Hey everyone, I’m running a blockchain full node (Geth for Ethereum) on a DigitalOcean Droplet (Ubuntu 22.04, 8GB RAM, 160GB SSD). Everything works fine initially, but once the node finishes syncing, it either crashes or becomes unresponsive within a few hours. Here’s what I’ve done so far: Checked system logs (journalctl and syslog) – no clear crash messages Monitored RAM and CPU usage – RAM usage spikes just before it dies Tried using swap space (added 2GB) – still crashes, just slower I’m wondering: Is there something specific I should configure at the OS or Geth level for stability? Could this be an I/O bottleneck with the Droplet’s SSD? Would upgrading to a CPU-optimized Droplet or enabling additional caching help? Thanks in advance for any suggestions or similar experiences!

- Community
- DigitalOcean
- Community
- DigitalOcean

Question

Blockchain Node on Droplet Keeps Crashing After Sync – Need Help Diagnosing

Posted on May 2, 2025
Blockchain
Asked by c47b996f44304e70afeb1bc98107f5

Hey everyone,

I’m running a blockchain full node (Geth for Ethereum) on a DigitalOcean Droplet (Ubuntu 22.04, 8GB RAM, 160GB SSD). Everything works fine initially, but once the node finishes syncing, it either crashes or becomes unresponsive within a few hours.

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

Checked system logs (journalctl and syslog) – no clear crash messages
Monitored RAM and CPU usage – RAM usage spikes just before it dies
Tried using swap space (added 2GB) – still crashes, just slower

I’m wondering:

Is there something specific I should configure at the OS or Geth level for stability?
Could this be an I/O bottleneck with the Droplet’s SSD?
Would upgrading to a CPU-optimized Droplet or enabling additional caching help?

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or similar experiences!

Submit an answer

This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.

Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• May 5, 2025

Hi there,

I think that this is pretty common with full nodes. Once it’s synced, the I/O load and memory usage spike hard because it’s constantly writing state and handling new blocks.

You can try adding more swap (at least 4–8GB), but it’s a band-aid. Might be better to go with a CPU-optimized Droplet.

But first, check if OOM killer is nuking the process (dmesg | grep -i kill). That will tell you if you actually just need more RAM. But it sounds like you’ll likely just need more RAM.

Let me know how it goes!

- Bobby