Bitcoin Stack Exchange
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Questions tagged [client]

A client is any application which allows a user to connect to the Bitcoin (or alternate) network. Alternately, "client" may refer to a non-standard user interface which interacts with the Bitcoin network through a standard client.

Clients connect to the Bitcoin network in some way. Typically clients connect using the Peer-to-Peer Bitcoin protocol. Such clients can either be full nodes or SPV wallets. Full nodes will fully validate every transaction and block that they receive and then relay the valid ones to its peers. A full node does not necessarily need to be a wallet. SPV wallets will only receive blocks and transactions that pertain to the wallet. They can only partially validate transactions and blocks as they lack the full blockchain.

Other clients may interact with the Bitcoin network via a connection to another client connected to the Bitcoin network. For example, a software could interact with a Bitcoin Core node via the JSON-RPC interface. From there it can receive blocks and transactions and parse that data.

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Apart from the official bitcoin client what other clients are there?

Apart from the official client found at the bitcoin.org site what is the list of alternative bitcoin clients? And what OS do they work on?
kirian
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Why hasn't the Bitcoin client advanced to version 1.0?

Who would invest money in a currency, which is held together by some software, which is currently in version 0.3.24? It is like putting ones money in a bank, which is currently undergoing in a test phase. What is the rationale behind the decision…
David
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Why doesn't Bitcoin use a DHT for choosing peers?

Why does Bitcoin use a gossip protocol rather than a DHT for peer discovery? I believe that kademlia XOR distance helps shape the network topology so that peers are more evenly disturbed.
null_radix
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How do I report a bug in the Bitcoin client application?

I just installed the v0.4 client and have a bug to report... where can I do this? If you could also describe how to check if the bug has been reported already, that would be great too.
Highly Irregular
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debug.log file size

According to this comment, the debug.log file in the Bitcoin application data directory should be truncated on startup if it is bigger than 10MB. I'm running Bitcoin 0.5.2 on Windows 7 and it does no such thing - the file keeps increasing in size…
Meni Rosenfeld
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Is there a help file for the bitcoin client?

Is there a help file / man page that explains all the possible commands and arguments for the bitcoin daemon? I'm looking for an in-depth coverage of the commands seen when I do bitcoind help.
Alex Waters
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How to dump peers.dat file to a plain text file?

Is there a simple solution to dump [whole] peers.dat file to a text file? There are similar questions for example How do I read peers.dat file to get a list of all peers seen or that bitcoind has connected to? but I want to insert this code in…
amaclin
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Bitcoin will not open instead I see: error loading blkindex.dat

I have downloaded it onto my windows pc 3 separate times and each time it goes to start the program it shows the bitcoin wallet "loading addresses", then it's "loading block index" then my computer makes a noise and I receive this: error loading…
Rachel
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`bitcoind` must be different from `bitcoin -server` because one gives an error message the other doesnt

Although the API reference implies that running bitcoin -server is the same as running bitcoind, I get no error message when running bitcoin -server with no bitcoin.conf file but I get teh following error message when invoking bitcoind - C:\Program…
Terrence Brannon
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How can I run Bitcoin-QT client behind a restrictive firewall using a putty tunnel?

I am on Windows machine on a network that is closed for all incoming packets and outgoing packets only work for port 80. In the network I have access to a Linux via SSH that is open for in and out access. I want to run the wallet client Bitcoin-QT…
thedrs
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BTCJam API 500 errors

I am currently trying to set up an application using the BTCJam api. I think the api could be very useful, but I have been unable to get it to work fully, and since support isn't responding, I thought I would post here. I am using https basic…
Paul
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How to update Bitcoin client?

Today I downloaded and installed the new version of Bitcoin (0.5.0) I extracted the file and it created a folder. I followed the instructions and clicked bitcoin-qt.exe and the program started. No installation! Is the new version a portable…
nowfor2
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Issue with bitcoin client 0.4.0 - stop populating

My bitcoin client stops populating at 8 connections and 112949 blocks, event I left it running for over 12 hours now. I checked my internet connection and firewall, all seem OK. Restart it a few times still make no different. Appreciate any…
stone
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Client that can run behind a firewall

Is there any client that can run behind a firewall? I tried bitcoin-qt and Electrum and neither could work because of blocked ports. I know I could use a web-hosted solution but I'd prefer a local wallet.dat.
RentFree
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I'm trying to run Bitcoin on a weak computer, which client consumes the least resources?

I am running the standard client on a weak computer (Windows environment). It often is slow and unresponsive, and takes a noticeable chunk of the hard drive. I would want to replace it with some alternative client that offers the same functionality…
ThePiachu
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