bitcoind shouldn’t perform network activity if the option networkactive=0, e.g. [addrman] Selected IP:PORT from tried #34190

1. 
   GregTonoski commented at 12:43 pm on January 2, 2026: none

   Is there an existing issue for this?

   • I have searched the existing issues

   Current behaviour

   There are many logs like the examples below despite networkactive=0:

   1. 2025-12-31T12:24:47Z [addrman] Selected 34.75.109.94:8333 from tried
   2. 2025-12-31T12:24:47Z [tor] Error connecting to Tor control socket 2025-12-31T12:24:47Z [tor] Not connected to Tor control port 127.0.0.1:9051, retrying in 25.63 s
   3. 2025-12-31T12:28:43Z [net:error] Could not get best interface for default route: Element not found. (1168) 2025-12-31T12:28:43Z [net] portmap: Could not determine IPv4 default gateway

   Expected behaviour

   There isn’t any network activity and so no such logs.

   Steps to reproduce

   1. Start bitcoind.exe -networkactive=0

   Relevant log output

   bitcoind_addrman_win.txt

   How did you obtain Bitcoin Core

   Pre-built binaries

   What version of Bitcoin Core are you using?

   v29

   Operating system and version

   Windows 11

   Machine specifications

   No response

2. 
   willcl-ark commented at 9:51 am on January 13, 2026: member

   If you interpret “networkactive” to mean “this program will not perform any network-related activity” then “fixing” this would make sense. However of your interpretation is “toggle a connection to the bitcoin p2p network” then the current behaviour seems fine:

   • If you have networkactive and toggle it, then all bitcoin p2p connections are dropped
   • Toggle it again to re-enable connections

   Configuring pmp, running the addrman loop and making a connection to the tor control port in readiness for future connections doesn’t seem completely untoward, in my opinion.

   Curious what others think here though, as giving torControlThread and mapport_thread knowledge of the state of networkactive is pretty easy. I didn’t have a look at addrman yet though…

   edit: I did end up taking a look at what an implementation for this would look like for mapport and torcontroller here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/compare/master...willcl-ark:bitcoin:refs/heads/respect-networkactive

   Seems to work ok.

3. willcl-ark added the label Bug on Jan 13, 2026
4. willcl-ark added the label Needs Conceptual Review on Jan 13, 2026

Contributors
GregTonoski willcl-ark

Labels
Bug Needs Conceptual Review