Sometimes electrum-server fails to start when not fully synced with bitcoind

[gits7r]

After several reboots for applying updates electrum-server refused to start with bitcoind and catch up on the blockchain. Here is the traceback:

Exception in thread Thread-4:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/threading.py", line 810, in __bootstrap_inner
self.run()
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/threading.py", line 763, in run
self.__target(_self.__args, *_self.__kwargs)
File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/electrumserver/blockchain_processor.py", line 104, in do_catch_up
self.header = self.block2header(self.bitcoind('getblock', (self.storage.last_hash,)))
File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/electrumserver/blockchain_processor.py", line 171, in bitcoind
raise BaseException(r['error'])
BaseException: {u'message': u'Block not found', u'code': -5}

[EagleTM]

It basically means bitcoind is not synced up yet and you should wait for that to happen. I was under the impression we're catching "Block not found" with a better error message like "bitcoind probably not synced up yet" but looks like that's not the case.

[gits7r]

Yes but almost every time when bitcoind is not synced up electrum returns: Bitcoind still warming up while keeps running and waits for bitcoind to warm up... while in this particular case described here (which happens rare which is true) electrum-server dies with the stack trace above.