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

[Quantus]

 Is it working? Is the Orphaned chain growing or what?

[SlaveInDebt]

Before I knew this was going on, I sent 2btc to my Mtgox account. After I found out, I downgraded to 7.2 and synched up. Now the transaction still shows but 0 confirmations. I wonder how long it's going to take to confirm, or get cancelled or whatever. I just hope my BTC don't disappear into limbo.

Have a transaction from 8 blocks ago showing as confirmed but has not shown on the other end. On 0.8.

[oakpacific]

Is it working? Is the Orphaned chain growing or what?

Seems to be faster then expected.

[Bitobsessed]

Please explain how the timestamp of block 225449(2013-03-12 05:30:02) is before block 225448(2013-03-12 05:33:45)?

[zvs]

Please explain how the timestamp of block 225449(2013-03-12 05:30:02) is before block 225448(2013-03-12 05:33:45)?

one of the two has the wrong time on their server

[dave111223]

What if the .7 chain never catches the .8 chain?

Correct me if I'm wrong but if many miners abandon the .8 chain won't the difficulty adjust down, so that even though there are much few miners on the .8 chain they will still be able to stay ahead of the .7 chain due to the decreased difficulty?

If this were to happen would the .7 miners have to concede defeat to the .8 chain and switch or would they continue on and at that point we'd have 2 versions of bitcoin?

The .8 chain still seem to be growing and still has pools mining it?

[Jan]

We are soon going to witness the largest re-org in my time in bitcoin land. We will have thousands of computers worldwide doing a 24+ block reorg around the same time. Now I am looking for headlines saying "Mysterious power consumption spike worldwide, aliens or terrorists?"
 

[zvs]

What if the .7 chain never catches the .8 chain?

Correct me if I'm wrong but if many miners abandon the .8 chain won't the difficulty adjust down, so that even though there are much few miners on the .8 chain they will still be able to stay ahead of the .7 chain due to the decreased difficulty?

If this were to happen would the .7 miners have to concede defeat to the .8 chain and switch or would they continue on and at that point we'd have 2 versions of bitcoin?

The .8 chain still seem to be growing and still has pools mining it?

it has grown by 1 in the last 2 hrs, some btcguild block

difficulty adjusts don't happen that frequently

ed: nm.  looks like that btcguild was on the other side.  yeah, just 1

[beekeeper]

God, phone monitor failed again, waked up too late...

[gyverlb]

Please explain how the timestamp of block 225449(2013-03-12 05:30:02) is before block 225448(2013-03-12 05:33:45)?

Timestamps can be moved forward or backward (X-Roll-Ntime IIRC) to generate new nonce.

[dscotese]

Before I knew this was going on, I sent 2btc to my Mtgox account. After I found out, I downgraded to 7.2 and synched up. Now the transaction still shows but 0 confirmations. I wonder how long it's going to take to confirm, or get cancelled or whatever. I just hope my BTC don't disappear into limbo.

Have a transaction from 8 blocks ago showing as confirmed but has not shown on the other end. On 0.8.

Your 0.8 client is still using what it thinks is the real chain, which is losing hashing power and being intentionally abandoned, so no miner has added a block with your transaction to what 0.8 sees as the real chain.  Once the 0.7 chain catches up, the 0.8 client will see that the 0.7 chain is the correct one and you'll see your transaction in the 0.8 client too.

[oakpacific]

http://blockchain.info/blocks/1363065731715

Is it 5 blocks apart ATM?

[dave111223]

What if the .7 chain never catches the .8 chain?

Correct me if I'm wrong but if many miners abandon the .8 chain won't the difficulty adjust down, so that even though there are much few miners on the .8 chain they will still be able to stay ahead of the .7 chain due to the decreased difficulty?

If this were to happen would the .7 miners have to concede defeat to the .8 chain and switch or would they continue on and at that point we'd have 2 versions of bitcoin?

The .8 chain still seem to be growing and still has pools mining it?

it has grown by 1 in the last 2 hrs, some btcguild block

difficulty adjusts don't happen that frequently

ed: nm.  looks like that btcguild was on the other side.  yeah, just 1

How often does difficulty get adjusted if the hashing power is greatly reduced?

Looking at this http://blockchain.info/pools  BTCguild has a large 22% of total network hashrate, should we be worried that they are still working on the 0.8 chain?

[Bitobsessed]

http://blockchain.info/blocks/1363065731715

Is it 5 blocks apart ATM?

Yes, you can see it catching up here too now:  http://blockchain.info

This is insane, I have learned more today about Bitcoin than in the last 6 months.

[laughingbear]

What if the .7 chain never catches the .8 chain?

Correct me if I'm wrong but if many miners abandon the .8 chain won't the difficulty adjust down, so that even though there are much few miners on the .8 chain they will still be able to stay ahead of the .7 chain due to the decreased difficulty?

If this were to happen would the .7 miners have to concede defeat to the .8 chain and switch or would they continue on and at that point we'd have 2 versions of bitcoin?

The .8 chain still seem to be growing and still has pools mining it?

it has grown by 1 in the last 2 hrs, some btcguild block

difficulty adjusts don't happen that frequently

ed: nm.  looks like that btcguild was on the other side.  yeah, just 1

How often does difficulty get adjusted if the hashing power is greatly reduced?

Looking at this http://blockchain.info/pools  BTCguild has a large 22% of total network hashrate, should we be worried that they are still working on the 0.8 chain?

Id switch pools

[zvs]

What if the .7 chain never catches the .8 chain?

Correct me if I'm wrong but if many miners abandon the .8 chain won't the difficulty adjust down, so that even though there are much few miners on the .8 chain they will still be able to stay ahead of the .7 chain due to the decreased difficulty?

If this were to happen would the .7 miners have to concede defeat to the .8 chain and switch or would they continue on and at that point we'd have 2 versions of bitcoin?

The .8 chain still seem to be growing and still has pools mining it?

it has grown by 1 in the last 2 hrs, some btcguild block

difficulty adjusts don't happen that frequently

ed: nm.  looks like that btcguild was on the other side.  yeah, just 1

How often does difficulty get adjusted if the hashing power is greatly reduced?

Looking at this http://blockchain.info/pools  BTCguild has a large 22% of total network hashrate, should we be worried that they are still working on the 0.8 chain?

From what I understand, it's just one of their servers that hasn't been downgraded.  Not sure how much of the total hashing power (of BTCGuild) that it has..

Difficulty is adjusted every ~2000 (ed2: 2016... I think.  hah) blocks.  I suppose some people could keep going on the orphaned side, but it won't matter anymore (after this pre 0.8 side catches up)....  

Uh, I forgot what that other orphaned chain was, but it depended on people upgrading their clients, not downgrading... orphaned blocks on that one continued to grow for months...  I doubt it'd be the same for a downgrade

[Jan]

I personally am surprised and delighted that we move in this direction (back to the universal fork as trunk) rather than force an upgrade. 

So am I.

I thought only once banks or governments start cracking down on Bitcoin we will appreciate Bitcoins's capability of graceful degration [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault-tolerant_system] but it only took a flaw to proove that it has that capability.

My deep respect for the devs who took this issue on and solved it. You guys made Bitcoin and my believe in it even stronger.

To blockchain eternity!

Joe

I think I kinda understand why this is a good thing, but can you explain like I'm five? Basically, why would it have been bad to let the 0.8 chain continue?

Is the reason that it'd "force" older users to upgrade and that's a mean thing to do?

I imagine that most services and many pools haven't upgraded to 0.8 yet, it is simply a safer bet to wait. (You can ask Gareth what BitInstant is running on)
If we stayed on 0.8 it would take a LONG time for all services to get up to snuff. By going back to 0.7 everyone will be aligned within a few hours.


 

[DoomDumas]

ok, every software has its bugs. Anyway, the soonest you discover and correct the bug, the better 

In this case, it was a matter of minutes !   Gratz to the Devs !!!

[Quantus]

 

http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/03/major-glitch-in-bitcoin-network-sparks-sell-off-price-temporarily-falls-23/

[oakpacific]

ok, every software has its bugs. Anyway, the soonest you discover and correct the bug, the better 

In this case, it was a matter of minutes !   Gratz to the Devs !!!

I am not sure how well the things will work out after this network becomes much larger then the small community we are having now.