doc: clarify pruning impact on wallet sync
What changed, and why it matters
This commit only updates user-facing help text and a tooltip to explain that wallets and indexes should be loaded and kept active while block pruning is enabled. It is a documentation-only change with no code behavior changes, no bug fix, and no security patch.
No security action needed. Treat as a normal documentation update.
Security signals we found
No strong security signals were identified.
Evidence from the diff
The diff modifies two strings: the -prune=<n> argument description in src/init.cpp and the prune checkbox tooltip in src/qt/forms/optionsdialog.ui. Both changes add a warning that wallets/indexes should remain active during pruning to avoid needing a reindex. No executable logic is changed.
Changed components
src/init.cpp (help text only)src/qt/forms/optionsdialog.ui (tooltip text only)Inspect captured patch +2 / −2
diff --git a/src/init.cpp b/src/init.cpp
index c53e5ed6..c042a3f7 100644
--- a/src/init.cpp
+++ b/src/init.cpp
@@ -525,7 +525,7 @@ void SetupServerArgs(ArgsManager& argsman, bool can_listen_ipc)
ArgsManager::ALLOW_ANY, OptionsCategory::OPTIONS);
argsman.AddArg("-pid=<file>", strprintf("Specify pid file. Relative paths will be prefixed by a net-specific datadir location. (default: %s)", BITCOIN_PID_FILENAME), ArgsManager::ALLOW_ANY, OptionsCategory::OPTIONS);
argsman.AddArg("-prune=<n>", strprintf("Reduce storage requirements by enabling pruning (deleting) of old blocks. This allows the pruneblockchain RPC to be called to delete specific blocks and enables automatic pruning of old blocks if a target size in MiB is provided. This mode is incompatible with -txindex. "
- "Warning: Reverting this setting requires re-downloading the entire blockchain. "
+ "Warning: Reverting this setting requires re-downloading the entire blockchain. Wallets and indexes should be loaded at startup and kept active while pruning is enabled so they stay synchronized before old block data is deleted; wallets or indexes that fall behind pruned data may require a reindex. "
"(default: 0 = disable pruning blocks, 1 = allow manual pruning via RPC, >=%u = automatically prune block files to stay under the specified target size in MiB)", MIN_DISK_SPACE_FOR_BLOCK_FILES / 1_MiB), ArgsManager::ALLOW_ANY, OptionsCategory::OPTIONS);
argsman.AddArg("-reindex", "If enabled, wipe chain state and block index, and rebuild them from blk*.dat files on disk. Also wipe and rebuild other optional indexes that are active. If an assumeutxo snapshot was loaded, its chainstate will be wiped as well. The snapshot can then be reloaded via RPC.", ArgsManager::ALLOW_ANY, OptionsCategory::OPTIONS);
argsman.AddArg("-reindex-chainstate", "If enabled, wipe chain state, and rebuild it from blk*.dat files on disk. If an assumeutxo snapshot was loaded, its chainstate will be wiped as well. The snapshot can then be reloaded via RPC.", ArgsManager::ALLOW_ANY, OptionsCategory::OPTIONS);
diff --git a/src/qt/forms/optionsdialog.ui b/src/qt/forms/optionsdialog.ui
index 9ab6b124..ce410bbf 100644
--- a/src/qt/forms/optionsdialog.ui
+++ b/src/qt/forms/optionsdialog.ui
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
<item>
<widget class="QCheckBox" name="prune">
<property name="toolTip">
- <string>Enabling pruning significantly reduces the disk space required to store transactions. All blocks are still fully validated. Reverting this setting requires re-downloading the entire blockchain.</string>
+ <string>Enabling pruning significantly reduces the disk space required to store transactions. All blocks are still fully validated. Wallets should be loaded at startup and kept active while pruning is enabled so they stay synchronized before old block data is deleted; wallets that fall behind pruned data may require a reindex. Reverting this setting requires re-downloading the entire blockchain.</string>
</property>
<property name="text">
<string>Prune &block storage to</string>
Why this scored 15/100
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