And additionally, if you attempt to run a 4.8-built binary with a 5.1 wallet, the error isn't clear about the problem, as it's a BDB failure and not a Bitcoin one, that can be very confusing to troubleshoot.
On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 6:51 PM, Micha Bailey <michabai...@gmail.com> wrote: > The problem is not easily worked around by importing/exporting private > keys, as there will potentially be many different keys that need to be > exported and reimported, some of which aren't even exposed to the user due > to the mechanics of change addresses and the keypool. Additionally, users > expect to be able to move from one platform to another. > Re: your comment about backing up wallet.dat, backups of the wallet are > exactly where this problem is the worst, because a backup is expected to > work on any system. Users of the package *need* to know that a backup of > their wallet.dat from a Debian/Ubuntu system using the distro's repository > cannot be expected to be usable on the majority of systems that run Bitcoin. > > > On Wed, Dec 11, 2013 at 6:23 PM, Scott Howard <showard...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> severity 731952 wishlist >> tags 731952 wontfix >> thanks >> >> > In the bitcoin_0.8.6-1.dsc file, the "Build-Depends:" section includes >> the entry "libdb++-dev | libdb4.8++-dev". This results in the package >> potentially being built with BDB version 5.1. The recommended version, and >> the one that the upstream release binaries for all platforms (including >> Windows, OS X, and Linux) are built with, is 4.8. BDB is used in the >> Bitcoin software for the bitcoin wallet. BDB 5.1 databases are not >> backwards-compatible with BDB 4.8. The result of this is any wallet.dat >> files that are created by, or even opened with, a Bitcoin binary compiled >> with BDB 5.1, that wallet will become incompatible with most other bitcoin >> binaries out there. >> >> This text is well written and should be added to README.Debian and a >> summary of this statement added to the package description. >> >> Debian removed libdb4.8, so this is unfixable. The severity is minor >> since this only shows up when you try to mix upstream and Debian >> binaries. Additionally, you can work around it by importing/exporting >> private keys to and from wallets of any version. You can open >> wallet.dat with the client that created/modified it in order to export >> keys. >> >> Backing up wallet.dat is very important for this and many other reasons. >> > >
