I just opened my bitcoin core wallet on my mac after not using it for ages. It shows the 'Overview' page but won't let me do anything. Just keeps saying 'Processing blocks on disk...' and has been stuck like this for 24 hours. What do I do?
Sounds like your node is redoing the block or transaction index. Might take a while, but 24 hours is a lot. Your hardware could be outdated or maybe you're using an external HDD? Check the 'debug.log' file for updates on block height, that might help.
I've noticed this issue with Bitcoin Core on PC as well. The UI becomes unresponsive when syncing a bunch of blocks. It’s frustrating, honestly. I feel like it’s a design flaw that hasn’t been fixed for ages.
You can fix that by upgrading your RAM and storage. Lowering the dbcache might help too, especially if your RAM is slow. Bitcoin Core can be a resource hog and that can freeze the UI.
Running disk-heavy tasks on an HDD while the UI freezes is a disaster waiting to happen, for real. Even good drives struggle with all those small reads and writes.
It’s definitely annoying when it’s syncing. I remember using commands through bitcoin-cli took longer when the GUI was frozen. But once it catches up, it’s smooth sailing.