How long does it usually take for it to sync for the first time?
In startup mine has said “Connecting to wallet” for a while now. Today is the 5th day it says the same thing.
However, I do see that some stuff is happening in the background with download/upload and Chia in the Task Manager, so I believe it should be working.
Question is, how long might this take?
It has taken some people a long time but succeeded eventually for others it a sign things are not working. Possible reasons:
In the folder C:\Users\yourname.chia\mainnet\db how large is the database file? I am fully synced, at the time of writing, and the DB folder is 13.4GB. Once you have most of the database, you can back it up or copy it to another machine to save you all the syncing time but do so with Chia fully shutdown, or it will be corrupted.
Be aware that to sync requires significant CPU resource as well and a robust internet connection. On a Ryzen 3600 I see the CPU having a regular rhythmic (every few seconds) double digit load while processing the blockchain and creating the multi-gigabyte db. Think in day or days terms to completion depending on those factors. And over time, the full db creation gets ever bigger and therefore longer to finish.
Yeah, just checked the DB and Wallet sizes. Its working fine, but slow as hell. My farm-computer isnt that good so I will just have to be patient. Full sync will probably take me 7 days
Oh wow. Could it be possible I would never even catch up and just sync in eternity unless I get a better computer?
Probably not though a combination of a very slow computer and a very slow internet connection, and a lack of port forwarding resulting in packets not reaching the intended farmer machine could conceivably result in a failure to ever sync.
There are people using Raspberry Pis that manage, I synced an ACEPC T6 stick PC back in May but connected to a fairly decent internet connection.
Just keep plodding at it.
What would happen if I have the chia client with synced wallet and database on another computer - could I just copy/paste all db-files from there to the slow computer, or would that mess up things?
It helps a lot.
Shut down chia on both computers.
Copy the entire contents of the /DB folder to the machine that is struggling, then restart chia on both machines.
Are they both full nodes? On the same local network? This can work for some but for others its a problem as the packets do not always end up at the right machine. It can be better to run 1 full node and multiple harvesters.
How do I run a harvester? Might be a good solution
Please also copy the wallet DB files which are in /mainnet/ folder but under /wallet/
I remember trying to resync my farmer from scratch a few weeks ago. After 2+ days, I gave up and just restored a good copy of the wallet and DB. Still took me another day to get the wallet and DB in sync. My internet is slow and the farmer server is slow.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an official repository for people to download the entire database quickly? Hint hint chiaforum.com moderators.