEX where your node wants to broadcast its placebid globally, it just needs to get to all the other nodes and not the relays themselves (assuming the relay node is not used as a normal node), so it is like a "doughnut", with a hole in the middle. "allrelays" sends to the middle and "allnodes" to all nodes, but the middle is probably ignoring it. havent figure out whether it is worth to adding a flag to the global broadcast to tell the relays to process locally

now, this "process locally", you are asking what that means
it means to decode the binary data, authenticate it and then route it to the correct place
this can be one of several places, plus there are also some control things like registering a service provider

if the {user json} was a request for a specific service provider, then the relay will send the request to a random node that has previously registered and then it waits for the response and then routes the data back to the original node. In the event that the random relay that received the request does not have any registered nodes for that service, it does an allrelays broadcast, in hopes that some other relay has such a service. havent automated the sending back of the response from the failover path back to the original caller yet

keep in mind this is all happening within a second or so
if the request is for a specific agent on that node, then it is much simpler and it sends a message to that specific agent, gets the response and sends it back
so the above is the simplified explanation of the {API JSON blackbox}

James

Sometimes I wonder if the originally planned "Super Traders" wouldn't be a bad idea.

For example, at this exact moment, anyone with just a few bitcoins could EASILY catapult to (and hold the price above) 900K on multiple exchanges.

I am not suggesting an unfair price manipulation, just a bit of insurance on what is an easily changeable board at this time, particularly for any hypothetically possible team who held the title of "Super Traders."

A little kid could do it at the moment.

UPDATE: "This exact moment" that I spoke of above lasted for five hours (where absolutely nothing happened).