Error: Error initializing wallet database environment - on network drive #3543

The message error: Error: Error initializing wallet database environment

Tested on versions: 0.8.5 and 0.8.6

OS: Windows 2003 Server (however on Linux had the same error if I remember well)

Situation: I'm trying to run Bitcoin-qt or Bitcoind with data dir localized on Network Drive (Z:\ua in my case, it's an empty folder).

Command: bitcoind.exe -datadir=Z:\ua Error: Error initializing wallet database environment Z:\ua!

Debug.log: 2014-01-14 22:58:28 Bitcoin version v0.8.6-beta (2013-12-05 13:11:26 +0100) 2014-01-14 22:58:28 Using OpenSSL version OpenSSL 1.0.1c 10 May 2012 2014-01-14 22:58:28 Default data directory C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Bitcoin 2014-01-14 22:58:28 Using data directory Z:\ua 2014-01-14 22:58:28 Using at most 125 connections (2048 file descriptors available) 2014-01-14 22:58:28 init message: Verifying wallet... 2014-01-14 22:58:29 dbenv.open LogDir=Z:\ua\database ErrorFile=Z:\ua\db.log 2014-01-14 22:58:31 ERROR: CDB() : error DB_RUNRECOVERY: Fatal error, run database recovery (-30974) opening database environment 2014-01-14 22:58:31 Moved old Z:\ua\database to Z:\ua\database.1389740311.bak. Retrying. 2014-01-14 22:58:31 dbenv.open LogDir=Z:\ua\database ErrorFile=Z:\ua\db.log 2014-01-14 22:58:32 ERROR: CDB() : error DB_RUNRECOVERY: Fatal error, run database recovery (-30974) opening database environment 2014-01-14 22:58:32 Error: Error initializing wallet database environment Z:\ua! 2014-01-14 22:58:32 Shutdown : In progress... 2014-01-14 22:58:32 Flush(false) db not started 2014-01-14 22:58:32 StopNode() 2014-01-14 22:58:34 Flushed 0 addresses to peers.dat 1328ms 2014-01-14 22:58:34 Flush(true) db not started 2014-01-14 22:58:34 Shutdown : done

You have the entire data directory on the network share, or did you do something with symlinks?

This error generally means that the wallet is corrupted/unopenable. This can have several causes:

• Unclean shutdown
• Wallet opened with a bitcoin that was built against BerkeleyDB5.1 with one that is built against BerkeleyDB4.8
• Disk corruption

Are you sure this has to do with the network location? It doesn't happen with the same wallet in a local data directory?

It's a network share created as server and client using tool builtin in Windows. Also tried the external NetDrive tool which creates the drive using FTP - same result. No symlinks.

The wallet can't be corrupted, because it simply doesn't exist. ;-) The data dir is empty, as I wrote. Tried to run with already created wallet.dat on local dir - same error. Bitcoin with datadir on local disk works flawless. So it's seems the wallet.dat isn't accessable/openable from netowrk drive. I see the solution, but don't know it's possible to run bitcoind with -datadir [network drive] -walletfile [wallet.dat on local drive], but see no that option yet.

Months ago I have tried to do the same thing on Linux using ftpfs or curlftpfs (can't remember) - similar effect.

Yes, I'm sure I'd like to run Bitcoind with data dir on network drive. It's because I have many fast servers around the world (few per continents) with very low disk space and I thought it would be great to support Bitcoin network to run bitcoind on these servers, which some of them have more than years of uptime. :-)

Master, which will be 0.9.x, has a -disablewallet option, if you don't need a wallet, that will do the trick too.

Making it possible to split the datadir and blocksdir is planned as well, but on the longer run (see #3214).

-disablewallet was added in 0.9.0, which was released and should resolve this issue. Let us know if there are still problems running on the network drive without wallet.