I had an issue with the Mist wallet never finishing syncing, instead it kept downloading "chain structure" for two days, always stuck a couple of hundred blocks behind the most current one...
Here's how I fixed it!
- Close Mist first if it's running.
- Download the latest version of Geth and extract it to somewhere like C:\Geth (https://geth.ethereum.org/downloads/)
- Run CMD.exe (Command Prompt, the black terminal window in Windows) as Administrator (right-click -> Run as Administrator)
- Change directory to where you extracted Geth:
CD C:\Geth - Run the following command to start syncing the blockchain using the light syncmode:
start geth --syncmode light --cache 512 - It should now start syncing. After a while (how long varies), you will notice it reaches the current block and becomes less active. You should now be able to run the Mist wallet without issues again.
- Download and run the latest Mist wallet to avoid other bugs/issues (https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases)
Hope this helps someone out there with the same annoying issue!
Tommy