The core wallets are quite sensitive, and often the blockchain database associated with it gets corrupted, or the wallet shows some error. There may also be phases when your bitcoin wallet would not display your balance correctly.
The blockchain being corrupted because of reasons such as you immediately or spontaneously shutting off the wallet or updating it incorrectly. Simply restarting the wallet application is of no use as it only gets stuck at the loading page or home screen and does not show any progress. Therefore, there are some manual repairing options made available to fix this kind of errors. You may be familiar with the options -rescan and -reindex
So, whenever your wallet is not syncing or if the balance is incorrectly displayed or if your wallet gets stuck at the wrong chain, you would be advised to rescan or reindex the blockchain files. There is no need to reindex and rescan your wallet every time you open it, as some people do.
USAGE OF RE-SCAN & RE-INDEX
RESCAN:
This command re-inspect your blockchain files and checks for missing wallet transactions. When there is a failure of transaction data storage to blockchain or when you restore the wallet backup or when you import a new private key to your wallet, the wallet client stores all transaction data of the addresses managed by it. On storage of new private key, the transaction associated with that address is not known by the wallet client.
Re-scanning is like recalculating the money in your inventory. This command must only be used when the transaction is missing in your wallet or if your wallet is not reflecting your transaction correctly. Starting up the wallet with re-scan command active, it starts up and scans every single block that your wallet has downloaded. While it scans the blocks, it then scans for all the missing transactions. After completion, the wallet will get refreshed and would show the correct balance as it rebuilds all the transactions.
REINDEX
Unlike rescan, reindex does not build blockchain data from scratch. It develops the blockchain index from data that has already been downloaded by you. It reestablishes the blockchain database as well as re-analyses the information stored in it.
HOW TO PROCEED?
The first step to proceed is to backup your wallet, i.e., wallet.dat.
For most wallets, this option is present by default. You need to open your wallet, navigate to tools and click on repair wallet. There you will find the wallet repair options. For rescanning your blockchain files, click on rescan option and to reindex your blockchain files, select rebuild index option.
In case you do not have the direct option in your wallet, then follow the following steps:
- For Windows
Open your wallet folder, Right-click on your wallet-qt.exe file, Click on create a shortcut, then right-click on the shortcut file then click on properties and after that, edit the field with the label “target”.
Once -rescan or -reindex flag is put on the end of the “Target” parameter, click on “Apply” and after that press OK. Now open the following shortcut file to rescan or reindex your wallet. Once your wallet is fixed, close it and delete the shortcut file or you can keep it or otherwise use it whenever it might be required. But remember not to use the same commands every time you open the wallet because it only serves the purpose of repairing your crypto wallet, and its no longer required once we fix the issue.
2. For Mac
Run the terminal application and then go to your wallet folder and then drag the wallet file to the terminal. Then type reindex/ re-scan and hit enter.
3. For Linux
Use the command line and navigate to your wallet folder. If your wallet is opened for the first time, then first you need to stop it. Then further, restart it using the requisite command.
Following these steps would eliminate the errors, and we hope that it makes your wallet run smoothly displaying the precise transaction data.
