Multichain explorer 2 cant find multichain directory

Question

I get the following error when trying to start multichain explorer 2. I checked and the multichain node is definitely running from the same dir. Please help.

 

python3 -m explorer example.ini start
MultiChain Explorer, version 2.0

Couldn't find MultiChain directory /home/geo/.multichain/chainnew

rpchost=0.0.0.0

rpcport=9732/
Couldn't retrieve RPC parameters for local chain chainnew

 

 

 

 

 

Answer 1

Hey there,
I had similar problem, take a look if you have any spaces before parameters in the file :)

Answer 2

If you don't want to specify datadir explicitly in the Explorer 2 .ini file, MultiChain should not be running from the same directory as the Explorer. It should be running from a directory based on the specified blockchain name. In any event I recommend just specify the datadir explicitly.

Comments

Tried that. Same issue :(

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OK, please post the full .ini file from MultiChain Explorer 2, and a command line transcript showing the response from the MulitChain blockchain directory, showing the output from the commands pwd ; ls -l

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[main]

# Who to accept connections from.
# You can only have one host entry in the config file otherwise the explorer will report an error.
# host=0.0.0.0         # to accept connections from anybody (including localhost) e.g. production
# host=localhost     # to only accept connections from your local machine e.g. testing

host=0.0.0.0

# Port to serve web pages

port=4444


[chains]

chainnew=on
chain2=off

[chainnew]

name=chainnew

# The host serving MultiChain RPC, including scheme (e.g. "http://123.45.67.89"), default localhost ("http://127.0.0.1")
 rpchost=10.211.55.21

# The RPC port MultiChain node listens to. Required for remote nodes.
# Optional for local nodes, default is taken from multichain.conf. If not found there - 'default-rpc-port' from params.dat
 rpcport=9732

# The username for RPC calls. Required for remote nodes.
# Optional for local nodes, default is taken from multichain.conf.
rpcuser=multichainrpc

# The password for RPC calls. Required for remote nodes.
# Optional for local nodes, default is taken from multichain.conf.
rpcpassword=removed

# For chains running on local machine, datadir parameter, default ~/.multichain
datadir=~/.multichain


[chain2]

name=chain1

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pwd; ls -l
/home/geo/.multichain
total 8
drwx------ 8 geo geo 4096 Dec 13 15:52 chain1
drwx------ 8 geo geo 4096 Dec 19 23:57 chainnew
-rw------- 1 geo geo    0 Jul 29 17:20 multichain.conf

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multichain explorer 2 is in the ~/Downloads folder

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So here's the problem – in the .ini file for MultiChain Explorer 2, the datadir should be something like this: /home/geo/.multichain/chainnew (see the example within the file)

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Same problem.. Running in a virtual Ubuntu machine.

python3 -m explorer example.ini start
MultiChain Explorer, version 2.0


Couldn't find MultiChain directory /home/geo/.multichain/chainnew

rpchost=http://10.211.55.21

rpcport=9732/
Couldn't retrieve RPC parameters for local chain chainnew

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Are you saying it's now a different machine?

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no no its all on the same VM.

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And if you run this what do you get?

ls -l /home/geo/.multichain/chainnew

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ls -l /home/geo/.multichain/chainnew
total 156
drwx------ 3 geo geo  4096 Dec 13 16:12 blocks
drwx------ 2 geo geo  4096 Dec 20 00:10 chainstate
drwx------ 5 geo geo  4096 Dec 13 16:12 chunks
-rw------- 1 geo geo 44781 Dec 20 11:37 debug.log
-rw------- 1 geo geo   480 Dec 20 00:10 entities.dat
drwx------ 2 geo geo  4096 Dec 20 00:10 entities.db
-rw------- 1 geo geo    70 Dec 20 00:08 fee_estimates.dat
-rw------- 1 geo geo    98 Dec 17 09:56 multichain.conf
-rw------- 1 geo geo     8 Dec 20 00:10 multichain.pid
-rw------- 1 geo geo  9225 Dec 13 16:12 params.dat
-rw------- 1 geo geo  8988 Dec 13 16:12 params.dat.bak
-rw------- 1 geo geo  1106 Dec 20 15:07 peers.dat
-rw------- 1 geo geo 17152 Dec 20 00:10 permissions.dat
drwx------ 2 geo geo  4096 Dec 20 00:10 permissions.db
-rw------- 1 geo geo 10288 Dec 20 00:10 permissions.log
drwx------ 3 geo geo  4096 Dec 13 16:26 wallet
-rw------- 1 geo geo  1083 Dec 13 16:12 wallet.dat

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Thanks, and the Explorer is also running as the "geo" user?

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yes. I tried with sudo in front and same error.

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OK, I'm not sure what's happening with the datadir setting under sudo on your VM. So I suggest just bypassing it, it's only used to read some configuration settings. Instead, just make sure you set these values correctly in your Explorer .ini file:

name=chainnew
rpchost=http://10.211.55.21
rpcport=9732
rpcuser=multichainrpc
rpcpassword=[whatever is set in multichain.conf]

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looks like its responding with a 403 Forbidden

telnet 10.211.55.21 9732
Trying 10.211.55.21...
Connected to 10.211.55.21.
Escape character is '^]'.
HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2021 04:32:20 +0000
Connection: close
Content-Length: 9
Content-Type: text/plain
Server: multichain-json-rpc/2.2

ForbiddenConnection closed by foreign host.

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This is because of the rpcallowip setting for MultiChain. Assuming both the Explorer and node are running on the same (virtual) host, just change this in the Explorer .ini file:

rpchost=http://127.0.0.1

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Still no luck. I give up.

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Sorry to hear that. If you want more help, let us know. I can tell you for sure that we've had no problem with Explorer 2 in our testing here, so the problem is probably something quite simple in a configuration somewhere.