Did we save the world yesterday? Maybe, perhaps, who knows...
Below is a brief recapture of what happened yesterday (a dev asked me to make a bug report, but let's gather first all info...)
Prelude:
- Forks happen all the time, you could say with every new block. With every cryptocoin that is out there, and the clients notice this soon and bring you back on track.
- In general all the clients agree themselves and make a "consensus" which chain will be the "correct one", from their POV.
So, how do you actually know that something is "wrong" in your Gridcoin client?
- You suddenly stake too fast blocks, or you see a red out-of-sync notice, ...
- See more here.
So, what to do when you notice you are on a fork?
- check your block hash with fediverse on IRC (use the !blocks and !verify commands): if your current block's hash (e.g. for #958826) is wrong, please also check 10 blocks past (e.g. #958816). If 958816 and upper blocks are fine, likely your client will self-heal and you can enjoy your cup of coffee
- If you notice though, that the hashes are wrong for a longer series: please restart your client (your client will try to fix your situation at start)
- If this still does NOT help: ask first in IRC what to do (the most likely answer will be to use the !snapshot or !bootstrap).
The situation today is GOOD (and also was good yesterday after like 1-2h):
- we have >70 million net weight
- gridcoinstats is special and OK (it may swing from time to time to past blocks but recovers soon enough to the correct chain)
- asia is still lagging, but it's on the correct chain
- holy transaction is still way in the past
What we can conclude here already is:
- a few more public explorers (and nodes) wouldn't hurt, especially since the admins of the current block explorers are lazy... only the admin of gridcoinstats was quick to reply and act in chat. If you have free time, why don't you set up one also ? fediverse uses the current public explorers for its DPP (disaster prevention plan) feature
So, what happened yesterday?
- Yesterday, around 17:30 PM UTC+2 we noticed block explorers were on a fork/out-of-sync/lagging and also several users reported such...
- and the netweight around that time in my Gridcoin client dropped to 44.6 million (the last few days net weight was in the ranges of 70-100 million)
17:33:
- me: let me quickly verify the overall situation on the block explorers and such
- me: Holy transaction still fighting they are at: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 (they have some problems since a few weeks now)
- me: yes, gridcoinstats is off ( has different hash)
- me: Asia is OK, but lags
The net weight fell down more to 42.9 million
while the "other" fork/chain was at like 13-17.2 million
I sent out a tweet also.
At 6:20 PM we reached again >60 million netweight which was a good sign (see (A)).
So, did we save the world yesterday ?
- Maybe, perhaps, who knows... but coordinating in IRC and slack that users get on the right track helps prevent that a disaster will happen (A). At the last major fork event in March we contacted exchanges/services to halt Gridcoin, and one effect of that was that users could not deposit/withdraw e.g. on Poloniex for several weeks (also fault of Poloniex for not reacting on support tickets)
- Also, keep this in mind: normally clients handle consensus themselves... Actions like telling users to restart their clients "influences"... If evil-minded persons with enough planning beforehand do such a thing: it can lead to manipulation
(A)
from irc (there are more factors, but for now this explanation is "good enough"):
me: the weight is not so the factor
me: it's like a virus
me: the connections determine it mostly
me: if you have bad neighbours you won't ever recover
me: from the weight we see if it is same net weight as before it was known
me: that gives then a more trustful feeling
me: see also:
me: "Warn when the wallet is likely on a fork" https://github.com/gridcoin/Gridcoin-Research/issues/270
me: and I may note that this was CLOSED as won't fix (I disagree)
me: so basically, we had before: 70-80 million netweight
me: and now I have 45 million
me: the other chain has 14 million
me: makes like 20 million for a possible 3rd chain we don't know yet of
me: and thus you could say the 45 million one is "the winner"
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
To the people who were yesterday on the fork:
fresh feedback, we know that "self-healing" doesn't work, so when you are on a fork, just restart yor client please. more info here
We have again reports (at least 2 users and 1 block explorer) that there is a fork:
Please verify that for block 959133 you get hash:
e.g. by executing:
in your debug console in menu.
Or just come to irc and type the !blocks or !verify commands (with !blocks you see the newest, uptodate blocks other Gridcoin nodes are on)
In case you have a wrong hash:
I have a question: reducing the time block may help at decreasing the forks? I know this will also slow transactions.
12 days later:
Gridcoin: please verify your hashes! There was/is a fork situation about 3h ago!
https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@erkan/gridcoin-fork-situation-about-3h-ago
see also: