# Bitcoin Knots Stopped Running **URL:** \ **Category:** Support and Troubleshooting\ **Created:** [July 26, 2025, 2:22pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437 "2025-07-26T14:22:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Stonecutter124](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/stonecutter124/32/6868_2.png) [@Stonecutter124](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Stonecutter124)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 2:22pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/1 "2025-07-26T14:22:45Z")
This is now the second time this has happened to me since I have switched to Knots: After receiving the same error the first time, I reindexed the chainstate as per the log and patiently waited 12 days for my node to sync to 100%. Once it syncd, I restarted all my apps. Knots stops running and I get the same errors: Error initializing block database [error] Aborted block database rebuild. Exiting. Error initializing block database. Do I seriously have to go through this whole process again? [bitcoin-log-tail.txt](https://community.umbrel.com/uploads/short-url/orTV90ESrIHcoLkWntBwQMqvGuQ.txt) (7.9 KB) ---
**Author:** ![stinger32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@stinger32](https://community.umbrel.com/u/stinger32)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 4:11pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/2 "2025-07-26T16:11:19Z")
what apps are you running? ---
**Author:** ![Stonecutter124](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/stonecutter124/32/6868_2.png) [@Stonecutter124](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Stonecutter124)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 4:17pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/3 "2025-07-26T16:17:09Z")
Lightning Node, Datum, Core Lightning, Thunderhub, Electrs, Lightning Terminal, Mempool ---
**Author:** ![stinger32](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@stinger32](https://community.umbrel.com/u/stinger32)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 4:23pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/4 "2025-07-26T16:23:59Z")
2025-07-26T14:03:15Z Config file: /data/bitcoin/bitcoin.conf 2025-07-26T14:03:15Z R/W Config file: /data/bitcoin/bitcoin\_rw.conf (not found, skipping) I noticed that it does not find this file when it looks for it. ---
**Author:** ![Stonecutter124](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/stonecutter124/32/6868_2.png) [@Stonecutter124](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Stonecutter124)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2025, 6:49pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/5 "2025-07-26T18:49:42Z")
Is there an override I can use? ---
**Author:** ![Westie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/85e7bf/32.png) [@Westie](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Westie)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2025, 11:33pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/6 "2025-07-29T23:33:40Z")
Have you run out of space maybe ? ---
**Author:** ![Tdf1230](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@Tdf1230](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Tdf1230)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2025, 1:40am UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/7 "2025-08-07T01:40:18Z")
Posted a similar issue , knots stops syncing at 98 percent, and have a 2tb ssd, logs attached ---
**Author:** ![Tdf1230](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc8723/32.png) [@Tdf1230](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Tdf1230)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2025, 12:56pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/8 "2025-08-20T12:56:26Z")
Knots have to restart knots often, continues to stop working , anyone have any ideas thanks ---
**Author:** ![brontosaurus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@brontosaurus](https://community.umbrel.com/u/brontosaurus)\ **Post date:** [August 24, 2025, 8:58am UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/9 "2025-08-24T08:58:18Z")
I had the same issue with Umbrel, never could figure out what it was. Since I switched from Umbrel to Start9, I have no problems with Bitcoin Knots anymore. Seems like an issue with the Umbrel specific implementation. Also be aware that some evil people out of Bitcoin Core are sabotaging Knots, which leads to DoS attacks on Knots on residential internet lines: [![](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/getumbrel/original/2X/8/87a52eab897e0682a289cf47b15c9f331d39813e.jpeg "Bitcoin Knots Node Runners Attacked") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLHZKfWJeUk) ---
**Author:** ![Stonecutter124](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/stonecutter124/32/6868_2.png) [@Stonecutter124](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Stonecutter124)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 4:30pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/10 "2025-09-20T16:30:46Z")
Ya. I suspect that. As of now I am reindexing the entire drive. Moving forward though I am periodically making a backup copy of the blockchain so if it bricks again I can start from a more recent place to avoid the 3 week process. ---
**Author:** ![oconical](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/oconical/32/7451_2.png) [@oconical](https://community.umbrel.com/u/oconical)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 4:54pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/11 "2025-09-20T16:54:19Z")
It shouldn’t take you more than 3 days if you are not running another node within the local network. To increase the download speed, allocate 50%-80% of the unused ram that you see on your dashboard to dbcache in the submenu and restart. For instance, in a computer with 8GB ram, set this to 4096 Other overrides that will speed it up (but do these temporarily in the override section): ```auto par=-1 banscore=10 listen=0 bantime=500 ``` you can find some nodes to connect to manually to boost download sources by finding them at: [Bitcoin Network Snapshot - Bitnodes](https://bitnodes.io/nodes/) , but you will have to do this several times as discovery is turned off. You would add them in the override section like: ```auto connect=51.81.56.15:8333 ``` But you should do at least 5 of these especially if they are bandwidth limited ---
**Author:** ![oconical](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/oconical/32/7451_2.png) [@oconical](https://community.umbrel.com/u/oconical)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 4:59pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/12 "2025-09-20T16:59:10Z")
But how much ram do you have? As the computer should have at least 8GB of ram. ---
**Author:** ![machasm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@machasm](https://community.umbrel.com/u/machasm)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 7:35pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/13 "2025-09-20T19:35:42Z")
I was having this exact same issue and rebuilt the index at least three times. Finally I allocated more RAM to my VM (I am running umbrel in a Virtual machine). As soon as I did that I have never had the issue again. I did throw a lot of RAM at it (24Gb to be exact) but I had a lot of spare RAM in the host. Perhaps this might help the devs to identify the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Stonecutter124](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/stonecutter124/32/6868_2.png) [@Stonecutter124](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Stonecutter124)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 2:04pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/14 "2025-09-21T14:04:26Z")
I am using a 8GB pi5. I am using the overrides you suggested. I am not seeing a big difference. Probably because I’m working with 8GB of RAM. ---
**Author:** ![oconical](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/oconical/32/7451_2.png) [@oconical](https://community.umbrel.com/u/oconical)\ **Post date:** [September 21, 2025, 4:30pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/15 "2025-09-21T16:30:37Z")
What is the memory usage on the desktop dashboard? And what kind of storage the PI5 is using? it could be either swap file allocation or disk i/o What do you get when you run at the terminal: `free -m` ---
**Author:** ![Stonecutter124](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/stonecutter124/32/6868_2.png) [@Stonecutter124](https://community.umbrel.com/u/Stonecutter124)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/16 "2025-10-12T17:06:41Z")
```auto total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 8051 6733 91 22 1332 1318 Swap: 0 0 0 ``` ---
**Author:** ![oconical](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/community.umbrel.com/oconical/32/7451_2.png) [@oconical](https://community.umbrel.com/u/oconical)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2025, 7:29am UTC](https://community.umbrel.com/t/bitcoin-knots-stopped-running/23437/17 "2025-10-13T07:29:31Z")
So you need to do this: ```auto sudo fallocate -l 16G /data/swapfile sudo chmod 600 /data/swapfile sudo mkswap /data/swapfile sudo swapon /data/swapfile echo '/data/swapfile none swap defaults 0 0' | sudo tee -a /etc/fstab ``` I would also suggest to reboot to make sure bitcoind would start using the swap even though it should theoretically do that after you execute swapon