[BTB] The BitBar Information Thread

[Spidersbox]

what fork? damned fork! what happened?

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[userpike]

I thought a fork is a change in the code. will you explain?

[Spidersbox]

I thought a fork is a change in the code. will you explain?

Ok - simply put, a fork in the blockchain (the long ledger of transactions) can happen when two mining pools (as an example) find a bock at the same time.
Each block in the chain is made up of part of the previous block plus the batch of transactions.

for instance, the current block being 'mined' is #13550. this current block or records has three transactions in it. Let's say pool A and Pool B both find it to be a bonus block at the same time:

  Pool 'A' takes some information from that block (#13550) and adds the new transaction it just made - for finding a bonus block - smashes it together to make a new block - we will call that block #13551

  At the same time, Pool 'B' does the same thing - some stuff from block #13550 plus the transaction it just made for the block it found - smashes it together and puts it out as block #13551

these new blocks have to be verified (confirmed) several times. That's what the miners do, the crunch the numbers, make sure it all adds up - plus record checking stuff -  then passes it along.

So far, pool A being on the west coast doesn't know about transaction from pool B (maybe it's on the east coast?) and we now have two chains.

more in the next post

[Spidersbox]

This happens from time to time, but generally it gets fixed down the line in a block or two. the blocks in the chain get passed around like a 'hot - new mp3 of your favorite group" and eventually get handed to a mining rig to work on.

This is where I am still a little fuzzy on how the mining rigs find out about both transactions - but they do, and in most cases, the early bird get the worm, so to speak, and the looser becomes an orphan - if you have done any mining - you have undoubtedly ran into these.

On rare occasions, pool A sticks with it's fork, and pool B sticks with it's fork, and they just keep going until a transfer fails and all heck breaks loose.
-----------------------------------
The is another instance in which a blockchain becomes forked, and that's referred to as a 51% attack (although I don't think it always happens on purpose)

if pool A has 49% of the total hashing power, and pool B has 51%, pool B will, on average find more blocks - hence create more blocks, and pool A will simply fall behind.

I'm sure there are other circumstances that can cause a fork in the road, but once you have a punctured tire - who cares about the cause at the moment ?  that's for the dev team to work on so it doesn't happen again  

now it's time for questions and corrections, feel free to add both!

edit: forgot to say that yes, I have heard that when the 'code' is handed over to a new dev it can be called a fork. The background in this I think is how the github works. A developer can have a master project, and if someone wants to work on it, they 'fork' it (or duplicate it) to their own work space. then they can work on their own copy and submit there changes to the master developer. In that way - when we get a new dev , they will fork the repository, and if they don't do anything substantial to the way the blockchain works, we will have an updated wallet, without having to re-sync the chain.

[userpike]

ok I think something happened to FRK like that recently because I was mining it @ H2C and even sent coins to my wallet which never appeared (also their TX# don't show in the explorers) then I check back and see like every block I mined was orphaned. The wallet is still sitting in maintenance mode on Cryptsy...The poolmaster said he isn't putting Franko back up until Cryptsy's wallet comes out of maintenance mode. I think I understand now. I'm surprised the code wasn't written so that this can't happen in the first place but I've never DEV'ed a coin before either. Thanks for the explanation.

[userpike]

I'm still receiving coins from mastermining.net last ones on 10/4/2015 2:24

[Spidersbox]

I'm still receiving coins from mastermining.net last ones on 10/4/2015 2:24

They must be on the same fork we are on. I am still mining away on mine.
I'm just waiting to see what Cryptsy does.

[hexdump]

what i found out is as soon my wallet start staking and find block it stucks on the generated block height

[Spidersbox]

what i found out is as soon my wallet start staking and find block it stucks on the generated block height

I can't help you there, I'm still learning, and haven't gotten into the code yet - but I'm thinking that the wallet stakes what is already in it, and once it is old enough it stakes. If the wallet gets lucky and you get some of the stakes, the wallet tries to make a transaction and sends it to the network. this is where I think you (and most of us) are having problems.
The fork we are on is shorter by a little over 200 blocks (last time I checked) so any transactions we try to get added to the chain is a little over 200 blocks behind - and simply won't get accepted.

I strongly suggest nobody send nothing to nobody until this forking problem gets fixed.
Your bitbars on Cryptsy are safe - unless you try to trnsfer them.
Now is an awesome time to buy them, the price is down about 20%

As always, if some one has better information please share!

[userpike]

Are you still mining on your pool right now?

[Spidersbox]

I switched to goldcoin yesterday.
I have 125 pending BTB blocks - and with NOMP pool the chart is really tall, I can't see my other coin blocks.
I will switch back in a few days.
Been buying BTB faster that I can mine them anyway!

[userpike]

I am waiting for them to come back up some so I can sell some. I tapped myself out buying BTB! I could send some BTC to cryptsy but I wanna turn a lil profit and reinvest instead. I am patient. I made a killing on cryptobuk the other day so I am happy but I spent everything on BTB lol I'm still mining @ mastermining.net with about 20MH.

[Spidersbox]

I'm not sure how the fork is going to play out.
Could be turn out to be us on the wrong fork, hate to was the hashrate on a bunch of orphans.
Next two weeks I'm going to be stuck in New York. I hope something starts moving along by the time I get back.
Cryptsy has my ticket marked as "Pending Wallet/Network Fix" so all I can do is wait.

[userpike]

It looks as if me and 1 other person are the only people mining the whole network and we are both @ mastermining. I don't know of any other public pools that host BTB and you said you are mining something else right now. diff is down to like 14ish. I can tell the network hashrate is off @ mastermining but I think it suppossed to be .02GH instead of the .02MH it's showing. ouch, BTB dipped down to like .0015BTC right now. hmm should I move some BTC or not move some BTC? That is the question...

I wish Cryptsy would get Franko squared away already also.

[Spidersbox]

I don't want to be pessimistic, or spread FUD.

I want to use this open forum to answer some questions about the current state of affairs regarding BTB.

I'm limited on my connectivity, so I'll use this posti and edit it as i grab info, over the next 24-48 hours

Very helpful indeed. You do a lot for this community, and I find your information to be very useful.
Thank you!

[userpike]

welp, I tried to withdraw from Cryptsy and the site says there was confirmation but I never received the coins.. I checked the block explorer they have listed in the BTB coin information page on Cryptsy and it is dead. I put in a ticket about the dead link and gave them btb.cryptocoinexplorer.com and they were like "Thanks a million buddy" and that's it...

Thinking it was fixed, I tried a test withdraw and no go..so still on a fork i guess. diff is like around 25 now according to their coin info page and like 7ish on the BTB.cryptocoinexplorer.com I guess since there are more people on that fork, Cryptsy will be sticking with it. But how do we get on that fork??? I wish i knew how to code, I would make this impossible to happen again somehow..

[lukemarshall]

The research I conducted left more broken links, and non-support for Bitbar.

Out of the nine or ten pools that have mined BTB once, the only one left working is mastermining...

Their hash rate has decreased significantly, to about 1.5 mh.

This leads me to conclude that there is an entity out there with more hashing power than the entire network being monitored by Cryptocoinexplorer.com and mined by mastermining.

Basically they are solo mining the chain, the chain that Cryptsy seems to be accepting.

If they say, (cryptsy) they they have confirmed that bitbar has been sent to your account, I would take the address you gave them, dump the private Key in your Qt client, and save it somewhere with the arbitrary amount they say is assigned to that address.

I'm going to email Dreamwatcher @ CCE and let him know his block explorer is not being used, or isn't current with cryptsy.

Mastermining really needs to be notified as well... but here's the slippery slope.

When they (MM) take their pool down for maintenance, there will be no public pools mining Bitbar.

None. (At least from what I gather)

edit: Ispace.co.uk was mining btb with their pool at this time...

[Spidersbox]

Cryptsy's has their BTB wallet in maintenance right now. Guess we will see how it goes. The fork they are on has about 500 blocks more than the one 'we' are on. My gut feeling is that they will stay with the one they are on (I hope I'm wrong..) and we will have to switch - and see how much damage is done. I will probably loose about 60 Bitbars. all well, it's the way it goes sometimes.
I think I will flush the bitbar wallet from my laptop and see how hard it is to switch to the new chain. If successful, I will zip my wallet directory and put it on the Bitbar.co website.  It will take a while.

[userpike]

The research I conducted left more broken links, and non-support for Bitbar.

Out of the nine or ten pools that have mined BTB once, the only one left working is mastermining...

Their hash rate has decreased significantly, to about 1.5 mh.

This leads me to conclude that there is an entity out there with more hashing power than the entire network being monitored by Cryptocoinexplorer.com and mined by mastermining.

Basically they are solo mining the chain, the chain that Cryptsy seems to be accepting.

If they say, (cryptsy) they they have confirmed that bitbar has been sent to your account, I would take the address you gave them, dump the private Key in your Qt client, and save it somewhere with the arbitrary amount they say is assigned to that address.

I'm going to email Dreamwatcher @ CCE and let him know his block explorer is not being used, or isn't current with cryptsy.

Mastermining really needs to be notified as well... but here's the slippery slope.

When they (MM) take their pool down for maintenance, there will be no public pools mining Bitbar.

None. (At least from what I gather)

I was mining @ MM for BTB and stopped because of all the shenanigans.

[userpike]

Cryptsy's has their BTB wallet in maintenance right now. Guess we will see how it goes. The fork they are on has about 500 blocks more than the one 'we' are on. My gut feeling is that they will stay with the one they are on (I hope I'm wrong..) and we will have to switch - and see how much damage is done. I will probably loose about 60 Bitbars. all well, it's the way it goes sometimes.
I think I will flush the bitbar wallet from my laptop and see how hard it is to switch to the new chain. If successful, I will zip my wallet directory and put it on the Bitbar.co website.  It will take a while.

 Will you consider public mining on your pool when this all gets straightened out? I tried to convince H2C.com to offer it again but the poolmaster said he had a bunch of problems with it before and that there would be no promises of it ever coming back online.