Opening Bitcoin Daemon on Windows via Command Prompt: Troubleshooting

As a user who has successfully created the “bitcoin.conf” file on your local machine, you probably want to start the Bitcoin daemon (also known as Bitcoind) via the command line. However, there seems to be some issues with the process, causing your system to become unresponsive and hang.

Subject:

When you run the Bitcoind executable from the Windows command prompt, nothing happens and your system becomes unresponsive. The error message may look like this:

Unknown option --max-memory-usage
Error: -max-memory-usage not found.

This indicates that Bitcoind does not recognize the “–max-memory-usage” option, indicating a possible problem with your configuration or environment variables.

Step-by-step solution:

To resolve this issue, follow these steps:

1. Update and Upgrade Bitcoind

First, make sure that you have the latest version of Bitcoind installed on your system. You can check for updates using the following command:

bitcoin-cli -- version

If there are any updates available, install them accordingly.

git clone  && cd bitcoin

Update configuration file
./configure --with-openssl=/usr/bin/openssl
make -j $(nproc)
make install

2. Create a “bitcoin.conf” file

Since you have already created a bitcoin.conf file, continue editing it with a text editor (e.g. Notepad++) and make sure the following settings are included:

[server]
server = 127.0.0.1:8332

This will connect to the local Bitcoin node.

3. Set Bitcoind Environment Variables

Create a new file called “bitcoin.conf” with the following content:

[conf]
max_memory_usage = 512M

Add this line to the end of the existing bitcoin.conf file, making sure it follows the same path: `C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\bitcoin.conf’.

4. Restart Bitcoind

Restart the Bitcoin daemon to apply the changes:

bitcoind --config=C:\Users\NAME\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\bitcoin.conf --max-memory-usage=512M

This should successfully start Bitcoind with the updated configuration.

More troubleshooting:

If you continue to experience issues after completing these steps, consider the following:

• Make sure your system’s page file size is large enough to handle Bitcoin’s increased memory requirements.

• Try specifying a different node URL or port (e.g. bitcoin.conf file instead of 127.0.0.1:8332) to test the connection.

• If you are using a remote node, make sure your VPN settings are configured correctly.

Conclusion:

By following these steps and troubleshooting any issues you may have, you should be able to successfully launch Bitcoind from the command line on Windows. Remember to update Bitcoind regularly and consider exploring additional options to optimize performance if needed.