[DVC]DevCoin - Official Thread - Moderated

[markm]

From the start the GUI would never mine because of some kind of problem with multithreading, maybe because the libcurl or whatever we use to go get the receiver files is not thread-safe or something, we never did figure out exactly why mining would not work, instead we simply disabled mining in the GUI version, you have to use the daemon to mine.

That is the only multithreading "issue" I know of; could it be that RS has been hacking at it trying to get mining to work in the GUI or something?

I have no problem with devcoind crashing, some other coins I have made wrappers for to fire them up again when they crash, I have never bothered with devcoind because it never crashes. So I don't know what version he is running, from where, but it sounds like it isn't the version I have been running.

-MarkM-

[twobits]

Ok cool, so do we just send him the new binaries to try to get him to replace it and see if its fixed? He was complaining about the crashing and multithreading issues so im guessing RAM consumption which MarkM was talking about... I think we can ask him as a first step to try the new binary?

Ofcourse the rebase would fix the crashes because of the bigger community testing and debugging @ BTC. However the bounty is pretty sizeable and will need to be tested by the dev to ensure no crashes... so he/she would be on it if there were any issues. Either way its a headache for RS.

He does his own builds.   I told him I would work with him to try and find and fix the issue back in July.  Ideally I would set up a similar build environment with the exact compiler and libraries he is using.   My understanding is that the devcoin trade is not high enough to be worth putting the work in from his end to help track down the issue.   There are also no other reports of crashing to work with.

The ram issue, that I had a hard time convincing anyone for months was not a memory leak is not the issue here.  It comes into play only on p2pool mm blocks.   The ram usage of devcoin at this time is not yet that large.  As I said back in May when everyone else still thought this was an i0coin only memory leak it will eventually bite all the mm coins though.  It is not a fire though.

No,  it is not an 'of course' the rebase would fix the crashes.  If you do not know the cause of the crashes you can not have any idea what would fix them.  For all we know they could be from the curl version used or the way it was linked even.    The rebase would be a different project then fixing a crash/bug report.  To jump to that as the answer without even knowing the problem is not a wise reaction.
 

[twobits]

From the start the GUI would never mine because of some kind of problem with multithreading, maybe because the libcurl or whatever we use to go get the receiver files is not thread-safe or something, we never did figure out exactly why mining would not work, instead we simply disabled mining in the GUI version, you have to use the daemon to mine.

That is the only multithreading "issue" I know of; could it be that RS has been hacking at it trying to get mining to work in the GUI or something?

I have no problem with devcoind crashing, some other coins I have made wrappers for to fire them up again when they crash, I have never bothered with devcoind because it never crashes. So I don't know what version he is running, from where, but it sounds like it isn't the version I have been running.

-MarkM-

I do know he does his own builds.   He also makes and runs a 32 bit windows build.   I am pretty sure using devcoin[d] as long running server is not as well tested as it is under linux. I assume he runs the daemon,  but really don't know for sure.   libcurl is thread safe, but the flags you use on windows vary depending on if you are statically linking  it or not if I remember right.     We just dont know enough to fix the issue without help from RS.

[Unthinkingbit]

..
I'm sorry for not checking the warning log. The warning log is experimental, I just added it last round, and it brings up many false positives so I ended up ignoring it because I was in a hurry. In the next couple of hours I'll make it more informative so I can see which are real warnings then I'll rerun devtome for everyone.

I finished running devtome again, and edited the devtome earnings post at:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=233997.msg3322732#msg3322732

I also reran marketing and edited that post to be sure, but very little if anything changed there:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=233997.msg3325644#msg3325644

[Unthinkingbit]

..
I told him I would work with him to try and find and fix the issue back in July.  Ideally I would set up a similar build environment with the exact compiler and libraries he is using.   My understanding is that the devcoin trade is not high enough to be worth putting the work in from his end to help track down the issue.

This is the big problem. A few days ago the devcoin volume was 9 btc, the lowest of all the coins, today it is 4 btc, also the lowest of all the coins:
https://mcxnow.com/exchange/DVC

Twobits and I both asked him to send a bug report, or even just say which version he's using, and haven't received a reply yet. Fixing this requires at least some more information from his end.

I'll make an account on Mcxnow and place some devcoin orders, and ask others to trade more. Hopefully that'll encourage him to provide some info.

Edit: The volume is usually low, but there was a big flurry of trades when delisting was announced.

There are also no other reports of crashing to work with.

Devcoin is running at the vircurex, cryptsy and cryptostock exchanges, along with several pools. I haven't received any crash reports from anyone and haven't seen any on this thread.

..
If you do not know the cause of the crashes you can not have any idea what would fix them.  For all we know they could be from the curl version used or the way it was linked even.    The rebase would be a different project then fixing a crash/bug report.  To jump to that as the answer without even knowing the problem is not a wise reaction.

I agree, it's hard enough to fix problems when you have good bug reports. Without any bug report, and without even knowing what version is running, it's impossible.

[sidhujag]

..
I told him I would work with him to try and find and fix the issue back in July.  Ideally I would set up a similar build environment with the exact compiler and libraries he is using.   My understanding is that the devcoin trade is not high enough to be worth putting the work in from his end to help track down the issue.

This is the big problem. A few days ago the devcoin volume was 9 btc, the lowest of all the coins, today it is 4 btc, also the lowest of all the coins:
https://mcxnow.com/exchange/DVC

Twobits and I both asked him to send a bug report, or even just say which version he's using, and haven't received a reply yet. Fixing this requires at least some more information from his end.

I'll make an account on Mcxnow and place some devcoin orders, and ask others to trade more. Hopefully that'll encourage him to provide some info.

There are also no other reports of crashing to work with.

Devcoin is running at the vircurex, cryptsy and cryptostock exchanges, along with several pools. I haven't received any crash reports from anyone and haven't seen any on this thread.

..
If you do not know the cause of the crashes you can not have any idea what would fix them.  For all we know they could be from the curl version used or the way it was linked even.    The rebase would be a different project then fixing a crash/bug report.  To jump to that as the answer without even knowing the problem is not a wise reaction.

I agree, it's hard enough to fix problems when you have good bug reports. Without any bug report, and without even knowing what version is running, it's impossible.

It has no volume because everyone knows its going to be delisted... before it had many consecutive days of 100 million dvc traded in a row.

[ranlo]

..
I told him I would work with him to try and find and fix the issue back in July.  Ideally I would set up a similar build environment with the exact compiler and libraries he is using.   My understanding is that the devcoin trade is not high enough to be worth putting the work in from his end to help track down the issue.

This is the big problem. A few days ago the devcoin volume was 9 btc, the lowest of all the coins, today it is 4 btc, also the lowest of all the coins:
https://mcxnow.com/exchange/DVC

Twobits and I both asked him to send a bug report, or even just say which version he's using, and haven't received a reply yet. Fixing this requires at least some more information from his end.

I'll make an account on Mcxnow and place some devcoin orders, and ask others to trade more. Hopefully that'll encourage him to provide some info.

There are also no other reports of crashing to work with.

Devcoin is running at the vircurex, cryptsy and cryptostock exchanges, along with several pools. I haven't received any crash reports from anyone and haven't seen any on this thread.

..
If you do not know the cause of the crashes you can not have any idea what would fix them.  For all we know they could be from the curl version used or the way it was linked even.    The rebase would be a different project then fixing a crash/bug report.  To jump to that as the answer without even knowing the problem is not a wise reaction.

I agree, it's hard enough to fix problems when you have good bug reports. Without any bug report, and without even knowing what version is running, it's impossible.

It has no volume because everyone knows its going to be delisted... before it had many consecutive days of 100 million dvc traded in a row.

The odd thing was that the 100m+ days were AFTER he said it was going to be delisted. It's like his notice is what caused people to massively trade them.

[Unthinkingbit]

..
The odd thing was that the 100m+ days were AFTER he said it was going to be delisted. It's like his notice is what caused people to massively trade them.

Looking at the one month volume chart:
http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/period-charts.php?period=1-month&resolution=day&pair=dvc-btc&market=mcxnow

the volume averaged at around 10 million dvc/day, at current prices 3.5 btc/day, before Oct 7. After the four big days, the volume is back to 9 million dvc/day. It looks like the big days were an anomaly and the typical volume is 10 million/day, 3.5 btc/day.

[ranlo]

..
The odd thing was that the 100m+ days were AFTER he said it was going to be delisted. It's like his notice is what caused people to massively trade them.

Looking at the one month volume chart:
http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/period-charts.php?period=1-month&resolution=day&pair=dvc-btc&market=mcxnow

the volume averaged at around 10 million dvc/day, at current prices 3.5 btc/day, before Oct 7. After the four big days, the volume is back to 9 million dvc/day. It looks like the big days were an anomaly and the typical volume is 10 million/day, 3.5 btc/day.

Those were also the same days RS was actively talking about DVC and its soon replacement.

[jdbtracker]

Things would have to be fixed anyway, so the IOcoin's developer offered to rebase Devcoin off of it? Sounds great they are really close to the latest Bitcoin build, but also...  how much is different in Devcoin when compared to Bitcoin? Can we code the basic example of what Devcoin is supposed to do and just rebuild the rest around that within the working IOcoin/Bitcoin source?

I mean the only differences are infinite coin volume.

[sidhujag]

..
The odd thing was that the 100m+ days were AFTER he said it was going to be delisted. It's like his notice is what caused people to massively trade them.

Looking at the one month volume chart:
http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/period-charts.php?period=1-month&resolution=day&pair=dvc-btc&market=mcxnow

the volume averaged at around 10 million dvc/day, at current prices 3.5 btc/day, before Oct 7. After the four big days, the volume is back to 9 million dvc/day. It looks like the big days were an anomaly and the typical volume is 10 million/day, 3.5 btc/day.

Its not hard like i said more whales more
volume higher chance of a pump looking at prices.. some whales didnt know about delisting and caused anolomy but the point is we are way better off with the exchange.

[sidhujag]

Things would have to be fixed anyway, so the IOcoin's developer offered to rebase Devcoin off of it? Sounds great they are really close to the latest Bitcoin build, but also...  how much is different in Devcoin when compared to Bitcoin? Can we code the basic example of what Devcoin is supposed to do and just rebuild the rest around that within the working IOcoin/Bitcoin source?

I mean the only differences are infinite coin volume.

This is exactly what i already posted and was told its not wise. The thing is we need management of the project rather than developers running the project.... I hopethat person understands the real wise decision here because is it easier to release a rebase or a patch to an unknown problem?

[best_btc]

I am in with 1,000,000 DVC too.
who else? lets prove the doubters wrong about DVC!

[best_btc]

https://support.mtgox.com/anonymous_requests/new
request to add DVC on mtgox NOW!

[markm]

DeVCoin is not as different from other coins as NaMeCoin is, but it is way up there, it is NOT just a copy/paste clone with a couple of constants changed or even with a different algorithm for adjusting difficulty; it has the entire receiver files handling system and all the dividing up of the coins to the addresses listed in the receivers file, plus all the minumums and maximums and default fees for different things that cause fees and so on are also different.

-MarkM-

[markm]

I'd be up for offering some DVC towards a bounty to get the code fixed.  However, I don't really know what is wrong with it and I'm not a coder.  Who can help?

The code is based on bitcoin 0.3.  Right now, we are at bitcoin 0.8.  We need to catch up the code so it does not crash.

Ugh, that sounds like fun. Ok, I too will put in some DVC, 1 million of them, towards this bounty of updating the code.

I need some guidance I'm beginning to look at the src. Can I not just look at maybe taking a new snapshot from the latest say Namecoin which is also merge mined, or just take the latest bitcoin and add merge mining capabilities and change the settings to match devcoin settings instead of going in adding patches? Are there other specific devcoin patches (and or what reason)?

Does it make sense to essentially start the codebase from the fresh fork(either from nmc or btc), match the settings up and be done?

Jag

Use I0Coin as base. It is pointless to do an "update" without fixing the memory usage problem that all merged mined coins except I0Coin still have.

Probably one would want to work closely with Unthinkingbit too as there were lots of little gotchas all over the place, where costants were hard coded that have to change for DeVCoin due to DeVCoin being so wildly out of line with other coins in terms of how much a single coin is worth. Most clones don't really seem to care about the relatively minor changs in how much spammers really have to pay to spam a chain but with devcoins being a thousand times less valuable per coin than other coins those tiny fees become significant enough to need tuning to prevent spammers being able to afford a thousand times as many spam-transactions. Lots of little stuff like that.

Maybe start by making a "diff" between DeVCoin source code and the exact version of bitcoin we built it from, to see each and every little way in which bitcoin was changed to make devcoin... Then go make all those changes to the latest I0Coin...

-MarkM-

[shakezula]

Maybe start by making a "diff" between DeVCoin source code and the exact version of bitcoin we built it from, to see each and every little way in which bitcoin was changed to make devcoin... Then go make all those changes to the latest I0Coin...

-MarkM-

Are the original developers still around or are they gone ala Satoshi? From my past reading, it seems you, Unthinkingbit, and maybe one or two others are the original dev's for DVC, so shouldn't the impetus to fix it be upon your shoulders? Just wondering as the "bounty" gets bigger to "fix" it, we will inevitably have copy and pasters (ala BTE) come out of the wood work.

I feel If the original dev's are still here, they should be the one's who undertake this--they've been collecting DVC all along and our few bits for the bounty only serve to sweeten the deal.

[markm]

Well to me GeistGeld is the most urgent one, as that cannot even run on a machine with less than 8 gigs of RAM. Plus, all of the merged coins except DeVCoin and NaMeCoin are pretty simple as they are pretty much cut-and-paste coins. So others would be quicker to do too so might as well be gotten out of the way first maybe. GRouPcoin and CoiLedCoin aren't even on an exchange at all yet, so worrying about DeVCoin potentially being dropped from an exchange that a lot of folks seem pretty sure is run by a repeat-offending scammer, while it is still on Vircurex and I think even on at least one other exchange, doesn't really seem all that urgent. At least DeVCoin is still on a merged mining pool, GRouPcoin might end up being dropped from the one merged mining pool that it is on if it does not get picked up by any exchanges.

So it does not really seem the most urgently in need of work right now. If I had any time to try to upgrade a coin I'd do GeistGeld because it is an even worse memory hog than I0Coin was. Then I'd maybe do CoiLedCoin, since maybe if it got updated one or more pools and/or exchanges might pick it up...

And yes Unthinkingbit is the developer, he offered bounties for help learning how to make the coin he wanted to make and that is how I got involved.

-MarkM-

[sidhujag]

I'd be up for offering some DVC towards a bounty to get the code fixed.  However, I don't really know what is wrong with it and I'm not a coder.  Who can help?

The code is based on bitcoin 0.3.  Right now, we are at bitcoin 0.8.  We need to catch up the code so it does not crash.

Ugh, that sounds like fun. Ok, I too will put in some DVC, 1 million of them, towards this bounty of updating the code.

I need some guidance I'm beginning to look at the src. Can I not just look at maybe taking a new snapshot from the latest say Namecoin which is also merge mined, or just take the latest bitcoin and add merge mining capabilities and change the settings to match devcoin settings instead of going in adding patches? Are there other specific devcoin patches (and or what reason)?

Does it make sense to essentially start the codebase from the fresh fork(either from nmc or btc), match the settings up and be done?

Jag

Use I0Coin as base. It is pointless to do an "update" without fixing the memory usage problem that all merged mined coins except I0Coin still have.

Probably one would want to work closely with Unthinkingbit too as there were lots of little gotchas all over the place, where costants were hard coded that have to change for DeVCoin due to DeVCoin being so wildly out of line with other coins in terms of how much a single coin is worth. Most clones don't really seem to care about the relatively minor changs in how much spammers really have to pay to spam a chain but with devcoins being a thousand times less valuable per coin than other coins those tiny fees become significant enough to need tuning to prevent spammers being able to afford a thousand times as many spam-transactions. Lots of little stuff like that.

Maybe start by making a "diff" between DeVCoin source code and the exact version of bitcoin we built it from, to see each and every little way in which bitcoin was changed to make devcoin... Then go make all those changes to the latest I0Coin...

-MarkM-

Ya thats the way i was thinking to do it.. I read the code a bit its very messy.. Im used to designing with patterns but hard to do so when its all procedural.. looks like its been hacked together..

Anyways im mostly a windows dev so I may pm u some questions if i try myself.

[jdbtracker]

Unthinkingbit

What do we need to do to get Devcoin running properly? Even if devcoin being dumped from the exchange could be a scam, memory problems and inefficiencies in the code need to be worked out.

What is the purpose behind Devcoin and what is the code meant to do? Can we streamline the code so that it is easier to program for?

Since you are the founder we definitely need you to guide our efforts from your point of view.