is something broken in p2pool? share difficulty is relatively high (litecoin)

[suzaku]

Hello,

I have been testing p2pool and got very lucky earlier this month. However, after earning my first share, the share difficulty is relatively high compared to the number when I started. The log in the data directory shows the worker is getting work with share difficulty twice as much as the share difficulty I see on the static web interface. Then, after running another week, I still did not get the second share. I am using cpuminer which has a ~40kH/s rate so I expect the variance is big. But, my question is why the p2pool server dispatches work with such high share difficulty with a 40kH/s miner.

When I set the difficulty with "/1" in the username, the share difficulty in the log matches the share difficulty on the static web page. However, it will take me another few days to see if this is really working as expected due to the long expected time to share. Can anyone comment on what I encounter?

The other issue is the network difficulty right now is ~2700 but the share difficulty is quite high (3.?~4). When I got my first share, it was >3300. I feel lucky that I got a share in less than two days. I believed the share difficulty at that time was very low (less than 3?). So, could someone comment what is going on?

I am using the latest version (5ee3172) of p2pool from github.

P.S. I started with an extremely low DOA. After the first share, my DOA rate is ~0.5 to 1.5%. There is no change in my setting. Any explanation for that?

[Gator-hex]

Hello,

I have been testing p2pool and got very lucky earlier this month. However, after earning my first share, the share difficulty is relatively high compared to the number when I started. The log in the data directory shows the worker is getting work with share difficulty twice as much as the share difficulty I see on the static web interface. Then, after running another week, I still did not get the second share. I am using cpuminer which has a ~40kH/s rate so I expect the variance is big. But, my question is why the p2pool server dispatches work with such high share difficulty with a 40kH/s miner.

When I set the difficulty with "/1" in the username, the share difficulty in the log matches the share difficulty on the static web page. However, it will take me another few days to see if this is really working as expected due to the long expected time to share. Can anyone comment on what I encounter?

The other issue is the network difficulty right now is ~2700 but the share difficulty is quite high (3.?~4). When I got my first share, it was >3300. I feel lucky that I got a share in less than two days. I believed the share difficulty at that time was very low (less than 3?). So, could someone comment what is going on?

I am using the latest version (5ee3172) of p2pool from github.

P.S. I started with an extremely low DOA. After the first share, my DOA rate is ~0.5 to 1.5%. There is no change in my setting. Any explanation for that?

P2Pool should not be used with such low hashing power. If you cannot generate 0.01 per block with your hashing power use a regular pool instead.

[suzaku]

P2Pool should not be used with such low hashing power. If you cannot generate 0.01 per block with your hashing power use a regular pool instead.

I understand the odds of getting a share on p2pool with this low hashing power. What I am worrying is the unmatched share difficulties and the drastic change in DOA rate. My original DOA rate was <0.1% when I got my first share and now is >0.5%. Why does the low hash power worker get the share difficulty that is almost twice as much as that minimum share difficulty on the p2pool network? I would expect the pool assigns the lowest share difficulty to any worker when "/difficulty" is not given. But, this is not the case.