OFFICIAL CGMINER mining software thread for linux/win/osx/mips/arm/r-pi 4.11.1

[os2sam]

Choosing which multipool strategy?

Failover, Round Robbin? Want to use mutiple pools at the same time
Rotate? I'm not a pool hopper ;-)

Balance vs Load Balance?
Don't get it from README.
Maybe someone can explain it in a few simple words?

what are the pros and cons?

regards bcm42

Balance tries to balance share between all pools in your list.  I don't know how this would work with variable difficulties.

If you want to evenly distribute your shares between pools reliably I would use the rotate and select a time frame like an hour or three or a day, it will rotate between the pools and mine for the time period you select and then move to the next one.

[kano]

Choosing which multipool strategy?

Failover, Round Robbin? Want to use mutiple pools at the same time
Rotate? I'm not a pool hopper ;-)

Balance vs Load Balance?
Don't get it from README.
Maybe someone can explain it in a few simple words?

what are the pros and cons?

regards bcm42

README: though if you read the first post in this tread it has an exact copy of this also ....

MULTIPOOL

FAILOVER STRATEGIES WITH MULTIPOOL:
A number of different strategies for dealing with multipool setups are
available. Each has their advantages and disadvantages so multiple strategies
are available by user choice, as per the following list:

FAILOVER:
The default strategy is failover. This means that if you input a number of
pools, it will try to use them as a priority list, moving away from the 1st
to the 2nd, 2nd to 3rd and so on. If any of the earlier pools recover, it will
move back to the higher priority ones.

ROUND ROBIN:
This strategy only moves from one pool to the next when the current one falls
idle and makes no attempt to move otherwise.

ROTATE:
This strategy moves at user-defined intervals from one active pool to the next,
skipping pools that are idle.

LOAD BALANCE:
This strategy sends work to all the pools to maintain optimum load. The most
efficient pools will tend to get a lot more shares. If any pool falls idle, the
rest will tend to take up the slack keeping the miner busy.

BALANCE:
This strategy monitors the amount of difficulty 1 shares solved for each pool
and uses it to try to end up doing the same amount of work for all pools.

[mercSuey]

Hi, I wanted to report an issue with Win8.  I'm in the process of building several mining rigs with 7970s and the first one went flawlessly, with Win8.  But I'm having all kinds of problems with the second rig.  I can run cgminer or poclbm to mine SHA coins but cgminer/reaper will break when I try to mine scrypt coins.  I have reinstalled drivers/sdk several times and even did a clean reboot as well as flash my gpu bios.  The result is the same, SHA coins are no problem but scrypt coins break cgminer or reaper.  But the errors vary.  Sometimes cgminer will just get stuck at starting and other times it will say no pool available and exit.  Sometimes I'll get an actual error like (when running guiminer):

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "guiminer.py", line 1033, in toggle_mining
  File "guiminer.py", line 1338, in start_mining
  File "guiminer.py", line 1167, in configure_subprocess_cgminer
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Windows\\System32\\cgminer\\mine-ryc6.bat'

which Tacotime suggested has something to do with running the program as admin.  But I changed my user accounts and reinstalled everything as a standard user in Win8 but still the same issues.  My research has also led me to believe that maybe cgminer might not be able to communicate with bitcoin-qt, and given the above error, perhaps it has something to do with my path definitions being all screwy.  I tried to install Win7 but my mobo was acting strange and four ports would not work because of driver issues.  I went back to Win8 and still the same issue.  So I'm starting to think there might be something defective with my mobo, especially since my first rig was built from scratch with no problems at all.  Last thing I can try is Ubuntu. 

Anyways, just wanted to report this as it's not yet clear if this is a Win8 specific thing or a hardware issue.  I will continue to research it but any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

[-ck]

New version: 3.1.1 (for workgroups), 11th May 2013

3.1.0 was quite solid despite having the totally new driver for the BFL SC hardware. This is an incremental bug fix and improvement on it.


Human readable changelog:

- The stratum code has been rewritten by hand using raw socket code to NOT use libcurl. This should fix the random crashes that I cannot debug due to libcurl failing in random ways during network or pool outages. In the process, the ability to mine stratum via a proxy has been lost, but theoretically at least, ipv6 should be working now. Hopefully it should also be faster and more reliable at picking up pool outages as well.
- Scrypt mining now has a slightly larger buffer which may lead to less hardware errors on very fast GPUs.
- Scrypt solo mining will now show a meaningful WU rate by internally testing some lower diff shares even if they're not submitted.
- Scrypt solo mining will no longer try to submit any share >64k diff, instead submitting them only if they should solve the block.
- Decreased scantime by default with scrypt should lead to less stale shares submitted.
- There's a fix for setting up the tty for serial usb on Icarus type hardware.
- Fixes for writing configuration files when --device and --remove-disabled are specified.
- Logging fixes.
- Full data for 4 module Avalon devices.


Full changelog:

- Use a discrete device target for scrypt that dynamically changes to ensure we
still report a work utility even if no shares are submitted such as in solo
mining.
- Make set_work_target a function to set a specified char as target for use
elsewhere.
- Further consolidate the hash regeneration between sha and scrypt doing it only
once and always checking the share diff for both before submission.
- Regenerate the hash before checking the share diff in hashtest().
- Minor typo.
- Use a scantime of 30 seconds for scrypt if none is specified.
- Support more shares to be returned for scrypt mining.
- Update the write config to properly record device entries and remove disabled
option.
- Show a different warning and loglevel for failure to resolve a URL on first or
subsequent testing of stratum pool URLs.
- Fix the problem of seting up termio of ttyUSB0 for icarus. the CSIZE  is the
mask of CS2/4/8 From: navyxliu <navy.xliu@gmail.com>
- Set all stratum sockets to nonblocking to avoid trying to use MSG_DONTWAIT on
windows.
- Fix warnings on win32 build.
- Only use MSG_NOSIGNAL for !win32 since it doesn't exist on windows.
- Use MSG_NOSIGNAL on stratum send()
- Set TCP_NODELAY for !linux for raw sockets.
- Use TCP_NODELAY with raw sockets if !opt_delaynet
- Make raw sockets compile on windows
- Recheck select succeeds on EWOULDBLOCK for stratum.
- usbutils/mmq fixed size usb_read default to wait for all data
- usbutils optional (disabled by default) dev debug
- Add an ftdi usb read macro without newline
- Avalon usb interface should be 0.
- Add more debug for failure to USB init.
- Recv() should all be non-blocking for raw sockets in stratum.
- Change verbosity and error for getaddrinfo warnings in setup stratum socket.
- Free servinfo after p is checked in setup stratum socket.
- Use raw sockets without curl for stratum communications.
- Sacrifice curl handle memory on stratum disconnects on all versions of libcurl
to avoid curl corruption.
- Don't use TCP_NODELAY if opt_delaynet is enabled with stratum.
- Fix warnings in avalon driver.
- Make FULLNONCE an ULL to fix a warning on 32 bit.
- ztx correct applog typing
- ocl correct applog typing
- util correct applog typing
- api correct applog typing
- cgminer correct applog typing
- scrypt correct applog typing
- bfl correct applog typing
- ica correct applog typing
- mmq correct applog typing
- adl fix trailing %
- usbutils correct applog typing
- applog - force type checking
- Simplify the many lines passed as API data in the avalon driver now that the
API does not need persistent storage for the name.
- Duplicate the name string always in api_add_data_full to not need persistent
storage for names passed to it.
- Add extra matching work count data in API for Avalon with 4 modules.

[tiktoc]

Hi, I wanted to report an issue with Win8.  I'm in the process of building several mining rigs with 7970s and the first one went flawlessly, with Win8.  But I'm having all kinds of problems with the second rig.  I can run cgminer or poclbm to mine SHA coins but cgminer/reaper will break when I try to mine scrypt coins.  I have reinstalled drivers/sdk several times and even did a clean reboot as well as flash my gpu bios.  The result is the same, SHA coins are no problem but scrypt coins break cgminer or reaper.  But the errors vary.  Sometimes cgminer will just get stuck at starting and other times it will say no pool available and exit.  Sometimes I'll get an actual error like (when running guiminer):

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "guiminer.py", line 1033, in toggle_mining
  File "guiminer.py", line 1338, in start_mining
  File "guiminer.py", line 1167, in configure_subprocess_cgminer
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Windows\\System32\\cgminer\\mine-ryc6.bat'

Did you try looking for the file that it cannot find and putting it where it is looking for it?

[kano]

3.1.1a
3.1.1 recompiled on 64 bit Fedora18, 64 bit xubuntu 11.04 and also on the RPi 32 (2012-12-16-wheezy-raspbian and rpi-update)

https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries

To get the 64 bit xubuntu 11.04 binary:
wget https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries/raw/master/Ubuntu_11.04_x86_64/cgminer-3.1.1a
chmod +x cgminer-3.1.1a
md5sum cgminer-3.1.1a
5c31952ed3edba3049052b9a803c756c  cgminer-3.1.1a
(this version should also work on Fedora 16 and Fedora 17)

To get the RPi 32bit binary:
wget https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries/raw/master/RPi_32/cgminer-3.1.1a
chmod +x cgminer-3.1.1a
md5sum cgminer-3.1.1a
f0fdc21cfde7ac00d42cb908ff09c3f5  cgminer-3.1.1a

To get the Fedora 18 binary:
wget https://github.com/kanoi/cgminer-binaries/raw/master/Fedora18_x86_64/cgminer-3.1.1a
chmod +x cgminer-3.1.1a
md5sum cgminer-3.1.1a
9b61b962027f4e99cdf62f28582327c1  cgminer-3.1.1a

For anyone who didn't realise, it's just the executable file to put in place of 'cgminer'
Nothing else needs changing
On xubuntu 11.04 - first get and extract the full binary release from ckolivas and then copy my file in place of 'cgminer'

I've run all three binaries without any problems so far, with 1x6950, 1xBFL, 1xICA, 1xMMQ and 1xJalapeno (Total ~7.8GH/s)

All have been built with -g
The -g (instead of -O2) means it's a debug build so if anyone finds a problem and has core dumps enabled, it will dump a much more useful debug core.

Otherwise, the same configure options as cvolivas' binary version for 64 bit xubuntu 11.04
In case anyone was wondering:
CFLAGS="-g -W -Wall" ./autogen.sh --enable-bflsc --enable-icarus --enable-bitforce --enable-modminer --enable-ztex --enable-scrypt
make clean
make

All BFLSC + FPGAs (only) for the RPi 32bit version
CFLAGS="-g -W -Wall" ./autogen.sh --enable-bflsc --enable-icarus --enable-bitforce --enable-modminer --enable-ztex
make clean
make
You will need to install libusb-1.0.0

All BFLSC + FPGAs (only) for the Fedora18 x86_64 version
CFLAGS="-g -W -Wall" ./autogen.sh --enable-bflsc --enable-icarus --enable-bitforce --enable-modminer --enable-ztex
make clean
make
You will need to install libusb-1.0.0


Note I have binary folders of ckolivas official release files in my binaries git also, for if you can't get to his downloads
To get them you select the folder (e.g. 3.1.1) then click on the file you want then right-click save-as "View Raw"


Important: Read ASIC-README or FPGA-README about USB configuration on linux and windows

[mercSuey]

Hi, I wanted to report an issue with Win8.  I'm in the process of building several mining rigs with 7970s and the first one went flawlessly, with Win8.  But I'm having all kinds of problems with the second rig.  I can run cgminer or poclbm to mine SHA coins but cgminer/reaper will break when I try to mine scrypt coins.  I have reinstalled drivers/sdk several times and even did a clean reboot as well as flash my gpu bios.  The result is the same, SHA coins are no problem but scrypt coins break cgminer or reaper.  But the errors vary.  Sometimes cgminer will just get stuck at starting and other times it will say no pool available and exit.  Sometimes I'll get an actual error like (when running guiminer):

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "guiminer.py", line 1033, in toggle_mining
  File "guiminer.py", line 1338, in start_mining
  File "guiminer.py", line 1167, in configure_subprocess_cgminer
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: u'C:\\Windows\\System32\\cgminer\\mine-ryc6.bat'

Did you try looking for the file that it cannot find and putting it where it is looking for it?

I did.  I get an exception.  c0000005 seems to be memory related:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   cgminer.exe
  Application Version:   0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:   518e20db
  Fault Module Name:   amdocl.dll
  Fault Module Version:   10.0.1124.2
  Fault Module Timestamp:   5154f82a
  Exception Code:   c0000005
  Exception Offset:   004eada0
  OS Version:   6.2.9200.2.0.0.256.48
  Locale ID:   1033
  Additional Information 1:   5861
  Additional Information 2:   5861822e1919d7c014bbb064c64908b2
  Additional Information 3:   f3d5
  Additional Information 4:   f3d5be0cad2787556264647dc02181c3

[-ck]

I did.  I get an exception.  c0000005 seems to be memory related:

Problem signature:
  Problem Event Name:   APPCRASH
  Application Name:   cgminer.exe
  Application Version:   0.0.0.0
  Application Timestamp:   518e20db
  Fault Module Name:   amdocl.dll

You're crashing in the AMD driver, which is almost always the problem. Experiment with different driver versions...

[sapsan]

I just compiled and maked cgminer 3.1.1 from git repo.

Code:

./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native" ./configure --enable-scrypt
make

And after run I see only working log rows without stat table on top.

How to configure project for "general" view ?

P.S. But all fine with binaries from author:

[crazyearner]

Is their any eta for a x64 version for windows due to come out ?

[-ck]

I just compiled and maked cgminer 3.1.1 from git repo.

Code:

./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native" ./configure --enable-scrypt
make

And after run I see only working log rows without stat table on top.

How to configure project for "general" view ?

P.S. But all fine with binaries from author:

You're missing pdcurses

[-ck]

Is theirthere any eta for a x64 version for windows due to come out ?

As per the readme FAQ: No.

[pekv2]

New version: 3.1.1 (for workgroups), 11th May 2013

Thank you so much, ckolivas.

Sending a donation your way. Can you supply me a litecoin donation address?

[sapsan]

I just compiled and maked cgminer 3.1.1 from git repo.

Code:

./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native" ./configure --enable-scrypt
make

And after run I see only working log rows without stat table on top.

How to configure project for "general" view ?

P.S. But all fine with binaries from author:

You're missing pdcurses

Already installed:

Code:

$ sudo aptitude search libncurses5-dev
i   libncurses5-dev  - developer's libraries for ncurses

[-ck]

New version: 3.1.1 (for workgroups), 11th May 2013

Thank you so much, ckolivas.

Sending a donation your way. Can you supply me a litecoin donation address?

Sure (hint: SCRYPT-README )

Lc8TWMiKM7gRUrG8VB8pPNP1Yvt1SGZnoH

[-ck]

I just compiled and maked cgminer 3.1.1 from git repo.

Code:

./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native" ./configure --enable-scrypt
make

And after run I see only working log rows without stat table on top.

How to configure project for "general" view ?

P.S. But all fine with binaries from author:

You're missing pdcurses

Already installed:

Code:

$ sudo aptitude search libncurses5-dev
i   libncurses5-dev  - developer's libraries for ncurses

What did ./configure return?

[P_Shep]

Libcurl gone then? Or still needed for other stuff?

[-ck]

Libcurl gone then? Or still needed for other stuff?

Needed for getwork and GBT still, alas. Constructing http headers is not trivial enough to do raw :s

[sapsan]

I just compiled and maked cgminer 3.1.1 from git repo.

Code:

./autogen.sh
CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native" ./configure --enable-scrypt
make

And after run I see only working log rows without stat table on top.

How to configure project for "general" view ?

P.S. But all fine with binaries from author:

You're missing pdcurses

Already installed:

Code:

$ sudo aptitude search libncurses5-dev
i   libncurses5-dev  - developer's libraries for ncurses

What did ./configure return?

Output on
Pastebin

[-ck]

What did ./configure return?

Output on
Pastebin

Looks pretty convincing to me:

Code:

configure: WARNING: Could not find curses library - if you want a TUI, install libncurses-dev or pdcurses-dev

  curses.TUI...........: NOT FOUND. TUI support DISABLED