bitcoin daemon crashing on initial block download

I'm trying to do the initial block download so I can run a full node. Didn't experience any issues until the download got to about 87% then bitcoind crashed without logging any errors. I've tried restarting it several times, however each time when I come back to my computer a few hours later to check on it I find that it has crashed and any download progress has been lost.

I am doing this on my personal laptop, using a 1 terabyte external hard drive (not SSD) and a wired Ethernet connection. I have disabled sleep on my computer and have been leaving it plugged into power.

Details:

• OS: Ubuntu 22.04.5 LTS
• CPU architecture: x86_64
• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7500U CPU @ 2.70GHz
• RAM: 16gb
• Internet speed: 90 Mbit/s download
• Bitcoin Core version: v27.0.0

This is the command I'm using to run the daemon:

bitcoind -daemon -debug -datadir=/media/me/TOSHIBA\ EXT/bitcoin/ -dbcache=10000

This is the last 25 lines from the debug.log file before it crashed:

2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] Enqueuing MempoolTransactionsRemovedForBlock: block height=830276 txs removed=0
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z UpdateTip: new best=00000000000000000001914a6db5b53b3f8d673fbd9ebc1a569f37ccbbf97861 height=830276 version=0x20c98000 log2_work=94.729419 tx=965218034 date='2024-02-13T10:37:40Z' progress=0.888359 cache=2550.2MiB(20688484txo)
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [bench]   - Connect postprocess: 0.40ms [3.08s (0.70ms/blk)]
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [bench] - Connect block: 2522.60ms [6781.75s (1545.87ms/blk)]
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] Enqueuing BlockConnected: block hash=00000000000000000001914a6db5b53b3f8d673fbd9ebc1a569f37ccbbf97861 block height=830276
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] Enqueuing UpdatedBlockTip: new block hash=00000000000000000001914a6db5b53b3f8d673fbd9ebc1a569f37ccbbf97861 fork block hash=000000000000000000018e3f91a815472d0d994b832624751bbfbac25aa739cf (in IBD=true)
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] MempoolTransactionsRemovedForBlock: block height=830273 txs removed=0
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [estimatefee] Blockpolicy estimates updated by 0 of 0 block txs, since last block 0 of 0 tracked, mempool map size 0, max target 0 from current
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] BlockConnected: block hash=000000000000000000031be2ac7b85a7db0493498a39f4580be01431134e4c13 block height=830273
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] UpdatedBlockTip: new block hash=000000000000000000031be2ac7b85a7db0493498a39f4580be01431134e4c13 fork block hash=00000000000000000003238c6e2e4551b0b5375ae52499bf03bf5de12a29e2bf (in IBD=true)
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] MempoolTransactionsRemovedForBlock: block height=830274 txs removed=0
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [estimatefee] Blockpolicy estimates updated by 0 of 0 block txs, since last block 0 of 0 tracked, mempool map size 0, max target 0 from current
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] BlockConnected: block hash=00000000000000000000f3e8fcccf8ee483ebed02694c5773780a61a17a95037 block height=830274
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] UpdatedBlockTip: new block hash=00000000000000000000f3e8fcccf8ee483ebed02694c5773780a61a17a95037 fork block hash=000000000000000000031be2ac7b85a7db0493498a39f4580be01431134e4c13 (in IBD=true)
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] MempoolTransactionsRemovedForBlock: block height=830275 txs removed=0
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [estimatefee] Blockpolicy estimates updated by 0 of 0 block txs, since last block 0 of 0 tracked, mempool map size 0, max target 0 from current
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] BlockConnected: block hash=000000000000000000018e3f91a815472d0d994b832624751bbfbac25aa739cf block height=830275
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] UpdatedBlockTip: new block hash=000000000000000000018e3f91a815472d0d994b832624751bbfbac25aa739cf fork block hash=00000000000000000000f3e8fcccf8ee483ebed02694c5773780a61a17a95037 (in IBD=true)
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] MempoolTransactionsRemovedForBlock: block height=830276 txs removed=0
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [estimatefee] Blockpolicy estimates updated by 0 of 0 block txs, since last block 0 of 0 tracked, mempool map size 0, max target 0 from current
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] BlockConnected: block hash=00000000000000000001914a6db5b53b3f8d673fbd9ebc1a569f37ccbbf97861 block height=830276
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [validation] UpdatedBlockTip: new block hash=00000000000000000001914a6db5b53b3f8d673fbd9ebc1a569f37ccbbf97861 fork block hash=000000000000000000018e3f91a815472d0d994b832624751bbfbac25aa739cf (in IBD=true)
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [bench]   - Load block from disk: 194.05ms
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [bench]     - Sanity checks: 4.44ms [12.23s (2.79ms/blk)]
2024-09-14T03:44:04Z [bench]     - Fork checks: 0.04ms [0.14s (0.03ms/blk)]

Things I've already tried:

• run the daemon with debugging enabled and check the debug.log file for obvious problems
• check if the external hard drive is corrupted: I've run some tests using smartctl and badblocks and they haven't reported any issues
• experiment with different values for dbcache
• look up the last block hash listed in the debug.log file in a public block explorer to verify it exists
• look at the bitcoin source code where the last log comes from (validation.cpp line 2592). If I had to guess I'd say maybe something between that and the next log on line 2683 is causing bitcoind to crash without logging anything.

I would really appreciate any help with this. I'm finding it really hard to debug because I have to leave my computer running overnight to see if it crashes every time I try something new.

Id try running a 'pruned' node to see whether its a problem with hard drive space.

bitcoind -prune=100

This will download the latest blocks whilst keeping total blockchain size < 100Mb.

If you get this working you know its a size issue. Should be faster for debugging too.

Id also invest in a SSD for better performance if your running it longer term.