There is very high packet loss right now (network issue). I'm looking into it.

There are many users connected with Stratum proxy right now without problems. Except that they send my server an error if it asks them which software/version they are running and that's spamming my logs a bit. That appears to be a bug in recent versions of the stratum proxy.

Are you seeing any errors? Maybe you just have the names/password wrong? Or you are not using the correct hostname and port: host mint.bitminter.com and port 3333

Running out of work can happen if the server is slow or the network between you and the server is slow or down. At one point today there was 20% packetloss, probably due to a problem at the data center, which would cause such a slowdown. This should not happen often.

The message about not getting any results happens if the device was given lots of work but found no results. It may be that the work it was given simply didn't contain any valid proofs of work for it to find. But it can also be that the device has failed for some reason. Because the Icarus protocol is very primitive, it's impossible for your computer to tell the difference. So it sends the device some data it knows that it will respond to, and looks for that response. If there is no response even then, that means there is something wrong.

I think that's likely to be because of the network issues earlier today. Looks like the client was delayed in getting more work and in sending in proofs of work it had found. Then the network cleared up but there had been a block change and the proofs of work were stale.

There is a lot of blade hashpower in the pool already.

It does look like the blades can't mine directly in the pool, but it works through Stratum proxy. I don't know what the reason is, I don't have a blade to test with and I don't have any technical data on them whatsoever. I'm guessing their Stratum implementation is a little sensitive. Perhaps the server asking them what their software/version is causes them to disconnect. Perhaps it's something else.

Are you getting an error message that might help?

Nice to hear

Minimize is not the same as performance mode. It minimizes to task bar or system tray, depending on whether or not you turned on the "minimize the systray" option. As GPU mining goes it is as fast as performance mode. The thing with performance is that not drawing a lot of animated gauges etc. speeds up mining a little bit. You can do that either with performance mode or by minimizing the window.


I don't think it's a good idea if users change their user name a lot, but if it's a one time thing send me a message through the "contact" page of the website and I can fix it for you. You'll need to update the miners when the name has changed though as they won't be able to connect after the switch has been made.

Workers are never really deleted. They are just marked as removed. This is exactly for keeping tabs on work done by all the "deleted" workers.


A lot of users ask for LTC mining. I'm very busy with some other features right now. When I have more time I will look at LTC and see if it makes sense to add it.


It really depends on the GPU model, and maybe even the driver version. So you just have to try it and see.

Yes, it looks like there was some sort of problem. There was 20% packet loss for a while. But the traffic wasn't that high. Likely an issue at the data center.

Thank you kind sirs!

To run with Block Erupter, get Silabs drivers: http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx

Note that because the Block Erupter has 1 chip versus the Icarus with 2, BitMinter client gets confused and shows twice the actual hashrate.

If you use Mac OS X: this gives serial ports with a different filename than the usual /dev/usbserial* from FTDI. With the current BitMinter client that won't work automatically, so you have to open a Terminal window and type to find the name. Probably /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART. If you have multiple units then they will also have a number at the end. Then click "devices" -> "probe specific port" in the menu, and type in the full path, /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART - the device should be detected.

I'm hoping to have a new release to fix these two issues soon.

Ditch Zadig/libusb and install drivers from http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx then it will work.

The hashrate is estimated based on an Icarus with 2x FPGA splitting the nonce range between them. That doesn't get the correct hashrate with the Block Erupter. I'll have this fixed in a future version.

The API perk will become cheaper and some new perks will be added as soon as I have time.


Not sure what happened there. Was cgminer still showing a normal hashrate? Were proofs of work still being accepted?

Thanks, that's good to know

Everything looks normal again, knock on wood.

I haven't tested that, but I believe it should work fine.

It's a ddos. UDP traffic hammering the server. Right now it's holding up, though.

Update: going up and down as the attack changes

Looks like network problems with the mining server. Not sure if it is a ddos or datacenter outage yet.

Awesome. Thanks for confirming. I'll get that and the hashrate issue fixed.

I don't have any Block Erupter USB units to test with, but I'm starting to figure this out.

The hashrate currently shows 2x what it should be. This is because the Icarus device had 2 FPGAs which split the noncerange between them, while apparently the Block Erupter has 1 chip doing the nonce range from start to finish.


Did you have to "probe specific port" to get that working?

What I suspect to be the solution:

Instead of FTDI drivers, get Silabs drivers: http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx

On Mac OS X this gives serial ports with a different filename than the usual /dev/usbserial* from FTDI. With the current BitMinter client that won't work automatically, so you have to open a Terminal window and type to find the name. Probably /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART. If you have multiple units then they will also have a number at the end. Then click "devices" -> "probe specific port" in the menu, and type in the full path, /dev/cu.SLAB_USBtoUART - the device should be detected. Not confirmed to be working yet, so a confirmation would be useful.

Nice income from this block:

http://bitminter.com/block/btc/00000000000000e4f0602a717f43b8fd483ea46689a483b268a47eb06541d4fc

Over 36 BTC. I guess someone made a typo when adding a fee to their transaction.

Maybe it's something with the Stratum implementation in the blades. Do they give you an error message?