<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Hi I have a question about sync time with monero-gui on Mac. It's been running for two days and the bar progresses but it doesn't seem to make headway. Will it ever get to the end or are transactions being added so fast that I should have selected prune the blockchain?

Can you go to the Settings page -> Log tab, type status, and post the output here?

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> [12/09/2023 14:37] 2023-09-12 12:37:52.999 I Monero 'Fluorine Fermi' (v0.18.2.2-release)
Height: 2624212/2972573 (88.3%) on mainnet, not mining, net hash 2.75 GH/s, v14, 12(out)+0(in) connections, uptime 1d 17h 50m 24s

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Does that help?

If your mac doesn't have ssd, it can take a week

It's still synchronizing

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> It has a new ssd a good one but its a 2013 trash can so the pci-e is gen 2 I guess. Glad to know it is normal to take a good amount of time

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Thanks

drinternationale: Do you see also the block numbers? I don't see it in your output

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> The total or current? I copied everything from the status command output down. It showed something like 375k blocks left when I left the house just. I was concerned because it went from over 1m blocks to 375k rather fast maybe in 12 hours then appears to fluctuate around this 375k ever since. There is around 800 gb free on the ssd and the computer doesn't sleep or something silly like that.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> It's a 12 core xeon with 64gb ram. I'm new to monero. So sorry if it's tmi I don't know what is relevant and not

It shouldn't fluctuate, the first number in 2624212/2972573 should go up steadily

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> I'm going off blocks left as that is what I remembr ill look for the other when I'm back home. Thank you so much for the help

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Yes I see 2652292/2972605 now

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> It was the Daemon blocks remaining that seemed to slow down and fluctuate between 11 pm last night and around 2 pm this afternoon. It has gone down to 318354 now which correlates with the status output.

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> `sync_info`

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> what does the `moooooooo` line look like

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> this ? [mooooooooooooooooooooooo.oo....]

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> Yes

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> What in goodness is that?

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> Looks good.

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> It shows blocks queued / syncing

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> This made me chuckle.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Okkkk

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> Each letter is a batch of blocks. If the m is missing, stalled. Sometimes youll have a lot of missing letters, usually from being sent bad blocks.

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> But looks good. Should be syncing properly

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Oh wow that's brilliant thank you so much ofrnxmr

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> thank moneromoooo: :)

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Its very rare that you get a good moooooo from a piece of software these days

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> indeed. Looks like ~30k blocks per hr syncing right now

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> about 10-12hrs remaining

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> I am only doing it to see what the hash rate is like on such an old computer. Then I will try running on my shiny new etc 4070Ti :o)

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> Gpu = no good

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> What is the bottle neck with syncing. I assume its not download its the verification of each block?

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Oh Really

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> I thought it was resistant to ASICs meaning GPU and CPU miners better

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> typically io is the major bottleneck, but i think sech1 said there may be a multithreading issue

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> ohhh for sync not mining

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> Okok

<o​frnxmr:monero.social> .. i dont think we use gpu for verification. Someone else will have to comment on that

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Yeah looks like at least the OSX version its threaded but its bottle necked at IO \

ofrnxmr is correct about GPU.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> It that because of the type of algorithm you use for the verification? I am by no means a developer but I find it fascinating.

Yes.

Verification is one program working on one set of data. GPUs are good for a program working on many sets of data in parallel.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Where can I read about this best? I have lots of questions but they are mostly interest related and I don't want to take everyones time or derail the chat.

Try monero.stackexchange.com.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Thank you kindly

Or, for specifics, start with the discussion for the randomx PR on github.

SIMD is a good keyword for generalities.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Super I think that's what I am looking for.

Fragment programs/shaders might also get you interesting stuff, that's application of GPU's strength to graphics.

And AI nowadays. Lots of matrix math. Very SIMD.

Well, some AI is. Like SVMs. I dunno about more recent LLM stuff.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> I am interested to understand why for instance the verification algorithm can't be done on the GPU. I am learning C++ slowly and I am ok with Python. It's all very fun thank you so much. Moneromoo

It can be done. It will just be slow.

You need to upload a program to your GPU. Though it can be pre-uploaded if you don't need it otherwise. Then run. Upload the data (hashing blob with its nonce), run the program, fetch data back.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Oh I see. I was thinking naively that large data set split up into individual sets especially if the result of one block verification or set is not reliant on others.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> So you would be also IO bound shifting the data in and out of the GPU

It'll work, but it will be a utter waste as one set of data will be used instead of the, I dunno, maybe thousands that could have been used with no extra time.

Well, you could verify PoW for a whole chain I suppose.

At least for stuff like SHA256 and the like.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Yes that is what I was thinking because you have a bunch of transactions linked is there a sensible place where you could split them and then upload say thousands of chains and run that parallel on the GPU

It'd help for the initial sync but not after it, unless you get online every few days only.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> That seems to be where the stalling point is in my case you get online and do the initial sync but then you have to wait. I would be interested in the churn rate in users who uninstall because the sync takes a few days.m

In theory you could do that (PoW and the rest separated for the whole chain).

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> I don't know if that would be an appreciable number

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> I don't know if you can tell how many installs don't complete the verification and then never come online again?

FWIW, by default PoW is not checked for historical blocks. So it's probably not your problem.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Ohhhhh

(You can use --fast-block-sync 0 to enable checking them all)

I don't know what the threshold is, but I doubt you've reached it yet.

You can run "top", check the third (usually) line, the one with "wa" "ni" "us" etc in it.

Post it here. It'll probably show what your bottleneck is.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> will do

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> I am lost

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> I run top as in the command line top to see what's running

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> PID COMMAND %CPU TIME #TH #WQ #PORT MEM PURG CMPRS PGRP PPID STATE BOOSTS %CPU_ME %CPU_OTHRS UID FAULTS COW MSGSENT

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> 53527 monerod 106.0 09:56:31 30/1 0 45 317M 0B 0B 53526 1 running *0[1] 0.00000 0.00000 501 65655928 82 4683

I asked for the line with wa/ni/us/sy.

It shows the overall utilization of your CPU.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Give me a sec OSX doesn't output like that of course ...

Ah, nvm then.

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Its very kind of you to help thank you moneromooo

<d​rinternationale:matrix.org> Soooooooo If anyone else is using macOS then I wrote a shell script to look for bottlenecks its on my GitHub repo. github.com/chriswilson2020/bottlenecks

as far as I know on macOS it's purely disk random IO speed

did you find anything else with the script?