How to resolve "no block source available"?

Question

I've got some trouble using bitcoin-qt.

It stays on: "No block source available... 242 weeks behind." And "Catching up ... Processed 0" etc... Map port using UPnP is activated, and proxy disabled and I have 7 active connections to the Bitcoin network. I tried without firewall or antivirus, but nothing happened. I went into log file and I saw this:

send version message: version 70001, blocks=0, us=1**.***.**.***:8333, them=*.**.****.**:8333, peer=*.****.***.****:8333
socket recv error 10054
disconnecting node 124.1

Don't take attention to the "*". For each send in the logfile there is a socket recv error...

Edit :

I'm running

bitcoin-qt v0.8.3-beta
OS - windows XP pro sp3
I tried to put it off / on -> nothing else

What can I do? Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

I was having this problem. I updated my client to the newest version (https://bitcoin.org/en/download) and it solved itself. I think the clients might stop communicating with other clients who don't update. Haven't read that anywhere or anything, just a guess.

---

The problem has returned, but updating the client is still a good thing to do.

Answer 2

You could try to:

• Download the blockchain as a file and import it
• force your client to switch to other peers
• have you tried turning it off and on again?
• have you tried reinstalling it?
• have you tried putting your computer into another network?

Otherwise more information about what you have tried would be helpful, and we could use a bit more information such as, which version of the client and what operating system you are using. :)

Edit: Just googled your problem again and found a bug report from 2012 where a person had "socket recv error: 10054". Somebody suggested the following (Please read the whole thing before applying!):

Take a look at (folder is hidden):

C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess\Select LastBootUpTime from Win32_OperatingSystem

This one contains 2 files, 1 which consists of 32 "random" characters and looks like a hash and a BitcoinURL file of size 0. The files are there sometimes after a hard crash.

Delete the whole C:\ProgramData\boost_interprocess folder, restart the client, remove the database logs from the datadir and everything will work again.

It's related to stale files after a crash, which seem to come from a used lib in the Bitcoin client (some of the Boost ones).

To which the thread starter replied that it solved his problem.

MacOS

According to a comment on a similar question by Neil Neyman the respective folder can be found on MacOS at ~/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/

To show your library directory in finder, hold the alt key while viewing the "GO" menu in the top menubar.

Answer 3

I had this same problem and I found these two posts 1 2 very helpful. What ended up working for me was going to preferences > Network, and turning off the SOCKS proxy, and then restarting the program. After that the network started to synchronize.