How to fix this problem with Ethereum Wallet in order to convert DAO tokens into ethers using the withdrawal contract after the hard fork?

Question

I am trying to convert The DAO tokens into ethers using the instructions for Ethereum Wallet as outlined in How do I convert my The DAO tokens into ethers using the withdrawal contract after the hard fork?.

When I start Ethereum Wallet (version 0.8.7), I do not receive the question "Do you want to activate the chain in which funds linked to the exploit are restored to a contract where they can be withdrawn by The DAO token holders?".

I get this error message:

Couldn't connect to node. 
Node type: geth
Network: main
Platform: darwin (Architecure x64)
...flag provided but not defined: -support-dao-fork

Am hoping someone can advise on how to fix this.

Thanks so much!

Answer 1

Here are some steps I would try.

Install the latest version of Ethereum Wallet 0.8.8

Restart your computer to make sure that any old version of geth you are running is terminated.

From https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases, download Ethereum-Wallet-macosx-0-8-8.dmg onto your hard disk. Navigate with Finder to your download directory and double-click on the downloaded file. You will see the following installation screen:

Drag the Ethereum logo icon on the top into the Applications icon. If you are asked whether you want to "Keep Both", "Stop" or "Replace", select "Replace".

From Launchpad, run the newly installed Ethereum Wallet application. Ethereum should download the latest version of geth 1.5.5 and start running it.

If your Ethereum Wallet launches successfully, starts syncing and the the block number on the center top of Ethereum Wallet matches the "Last Block" block from https://etherscan.io/ then your blockchain is synced correctly.

Here is the block from the center top of Ethereum Wallet:

And here is the latest block from https://etherscan.io/:

If you are still having problems with syncing

Close Ethereum Wallet.

In your Terminal,

Iota:~ user$ cd $HOME/Library/Application\ Support/Ethereum\ Wallet/binaries/Geth/unpacked
Iota:unpacked user$ pwd 
/Users/user/Library/Application Support/Ethereum Wallet/binaries/Geth/unpacked
Iota:unpacked user$ ls -al
total 58096
drwxr-xr-x  6 bok  staff       204 19 Dec 16:12 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 bok  staff       136 25 Nov 11:26 ..
drwxr-xr-x  4 bok  staff       136  1 Jan  1970 geth-darwin-amd64-1.5.3-978737f5
drwxr-xr-x  4 bok  staff       136  1 Jan  1970 geth-darwin-amd64-1.5.5-ff07d548

Iota:unpacked user$ cd geth-darwin-amd64-1.5.5-ff07d548
Iota:geth-darwin-amd64-1.5.5-ff07d548 user$ ls -al
total 58160
drwxr-xr-x  4 bok  staff       136  1 Jan  1970 .
drwxr-xr-x  4 bok  staff       136 21 Dec 23:55 ..
-rw-r--r--  1 bok  staff     32397 15 Dec 01:35 COPYING
-rwxr-xr-x  1 bok  staff  29743692 15 Dec 01:37 geth

Now run geth to remove your old blockchain data

Iota:geth-darwin-amd64-1.5.5-ff07d548 user$ ./geth removedb
/Users/user/Library/Ethereum/geth/chaindata
Remove this database? [y/N] y

Now fast sync your blockchain data

Iota:geth-darwin-amd64-1.5.5-ff07d548 user$ ./geth --fast console

It should take several hours on a reasonably fast broadband connection to fast sync your blockchain data. After this you should be able to run Ethereum Wallet successfully.