Hello All,
I have read through this thread and also researched some of the reports of this issue, I read about bitcoin in the beginning, and had so much going on at the time that I sort of dismissed it and forgot about it. With the recent media coverage, I have been researching bitcoin in general and became very interested, and stumbled across this thread. That being said, I have a comment, a suggestion and my own theory / hypothesis regarding what is going on, however, it is also apparent that there could very well be several unrelated "bugs" throwing the same / similar error and exhibiting similar behavior on the client machine.
First, the comment:
It is apparent, considering the recent media frenzy surrounding bitcoin and positive news regarding the acceptance of it as a viable currency, that any hint of instability / corruption / bugs within the codebase, could be enough to sabotage the efforts to date, and damage the confidence in the currency.
Now the suggestion:
I have read the reports, threads, theories, and I am hoping to contribute to the ultimate solution, however, the most important factor in potentially resolving the issue, is to gather accurate facts regarding the issue that is actually being experienced. Not to say that throwing theories out is counterproductive, it could lead someone along the right path, however, I can say for sure, that the probability of actually fixing the issue, is directly correlated to the quality of data collected. Without the exact problem / circumstances, etc. we would be shooting in the dark.
I have read reports of Mac's, Windows, and other OS's at some point getting a corrupt database, and I suspect based on the sparse descriptions of the event, that the innate behavior of LevelDB is the culprit, specifically the way a write is actually committed, (or not), to media, but under what conditions this occurs is paramount to finding a solution. I wish I had gone with my intuition at the beginning of this Bitcoin project, and became involved, I'm too late to the game of mining, and can't afford to even buy a bitcoin at this point. Its taking so long for me to even download the blockchain, that I decided to start this post in parallel, and hope to make a contribution in some way.
If anyone reading this thread, has a machine that is experiencing the corrupted database, it would be priceless to the community at large to post some basic information, such as:
Computer OS - (version / service pack)
Hard Drive - (Solid State / SATA / IDE?)
Date of first experiencing the issue.
The exact Error Message.
What you or the computer were doing when / immediately before the error occurred.
Whether you have hibernate / sleep / power off options on the Network Adapter configured.
Whether your computer was hard wired or wireless.
If the computer crashed prior to the database corruption.
What version of BitcoinQT you were using at the time the error occurred.
Whether you had a previous version of BitcoinQT installed and later upgraded.
If you have been able to resolve the error, (perhaps re-installing an earlier version), and if so, how.
I believe, if we have enough of the individuals who are actually experiencing the issue, report, to the best of their ability, the answers to the questions above, we as a group, may be able to put together the exact scenario / circumstance to reproduce the issue, and most importantly, begin to understand it, and progress to the path of resolution.
Sorry for the lengthy post, I hope it helps.
- Rich