Merge pull request #15 from janb84/fix/RPC_Bitcoin_v31_fixes

Fix RPC compatibility with Bitcoin Core v31

Author: janb84

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -2,6 +2,16 @@
 
 All notable changes to bitcoin-tui are documented here.
 
+## [0.7.1] - 2026-03-17
+
+### Changed
+- RPC client now uses HTTP/1.1 with `Connection: close` to fix empty-response errors against Bitcoin Core
+- Default RPC timeout increased from 10s to 30s to accommodate slow responses during initial startup (mempool load, IBD catch-up)
+- Removed `Start height` field from peer detail overlay — `startingheight` is deprecated in Bitcoin Core v31 and will be removed in v32
+
+### Fixed
+- Improved RPC error messages: timeout and connection-closed failures are now reported distinctly instead of both showing as "Empty response from Bitcoin Core"
+
 ## [0.7.0] - 2026-03-09
 
 ### Added

CMakeLists.txt

@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.14)
-project(bitcoin-tui VERSION 0.7.0 LANGUAGES CXX)
+project(bitcoin-tui VERSION 0.7.1 LANGUAGES CXX)
 
 set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 20)
 set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)

src/poll.cpp

@@ -73,7 +73,6 @@ void poll_rpc(RpcClient& rpc, AppState& state, std::mutex& mtx,
                 peer.version         = p.value("version", 0);
                 peer.synced_blocks   = p.value("synced_blocks", 0LL);
                 peer.conntime        = p.value("conntime", 0LL);
-                peer.startingheight  = p.value("startingheight", 0LL);
                 peer.connection_type = p.value("connection_type", "");
                 peer.transport       = p.value("transport_protocol_type", "");
                 peer.addr_processed  = p.value("addr_processed", 0LL);

src/render.cpp

@@ -376,7 +376,6 @@ Element render_peer_detail(const PeerInfo& p, const PeerActionResult& action, in
         label_value("  Recv        : ", fmt_bytes(p.bytes_recv)),
         label_value("  Sent        : ", fmt_bytes(p.bytes_sent)),
         label_value("  Height      : ", fmt_height(p.synced_blocks)),
-        label_value("  Start height: ", fmt_height(p.startingheight)),
         label_value("  HB compact  : ", hb),
         label_value("  Addrs proc  : ", fmt_int(p.addr_processed)),
     };

src/rpc_client.cpp

@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 #include <sys/socket.h>
 #include <unistd.h>
 
+#include <cerrno>
 #include <cstring>
 
 RpcClient::RpcClient(RpcConfig config) : config_(std::move(config)) {}
@@ -81,9 +82,10 @@ std::string RpcClient::http_post(const std::string& body) {
     }
     freeaddrinfo(res);
 
-    // Build HTTP/1.0 request (avoids chunked transfer encoding)
+    // Build HTTP/1.1 request with Connection: close so the server closes after
+    // responding, allowing recv() to reach EOF without waiting for a timeout.
     const std::string auth    = base64_encode(config_.user + ":" + config_.password);
-    const std::string request = "POST / HTTP/1.0\r\n"
+    const std::string request = "POST / HTTP/1.1\r\n"
                                 "Host: " +
                                 config_.host +
                                 "\r\n"
@@ -94,6 +96,7 @@ std::string RpcClient::http_post(const std::string& body) {
                                 "Content-Length: " +
                                 std::to_string(body.size()) +
                                 "\r\n"
+                                "Connection: close\r\n"
                                 "\r\n" +
                                 body;
 
@@ -115,10 +118,18 @@ std::string RpcClient::http_post(const std::string& body) {
     while ((n = recv(sock, buf, sizeof(buf), 0)) > 0) {
         response.append(buf, static_cast<size_t>(n));
     }
+    const int recv_errno = errno;
     close(sock);
 
     if (response.empty()) {
-        throw RpcError("Empty response from Bitcoin Core");
+        if (n < 0 && (recv_errno == EAGAIN || recv_errno == EWOULDBLOCK))
+            throw RpcError("RPC timeout — Bitcoin Core did not respond within " +
+                           std::to_string(config_.timeout_seconds) + "s");
+        else if (n < 0)
+            throw RpcError("recv() failed: " + std::string(strerror(recv_errno)));
+        else
+            throw RpcError(
+                "Empty response from Bitcoin Core — connection closed before any data was sent");
     }
 
     // Extract HTTP status

src/rpc_client.hpp

@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ struct RpcConfig {
     int         port = 8332;
     std::string user;
     std::string password;
-    int         timeout_seconds = 10;
+    int         timeout_seconds = 30;
 };
 
 class RpcClient {

src/state.hpp

@@ -36,7 +36,6 @@ struct PeerInfo {
     int64_t     synced_blocks = 0;
     int64_t     conntime      = 0;
     std::string services;
-    int64_t     startingheight = 0;
     bool        bip152_hb_from = false;
     bool        bip152_hb_to   = false;
     std::string connection_type;