Alert: chain fork caused by pre-0.8 clients dealing badly with large blocks

[evoorhees]

So if I may say something... I learned about this glitch fairly early on and immediately hopped into the bitcoin-dev IRC room. The impression I got was one of many brilliant, professional, dedicated bitcoin developers working together to resolve the issue. I was immensely impressed with them.

Even people like Luke-Jr and myself, who seem to be mortal enemies, worked politely together and did what was needed to contain the situation and fix things. Most of the people in the room stayed respectfully quiet and let the important work occur.

To all the amazingly intelligent devs who make this crazy shit actually work, my hat is off to you (even you, Luke-Jr!). Eternally impressed with your work, coordination, and skill. And this all being done for the simple passion of Bitcoin. Quite inspiring, really.

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[conv3rsion]

why the hell is Deepbit only on 0.3.21

Tycho has been very resistent to any change.

... and Luke on 0.6.0?

Eligius is actually running both 0.6.0 and 0.8.0 concurrently, but has 0.6.0 prioritized so it trumps 0.8.0 when there's a conflict.
It noticed and began reporting the problem immediately, but I guess wizkid057 was busy with something at the time.

Its awesome how fast you caught this issue because of your setup.

[dscotese]

Atlas warned about database change some time ago. Original discussion here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=119566.0;all

I remember that and I remember that I dismissed the warning.  I stand by the dismissal.  Watch this get corrected to see why.

For example:

Back up to $45+ ALREADY??  Could this widespread bug, and it's fairly fast community-assisted response, maybe actually bolster confidence in bitcoins?  Or am I getting ahead of myself?

[symbot]

Gavin just tweeted this:  https://twitter.com/gavinandresen/status/311315494214987778

And suggested we go here for more info:  http://bitcoin.org/chainfork.html

[conv3rsion]

So if I may say something... I learned about this glitch fairly early on and immediately hopped into the bitcoin-dev IRC room. The impression I got was one of many brilliant, professional, dedicated bitcoin developers working together to resolve the issue. I was immensely impressed with them.

Even people like Luke-Jr and myself, who seem to be mortal enemies, worked politely together and did what was needed to contain the situation and fix things. Most of the people in the room stayed respectfully quiet and let the important work occur.

To all the amazingly intelligent devs who make this crazy shit actually work, my hat is off to you (even you, Luke-Jr!). Eternally impressed with your work, coordination, and skill. And this all being done for the simple passion of Bitcoin. Quite inspiring, really.

anyway that chat log can be shared? I know a lot of people would love to read it.

[Raize]

So,
- if you are using 0.8 and mining - stop mining and wait till proper instruction comes from the core development team.
- if you are using 0.7 and mining - stop mining and wait till proper instruction comes from the core development team.

Wait, what? No, just keep mining if on 0.7. Also, this really only affects the pools, not most of the miners.

Tycho has been very resistent to any change.

I thought there was like a 4gb limit on the databases in 0.3.x?

[bg002h]

So if I may say something... I learned about this glitch fairly early on and immediately hopped into the bitcoin-dev IRC room. The impression I got was one of many brilliant, professional, dedicated bitcoin developers working together to resolve the issue. I was immensely impressed with them.

Even people like Luke-Jr and myself, who seem to be mortal enemies, worked politely together and did what was needed to contain the situation and fix things. Most of the people in the room stayed respectfully quiet and let the important work occur.

To all the amazingly intelligent devs who make this crazy shit actually work, my hat is off to you (even you, Luke-Jr!). Eternally impressed with your work, coordination, and skill. And this all being done for the simple passion of Bitcoin. Quite inspiring, really.

Quoted for posterity. Hats off to you gents!

[fresca]

+1 to Devs

[tvbcof]

Atlas warned about database change some time ago. Original discussion here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=119566.0;all

Pffft!  Credit where credit is due...He nailed it by my quick read.

[ehoffman]

It is my understanding that it's still possible for the problem to occur, if someone keep mining on 0.8, right?  As long at 0.8 is in the field...

[joecooin]

Back up to $45+ ALREADY??  Could this widespread bug, and it's fairly fast community-assisted response, maybe actually bolster confidence in bitcoins?  

Yep. Price will go up. Time to buy .

Joe

[felipelalli]

Just writing here to make part of history. "I WAS THERE" when Bitcoin shows the 2nd high level bug!  

[haitispaceagency]

is the price going to plummet

[dscotese]

Atlas warned about database change some time ago. Original discussion here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=119566.0;all

Pffft!  Credit where credit is due...He nailed it by my quick read.

I agree that he nailed it.  The problem is that he proposed a solution that wasn't necessary.  This is like the CEO who says the product has to go through another full QA cycle, costing the company another $350,000 instead of letting the possibly buggy code out because the devs know that the average 200 bugs cost about $25,000 to fix.  We don't bother spending the extra $325,000 just to please a CEO.  Plus, if Atlas was mining and he stayed with 0.7, he'd be (only very slightly) ahead of the game.  The 0.7 miners, consensus has declared, are the winners of the recently completed blocks, not the 0.8 miners.  The blockchain might not yet agree, but we're the sentient ones.

[jgarzik]

It is my understanding that it's still possible for the problem to occur, if someone keep mining on 0.8, right?  As long at 0.8 is in the field...

The defaults for 0.8 mining are just fine.

However, if you increase the default block size limit, you can reintroduce the problem, yes.

Don't worry though.  Now that people are aware of the issue, it is easy to handle.

The fork will "heal", and all coins are safe.

[MooC Tals]

So if I may say something... I learned about this glitch fairly early on and immediately hopped into the bitcoin-dev IRC room. The impression I got was one of many brilliant, professional, dedicated bitcoin developers working together to resolve the issue. I was immensely impressed with them.

Even people like Luke-Jr and myself, who seem to be mortal enemies, worked politely together and did what was needed to contain the situation and fix things. Most of the people in the room stayed respectfully quiet and let the important work occur.

To all the amazingly intelligent devs who make this crazy shit actually work, my hat is off to you (even you, Luke-Jr!). Eternally impressed with your work, coordination, and skill. And this all being done for the simple passion of Bitcoin. Quite inspiring, really.

There is the old bitcoin community I been hearing about. Lets hope it stays like this.

Good job guys... Thumbs up!!!

[fresca]

The large block is unknown as well as the miner right?

[justusranvier]

He nailed it by my quick read.

Not really. No amount of testing of 0.8 would have found a bug in 0.7 that nobody knew about and wasn't looking for.

[SgtSpike]

Is this where the "EXCEPTION:11DbException Db::put: Not enough space" message comes from?

Do I need to do anything on my non-mining client to fix things, or will it auto-fix itself soon?

[Littleshop]

is the price going to plummet

It went down.  Lucky people with cash on the sidelines bought cheap coins, price went back up.