What is a snapshot?

A snapshot is a copy of the blockchain from a certain point in time. If your local blockchain data is corrupted, too far out of sync, or otherwise causing problems, then a snapshot may help you out.


How to use a snapshot

1. Acquire a snapshot: If you have created your own (recommended), you can use that one. The Veil team hosts periodic snapshots at the sites below for your convenience:

  1. https://veil.tools/snapshots/ 

2. Shutdown your Veil wallet if it is running.

3. Extract the contents of the snapshot zip. You should see 4 folders: blocks, chainstate, indexes, and zerocoin.

4. Navigate to your Veil data directory.

5. You should see about a dozen files and folders, including the same 4 folders matching the ones inside the snapshot.

6. Move, rename, or delete these 4 folders. If you were forked, you may want to also delete banlist.dat, fee_estimates.dat, mempool.dat, and peers.dat. Do not ever delete the backups folder or a wallet.dat file.

7. Place the 4 folders from the snapshot into your data directory. It should now look like it did what you entered this folder in step 4.

8. Restart your Veil wallet software and you should be taken directly to the last block when the snapshot was created.


FAQ

What is the difference between a bootstrap and a snapshot?

  • Bootstraps are similar to snapshots but work slightly differently. They are also compressed versions of the blockchain, but the wallet software will still proceed through and validate every block. In that way they are less "trusted", whereas snapshots are not validated but do require trust from the source. The lack of validation is why snapshots are so fast. Bootstraps are no longer common because the P2P networks in crypto have reached an efficiency where it makes more sense just to download the blockchain directly from the network. Due to this fact, there is no official bootstrap available for Veil at this time.


How can I make my own snapshot?

  • To make your own snapshot:

                1. Shut down your wallet.

                2. Copy the 4 folders mentioned above elsewhere (blocks, chainstate, indexes, and zerocoin).

                3. Compress them into a file (recommended, not mandatory).

                4. Store in a secure location.


Why might I have gotten a startup error on my wallet after installing a snapshot?

  • This can happen if you have used a self-compiled wallet with a snapshot from a node running pre-compiled binaries, or vice versa. All snapshots provided by the Veil Support team are created using pre-compiled binaries.
  • Another rare possibility is that one of the files might have been corrupted during the download.
    This can be checked by using the SHA256 HASH provided on the snapshot download web page.

How to check the downloaded zip file, comparing with the SHA256 hash