That command is trying to execute ~/.zcash/zcash.conf (which doesn’t exist), rather than editing it. Use a text editor such as nano, e.g.
sudo apt-get install nano
nano ~/.zcash/zcash.conf
After entering the text from the Guide, use Ctrl-O Enter to save and Ctrl-X to exit nano.
I’m guessing you’re new to Ubuntu so start gedit from the button with the Ubuntu logo on it at the top of the taskbar (going by one of your screenshots, that’s the thing on the left border of your screen) - press that button and type ‘gedit’ then select the text editor icon when it appears. Copy and paste the highlighted lines from the Running portion of the Public Alpha Guide into gedit. Change the rpcuser and rpcpassword to something of your choice. Press the Save button in the top right corner of the gedit window. When the Save dialog opens, press Ctrl H to show the hidden files and directories. Double click .zcash and then save your file as zcash.conf into that directory.
Ok, Daira, that definitely seemed to work! I didn’t get an error, and when I entered vi ~/.zcash/zcash.conf to check, the text was there.
I entered the ./src/zcashd -daemon command and it said it was starting.
Entered the next command and got this:
{
“version” : 110200,
“protocolversion” : 170002,
“walletversion” : 60000,
“balance” : 0.00000000,
“blocks” : 0,
“timeoffset” : 0,
“connections” : 0,
“proxy” : “”,
“difficulty” : 1.00000000,
“testnet” : true,
“keypoololdest” : 1472355334,
“keypoolsize” : 101,
“paytxfee” : 0.00000000,
“relayfee” : 0.00005000,
“errors” : “WARNING: check your network connection, 0 blocks received in the last 4 hours (96 expected)”
UPDATE I’m being told that I can’t reply to anything else for 20 hours, so I’m adding a big “thank you” here.
Is there a “tip jar” or something I can donate to?
Don’t worry about the WARNING message if you’ve only just started zcashd. The message is slightly misleading in that case; it shouldn’t be referring to the last 4 hours if the daemon hasn’t been running that long.
Ok, unfortunately it looks like I’m not actually mining any coins on either of the two machines that I’ve set up.
Here is a screenshot taken from earlier in the day (after about 16 hours of mining). I just checked both machines again (one of them has been running about 30 hours) and it shows zero balance too.
Should I post this as a separate topic?
The red flag is that you have 0 connections.
This tell me that Zcash can’t find the network.
Check that your Ubuntu can see your internet (you can just open firefox to see)
Check your zcash.conf file
gen=1
testnet=1
addnode=alphatestnet.z.cash
rpcuser=username
rpcpassword=password
and make sure the config file is in Home–>.zcash–>zcash.conf
I assume you already downloaded and re-compiled z9? z8 is depreciated and won’t connect.
Since you are in a VM, Check your VM network settings.
This tutorial is a little more in depth than the public alpha guide: https://minezcash.com/how-to-mine-zcash-part-3/
Nope, I missed that part (thanks). Dumb question: Do I have to uninstall anything before I update to z9 and re-compile?
I’ve got internet (no problem there). I’ll add gen=1 to the conf file and check out the guide.
Just to be safe, I delete the entire zcash and .zcash folders each time before I download and re-compile a new version. You can save a copy of the zcash.conf file to reuse if you want.
I decided to just start over (fresh re-install of Ubuntu, then started at “square 1” of this guide that you recommended). I THINK it’s actually working. I have a connection showing, I have blocks, and there are no errors. I guess I’ll know for sure by the time I get up tomorrow. Thanks again, man.
OK, I definitely mined something, but for some reason it seems to have stopped. Basically, I mined 1.3 coins within an hour or two of starting up (they showed as “immature” at that point) but I haven’t mined anything over the past 12+ hours. Is that normal? The number of blocks continues to go up and the connection still seems to be present.
Could it be because the difficulty has gone up from “1” to over 300?
Yes difficulty is considerably high even for this testnet, I was seeing 1500+ not long ago. A lot of people are interested in this project.
