Switching to a new data directory

There are some reasons why you might want to start over again with a new data directory.

  • You got a bug which screwed up the internal data structure
  • ou want to protect your privacy by separating trades which are connected via the onion address and/or bitcoin transaction graph (see upcoming blog post about privacy on the web page for more info)
  • You have done a lot of trades and the application gets a bit slow as the wallet and overall data structure is getting dense (the more transactions you have the longer the bitcoin network sync can take)

Using a new fresh data directory gives you a completely fresh setup (new wallet, new onion address). You don’t need to reinstall Bitsquare.

Here are the steps you should follow:

  • If you have open offers, remove them (you will lose the “create offer” fee.
  • You must not have open trades and disputes, you would become unreachable after a change (new onion address)
  • Withdraw all your available funds to an external wallet.
  • Check with the emergency wallet tool (open with cmd + e or ctrl + e) to see if the balance is 0 after you have withdrew all your funds (in some rare cases bugs can cause an incorrect balance display in the UI).
  • Export the Fiat and Altcoin accounts for later importing this data so you don’t need to setup the accounts newly.
  • You can also export the transactions and trade history (csv format), though there is no import support for this data.
  • Make a backup of the existing data directory, just in case
  • Go to account/Backup and open the data directory from the button there
  • You got opened the data directory, navigate one level higher so you can see the data directory (folder name is Bitsquare).
  • Shut down Bitsquare Remove that folder (or move it for backup)
  • Start Bitsquare again and you will start from a completely fresh data directory
  • Import the account data if wanted

Alternatively you could use a command line argument when starting the application from a terminal and pass the argument --appName=APP_NAME_YOU_ASSIGN (APP_NAME_YOU_ASSIGN is default Bitsquare, so it creates a data directory with the name Bitsquare. You could use Bitsquare_2 or the like so you can run multiple applications in parallel. It is recommended to only use that option if you are familiar how to pass a program argument and if you want to maintain several applications.

If you want to open the data directory manually can find it under those locations:

  • Mac OSX: /Users/username/Library/Application Support/Bitsquare
  • Linux: /home/username/.local/share/Bitsquare
  • Windows 7,8: C:\Documents and Settings\username\AppData\Roaming\Bitsquare
  • Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Bitsquare
2 Likes