Bottlecaps 2.1 UPDATE REQUIRED - HARDFORK JULY 4 2014 to 200% Annual PoS

[Vivisector999]

The bad PoS block came from me.  What the heck???   I can confirm, I am updated to 1.4.2.  I don't have my port opened, but have been getting between 2-7(max) connections.  When I upgraded to 1.4.2 I deleted my entire wallet aside from the .conf file and the wallet.dat.  And my .conf file only has the 1 add node in it, as well as the new port that was mentioned that we change to. 

I have also still been having problems with the blocks stalling occasionally, this morning I noticed I was something like 100+ blocks behind, but now I know that must have been because my wallet was disconnected for submitting a PoS block without enough work being done???  How does that happen?  I hope everytime my wallet finds a block to soon that I don't get thrown off the network.  I did notice it wasn't the first time I have gotten a PoS block with 0 credits.

Can anyone give me any ideas what I need to do to fix whatever is happening on my machine.  Do I need to have the wallet solo mining???  I am mining on the coinmine.pl pool with my cgminer, so I don't have my wallet set to mine as well, aside from being unlocked and open which I assumed was how you mined PoS blocks properly.
 

[ISAWHIM]

What happen to caps it was attacked? Why other pos coin has no problem like caps?

It is not being attacked, that I know of... Seems to be self-destructive, due to an issue with POS.

Something about submitting undesired POS blocks... apparently multiple times, which is causing the network to kill connections. But instead of killing only one connection, everyone attached to that connection also seems to be getting banned for "misbehaving". Leaving us talking only to one another, and building our own "valid" chains that become a fork. With no way to reconnect to the other fork, because they continue to ignore us.

Eg, technical difficulties...

I am sure other POS coins had similar issues... Might be worth checking-out how they handled it, instead of just comparing this coin to one other coin. But I suspect it is one of the values related to difficulty and distribution and allowance of resending, being the major issue.

EG... You submit a POS or POW block... At that time, the network you are on already has +2 over the height where you submitted your block, but they just didn't relay that info to you yet... Now it looks like you are misbehaving, sending a POS when all POS for this time have been used-up, and you resubmit it six times, as you are not getting feedback saying "No, stop sending, there is a new height"... Thinking they just didn't hear you, or it got lost in the send... POOF, instant ban... Now you and the three people who did hear you, and also didn't get the new height yet, simply accept yours as valid, and they stack three more POW blocks or POS blocks, and you happily mine away on your own private chain/fork... Since the other taller chain which is now 7 blocks over you, isn't talking to you, and letting you know they are taller.

Eventually you end-up with one fork at a height that is less than the one with the most hashing power. Which always becomes the tallest chain, after it has stripped itself of all but the three required minimum connections. (Eg, 2 more newbs that have not yet been banned join, keeping that tall chain alive, until it allows us to reconnect again, an hour later.)

This is where having a centralized component would aid in the issue. If anything, it could simply let everyone on the shorter chains know NOT TO MINE, and force them to attempt to find the larger chain, or even relay what the nodes are refusing to relay... the blocks... Thus, stopping them from dominating simply because they are the largest single entity. (Because if another smaller miner submits a block height larger than the one they had, they would have to wait to get it. Pulling it from the centralized node that is just a node, not a miner.)

[ISAWHIM]

Can anyone give me any ideas what I need to do to fix whatever is happening on my machine.

Add this line to your config...

reservebalance=1000000

That should stop POS creation for you, making it possible that you MAY live longer... The POS 0.1 coin gain at this point is not worth the 100 coins you would have had, if you were to stay connected longer, mining only POW blocks.

Just hope that the person who is connecting to you, is not generating POS that will get you banned in the process for relaying that POS for them, to the chain. Or that you are not connected to someone who is generating POS blocks, and will be banned from the larger chain. Which will leave you blindly mining on the chain you believe is valid, because you all don't know the other chain still exists. Because the other chain is not accepting your connections anymore. Apparently, that is what is killing me. Guilt by association.

I took the time to reconnect again, and will just babysit this bad-boy... Obviously "Vault 108" is still active... Google it. lol. "Damn you Gary 54!"

[Pmalek]

@ Mullick : Hire this guy!!! He obviously likes to contribute and do important things!  And I mean it, not being sarcastic at all!!!

[Vivisector999]

Wouldn't just turning off my wallet fix the problem, lol, if I was going to stop the POS blocks from being mined.  And what is the point of turning off PoS, when that is one of the reasons I really like Bottlecaps.  Lol, I will try opening my port to see if I can get more connections??  Or is my IP banned atm?

It's not effecting my mining of PoW blocks, as that I am doing via cgminer on a pool.  My bottlecaps are still growing happily.  Lol, I am just not sure I want to risk transferring my newly minted Bottlecaps to my wallet, as I don't know if it is somehow banned for being slow???
 

[paulsltc123]

I'm back and caught up on happenings of past few days...whoa.. What a mess..and now even off of Cryptsy for the moment.

Looks like *some* progress is being made and going in the right direction but problems still arising. Think I'll wait until ironed out and back on Cryptsy before getting back in the mix.

I really hope this gets figured out and fixed once and for all soon.

PS. Isawhim I fully understood about the port forwarding on your router..I'm in same boat..not sure why others couldn't and still thought u had to open/forward them still..forcing them as u did was the same result of course..
Anyways keep up the investigating and good work and maybe it will get fixed soon. You have some really good ideas and many that make perfect sense and would almost certainly help to get this working properly...
Here's to hoping some are implemented!

Any more news on this issue with things going off the rails around 1am? It appears there really might be something to this based on your findings...

[ISAWHIM]

Wouldn't just turning off my wallet fix the problem...

don't know if it is somehow banned for being slow???

If you are pool mining, then please turn off the wallet so it does not POS mine... You will eventually end-up filling your wallet with hundreds of invalid POS blocks that will eat-up your coins, until they get returned from the wallet, when they expire.

If you are mining POS and also attempting to be a node... you are getting anyone connected to you banned and making them isolated, as they mine off your invalid POS blocks, when you get severed from the chain. (If you get severed from the chain.)

At the moment, there is no reason to mine POS, as I do not believe it is rewarding or functioning properly anyways, from what I saw when I was mining POS.

If your wallet was banned, it would reconnect again, if a new miner connected, and acted as a relay/bridge from you to the taller chain, but only if you delete the old chain and restart and find that miner... Otherwise, you will just keep connecting to the wrong chain, continuing where you left-off, on the wrong forked block-height.

If you want to help the network by keeping your wallet open as a node, then please don't unlock it, or set the reserve high enough so it does not attempt to POS mine.

Until all of this is resolved. (Will not be difficult to tell when it is resolved, some people are persistently ignoring the request and mining POS, and ending-up alone and taking others down with them. I am sure we will hear when they have fixed the issue, because they will stop posting here about not having connections or getting booted.)

[paulsltc123]

Any clue when Vern might be adding Caps back on Cryptsy?
I did a test and updated and wallet did sync to correct chain and appears good...for now. Also appears to be some pools on correct chain too but not sure if I should chance mining again right now and if so...pool or solo?
Isawhim what's your take on this?

[ISAWHIM]

If you have time to babysit the machines... I say keep solo-mining (If you have that hash-power.)

If not... stay on the largest pool that "is the big chain", and will always remain that way, until resolution comes... Which I believe is verns pool. (But don't quote me on that!)

It won't be turned-on in cryptsy until it has been resolved, and without issue for more than 24 hours... That is what I was told last night. It has not been 24 hours without issue yet. (Only for those who have stopped POS mining and had a direct connection to that tallest chain, without having to depend on another connection to act as a relay to that taller chain.)

Any more news on this issue with things going off the rails around 1am?

That was one of the times I was severed also... then again at about 3:45...

Thanks for the compliment...

Still a few people out there aiding to the problem, instead of assisting the resolution. Make an hourly check to ensure you are still mining on a live chain, and eventually, if POS is disabled, you should get a direct connection to the tall chain that does not seem to be mining POS, and continues to thrive.

Plus, those POS blocks seem to be causing a lot of rejects, since they are found almost instantly... invalidating legitimate POW blocks that just can't be sent fast enough to be accepted over the faster POS, causing us to start all over again, looking for a new hash-solution to the new block-height and new POS hash.

Might want to consider making a version 1.4.3 that does not have the ability to mine POS and rejects any POS submissions, pending the release of 1.4.4 with the "fixed POS" issue. For those who stubbornly are keeping POS alive, for those ten pennies a day.

[paulsltc123]

Thanks for the quick reply bud..I think I might wait a bit longer then possibly solo mine if things still look good with maybe 10-12Mh..
So what do I need to know and or do to be sure things should go good and that I won't be aiding in the problem?  Any particulars to ensure in the conf? Anything with client or change on routers, etc? Thanks again..

[Thrash]

Got kicked off last night about 5:00 GMT.  I have been mining solo. Thought it was worked out yesterday as it ran all day with no issues. I had around 30 connections when I went to bed and woke up this morning to the wrong chain. While it is getting better I don't think we are quite there yet. These clients really need something to tell you when a newer client is available. I would not think it would be that difficult to do as almost every piece of software I have does it.

I still like CAPs and think it has a good future once this is behind us.

At least I'm getting good at getting back on the right chain.  

[ISAWHIM]

Thanks for the quick reply bud..I think I might wait a bit longer then possibly solo mine if things still look good with maybe 10-12Mh..
So what do I need to know and or do to be sure things should go good and that I won't be aiding in the problem?  Any particulars to ensure in the conf? Anything with client or change on routers, etc? Thanks again..

It is suggested to... (If you know how.)
1: Ensure port forwarding is setup for your router/modem for port 7685 (TCP access)
2: Possibly ensure, if your firewall is on, that bottlecaps-qt is set to "allowed"
3: Add this line to your config file...
reservebalance=1000000
That will stop POS blocks from being created, for now. As long as you have under 1,000,000 coins
4: Follow the block-crawler height, which seems to be the "tallest chain" always.
http://bottlecaps.kicks-ass.net/block_crawler.php
5: Also, from that page, use the "Connections" link to get the latest peers to connect to, adding them to your config and deleting your "peers.dat" before you restart after being locked-out.
http://bottlecaps.kicks-ass.net/peers.php

If you get locked out...
1: Turn off your miners and shut-down the bottlecap client.
2: Delete the bad chain data.
FILES: ".lock", "blk0001.dat", "blkindex.dat", "db.log", "debug.log", "peers.dat"
and the FOLDER: "database"
3: Restore those files from your backup, if you have one. (If not, just start your wallet and rebuild it from scratch.)
4: Wait for a moment while the wallet pokes through the rooms, and connections, looking for the tallest chain, while it builds your database to the best height. If it does not match the block-crawler, it might be the wrong one, unless you found one that is taller than block-crawlers height.

To backup...
1: Wait until you are connected to the tallest chain.
2: Create a folder called "backup"...
3: Copy and Paste these items into that folder...
FILES: ".lock", "blk0001.dat", "blkindex.dat", "db.log", "debug.log", "peers.dat" (Not this file)
and the FOLDER: "database"
4: Use those backed-up files to replace a screwed-up database that is stuck on the wrong fork, at the wrong height. Follow the instructions above for "If you get locked-out..."

Optionally: Backup your wallet every day... Just in-case of complete network nuclear melt-down!

Other things to think of using...
From the debug window console. Found in the menu-item "Help".
- Type "repairwallet", if you just left a bad chain. That should restore some lost coins that may seem "missing in action", due to POS invalid blocks, or POW missing blocks.
- Type "getpeerinfo", to see a list of connected peers and information about connections.

[Vivisector999]

I got you for now, until the problem is finally resolved.  But I have to say the problem isn't resolved just by making everyone stop mining POS blocks forever.

When I get home tonight I will turn the wallet off.  (Or maybe switch to solo mining)  I wish there were some instructions on how to adjust solo mining for maximum performance.   

Hopefully there will be a real fix coming.  (Which I thought 1.4.2 had this fixed).

[leroy_k]

Is it possible for me to manually ban peers from my client?

I've just started it and there are quite a few with the incorrect starting height including some still below 80k.

I guess if everyone did this it would result in noone catching up but I only want to do it until the database is rebuilt again. It stalled and I was 140 blocks behind but not getting anymore despite restarts.

[mullick]

Is it possible for me to manually ban peers from my client?

I've just started it and there are quite a few with the incorrect starting height including some still below 80k.

I guess if everyone did this it would result in noone catching up but I only want to do it until the database is rebuilt again. It stalled and I was 140 blocks behind but not getting anymore despite restarts.

If you find a few peers with good starting height connect= instead of addnode will make you client only connect to those peers

[mullick]

Pool is off again seems to have happened just recently

Looks like ill be spending all night on this again

[ISAWHIM]

There are sooo many POS blocks coming in now... that they are killing about 50% of the attempted postings of POW blocks...

Enough that the diff is about half what it should be.

Please set the diff high for POS, until this is fixed, to stop those still mining POS from completely degrading normal mining. A few are still mining POS and getting tons of them faster now. Only having one with POS mining simply makes that one get all of them. It does not slow them down at the easy diff that it is set to.

I assume they are not being booted, because apparently there is only a few, or only one... as opposed to the massive collisions when most of us were still mining them.

I think we can all agree to that. Then we can all start mining POS again, and you can manually lower diff with each version. (That should give you an idea what to set for a diff adjustment for POS work. Even if it is something simple like 5% of POW diff + 0.02.)

Normally at 100K (1.53 diff), I get about 2-4 blocks an hour... Normally about 10% rejects.

Now, at the 40K (0.61 diff), I am getting about 1 every two hours, due to collisions {rejections}. Now about 75% rejects.

And the diff keeps falling to attempt to compensate, creating more POW to throw and try to beat the POS being generated. (There is no balance)

Speaking of limits, you might want to put a lower-limit on POW... like 45K (0.68 diff), which seems to be a choking point for most "fast coins" if they go lower. More collisions/rejects.

[Thrash]

I have not had any rejects today. I keep track of found blocks via the cgminer api and it matches exactly with the number of blocks in my wallet. The api shows no rejected blocks since about 6 hours ago when I reset things. I do not believe there were any this morning either, at least not enough to worry about. I just reset it again now before reading the above post but really have not had any issues with rejects or stales.

While I would agree we need to address the POS I do not see the diff as a problem at this point.

Just my $0.02 worth.

[ISAWHIM]

I have not had any rejects today. I keep track of found blocks via the cgminer api and it matches exactly with the number of blocks in my wallet. The api shows no rejected blocks since about 6 hours ago when I reset things. I do not believe there were any this morning either, at least not enough to worry about. I just reset it again now before reading the above post but really have not had any issues with rejects or stales.

While I would agree we need to address the POS I do not see the diff as a problem at this point.

Just my $0.02 worth.

Hmm... maybe it is this new cgminer that is causing the issues for me then... (Unless I am just real far from the source and you are closer to the ones generating POW and POS.)

My cgminer shows the diffs of the rejected and accepted blocks, not the quantity of accepted and rejected. (Bug in 3.3.4) I based my results off actual results, the end of the day yields.

At the half-diff, I am getting 50% less "accepted" in cgminer, and 75% more "rejected", as opposed to simply having 50% more "accepted" and 50% more "rejected". I am getting more solutions, but 75% of them are lost to another faster block.

I will fire-up the older cgminer, since this one seems borked. If it isn't displaying the correct values, I assume more inside may be borked too.

But the statement about having min diff for POW is still a strong conviction with me. It hurts no-one to do that, and only helps to ensure coin value stays high. (Even in the event of 90% of everyone leaving, where 3 people end-up getting all 100% of the coin, now they get the same amount as if there were hundreds of people. But if the coin came to that, it wouldn't matter at that point.) This is from experience mining fast coins, like fastcoins, sexcoins, mincoins, luckcoins, memecoins, anonymouscoins, etc... You can look at the charts and see the issues. You actually get more mining with higher diffs than with lower diffs, due to the major losses. On average. Unless you are uber-lucky and one of the sources of, "we just can't keep up with him", speeds.

[ISAWHIM]

Reverted back to cgminer 3.3.2, the last known "working" version that didn't cause issues with scryptcoins.

Will be nice to actually see the accepted and rejected qty again, instead of having to wait a day to guess if the network was screwing me or not. (I usually leave if diff drops below 0.65 on most coins. Because estimates of value become useless and they never display correct losses. Most losses are never reported or recorded, just thrown-out. Guess it never crossed their minds to actually try mining, and simply compare results with expected calculations, and see the reality of what you get. But then again, they are not in the business of making us money, only themselves. They like when we mine junk-coins that don't actually reward. Because they mine the ones that actually do. The #2, #3 and #4 coins on the lists. xD.)

Anyone bored and want to walk me through compiling one of these coins on windows, from source? Never used QT before, and not sure what they are using to compile them in the first place. But I am a fast learner.