Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread

[jstefanop]

@jstefanop Any chance the upcoming intel mining chip could be incorporated into the next Apolo version? not sure if there would be benefits as it may be vaporware but curious if you somehow know specs and details.

Yep team involved was actually part of the AMD talent transfer over to intel and know them well since I did a lot of GPU stuff back in the day. Looks interesting but not much more I can say.

[crypto_curious]

I have set port forwarding to the ip address of one of my futurebit btc miners and it has 10/32.  But the router won't let me forward 8333 for any other futurebit node ip address.  What am I supposed to do with my other futurebit btc full nodes if i can't use 8333 for them?  They all say 10/32.
   Or is it that after one is forwarded the other in my "subnet" works with it?

Change port in second Apollo to 8433. And third to 8533. And unblock these ports in router for them.
But I don't know if Futurebit GUI supports changing bitcoind ports, if not, reach out to Apollo's bitcoind configuration file via ssh.

Anyway, as stefanop says, having 3 exactly the three same bitcoind nodes on one IP doesn't benefit bitcoin network much.

You may want to configure:
one node as 125 connections max instead of default 32,
one node Tor only
one node I2P only

That way it benefits the network.

[V3XED]

I made the mistake of performing a hard shutdown 5+ times while the node was running. Temp reading was working normally after first few boots.

Now, dashboard under Miner reads:

"There is a problem fetching system stats (Internal error)."

I lost internet and was managing my unit remotely, also had no other option but to power it off the old fashioned way.
Ended up with the same issue as you, asked about it extensively on here but never got a solution.

Magically without explanation it all started working again about 2 months later.... so who knows, but I don't think its bricked.
Mine still mined and function properly, just lost all the system stats in the dashboard.

[gigahashes]

I made the mistake of performing a hard shutdown 5+ times while the node was running. Temp reading was working normally after first few boots.

Now, dashboard under Miner reads:

"There is a problem fetching system stats (Internal error)."

I lost internet and was managing my unit remotely, also had no other option but to power it off the old fashioned way.
Ended up with the same issue as you, asked about it extensively on here but never got a solution.

Magically without explanation it all started working again about 2 months later.... so who knows, but I don't think its bricked.
Mine still mined and function properly, just lost all the system stats in the dashboard.

Hope this helps
I had the same "There is a problem fetching system stats (Internal error) a while back
Re flashed SD card using Balena Etcher using download link on page 1 of this forum.

Apollo BTC SD Card Image/OS Download and Install

Folder for all Apollo BTC Image Releases: https://mega.nz/folder/ZlxnwYZb#ZN77cDAcXa6dN_2QKSdT_Q

Release 12/17/21

Fixed problem either on my first or second flash.
All has been good since then.

There was no need to remove NVME DRIVE, all worked fine afterwards and no need to re synch.

Good Luck

[pdowning]

Hope this is the right place to post this; just received a full node and 2 standard units. went through the setup and the two standard units are mining but the full node is not. I have stopped the node from running just to make sure it was not a resource contention issue. but no change.

Got any ideas or where i should actually be reporting the issue?


 

[OgNasty]

I received a couple of these units yesterday and got them up and running fairly easily.  I was a bit disturbed to check them today and see they ran for only about an hour before the hashrate plummeted and became unstable.  After about 10 hours they stopped hashing completely. 

Any tips for getting these to run stable?  Is there a recommended method of restarting the software once it crashes?  I'd hate to think that I'll have to be checking on these things every few hours to get my $0.45 per day from them...  It's a bit late in the Bitcoin mining game to have such instability I would think, especially considering these miners have been out for some time now.

[heslo]

I received a couple of these units yesterday and got them up and running fairly easily.  I was a bit disturbed to check them today and see they ran for only about an hour before the hashrate plummeted and became unstable.  After about 10 hours they stopped hashing completely. 

Any tips for getting these to run stable?  Is there a recommended method of restarting the software once it crashes?  I'd hate to think that I'll have to be checking on these things every few hours to get my $0.45 per day from them...  It's a bit late in the Bitcoin mining game to have such instability I would think, especially considering these miners have been out for some time now.

My unit has been running perfectly stable since I got it and it was the first of the batch 1 units. Perhaps internet issues? Have you ensured you're on the latest build as well which is 0.3.2?

[devincrypt]

I received a couple of these units yesterday and got them up and running fairly easily.  I was a bit disturbed to check them today and see they ran for only about an hour before the hashrate plummeted and became unstable.  After about 10 hours they stopped hashing completely.  

Any tips for getting these to run stable?  Is there a recommended method of restarting the software once it crashes?  I'd hate to think that I'll have to be checking on these things every few hours to get my $0.45 per day from them...  It's a bit late in the Bitcoin mining game to have such instability I would think, especially considering these miners have been out for some time now.

Remove the SSD - hosting a node offers no value to you. Buy a cheap case and use it as a USB drive. Your problems will go away.

[OgNasty]

I received a couple of these units yesterday and got them up and running fairly easily.  I was a bit disturbed to check them today and see they ran for only about an hour before the hashrate plummeted and became unstable.  After about 10 hours they stopped hashing completely.  

Any tips for getting these to run stable?  Is there a recommended method of restarting the software once it crashes?  I'd hate to think that I'll have to be checking on these things every few hours to get my $0.45 per day from them...  It's a bit late in the Bitcoin mining game to have such instability I would think, especially considering these miners have been out for some time now.

My unit has been running perfectly stable since I got it and it was the first of the batch 1 units. Perhaps internet issues? Have you ensured you're on the latest build as well which is 0.3.2?

I haven't checked to see if I'm using the latest build.  I assume I am because I just received the units, but I guess anything is possible.  How would I go about checking the firmware on these miners?

I did take them off a usb hub and have them directly connected to a PC now, which might help, who knows.  I also added some lines of code to the .bat file so that in the event it does freeze again, it will restart the mining software automatically (I would recommend this for anyone who is having issues and having to manually restart the software).  I think this will help a bit at least with the problem of them being down completely for long periods of time.  With any luck, it was the usb hub causing issues.  

Any known issues with these and mining on Nicehash?  What url are people using?  I had to remove the stratum-tcp:// prefix in order for it to work so I'm wondering if Nicehash as a pool might be another possible issue.

[HagssFIN]

Use some good btc pool instead of Nicehash, it should stabilize it a lot

[heslo]

I received a couple of these units yesterday and got them up and running fairly easily.  I was a bit disturbed to check them today and see they ran for only about an hour before the hashrate plummeted and became unstable.  After about 10 hours they stopped hashing completely.  

Any tips for getting these to run stable?  Is there a recommended method of restarting the software once it crashes?  I'd hate to think that I'll have to be checking on these things every few hours to get my $0.45 per day from them...  It's a bit late in the Bitcoin mining game to have such instability I would think, especially considering these miners have been out for some time now.

My unit has been running perfectly stable since I got it and it was the first of the batch 1 units. Perhaps internet issues? Have you ensured you're on the latest build as well which is 0.3.2?

I haven't checked to see if I'm using the latest build.  I assume I am because I just received the units, but I guess anything is possible.  How would I go about checking the firmware on these miners?

I did take them off a usb hub and have them directly connected to a PC now, which might help, who knows.  I also added some lines of code to the .bat file so that in the event it does freeze again, it will restart the mining software automatically (I would recommend this for anyone who is having issues and having to manually restart the software).  I think this will help a bit at least with the problem of them being down completely for long periods of time.  With any luck, it was the usb hub causing issues.  

Any known issues with these and mining on Nicehash?  What url are people using?  I had to remove the stratum-tcp:// prefix in order for it to work so I'm wondering if Nicehash as a pool might be another possible issue.

Log in to the webUI, it's on the top right hand side.

Used mine on NiceHash before switching to slush, worked fine there but yes, any address you need to remove the stratum prefix

[JUST_coin]

there is some kind of issue with these asics and many pools.  I have seen on multiple pools now where hashrate is maybe 0.5TH at best and unstable, and pool side reports low difficulty shares.  it seems to work always only specifically on slushpool or something?

seems to be related to extranonce or asicboost or something.  I know there were arguments in these threads from someone saying they had to hack some work-around into their back end to get them to work correctly and urged the developer to make a simple change on the asic software, something about missing prefix of zeros in extranonce or something

[jstefanop]

there is some kind of issue with these asics and many pools.  I have seen on multiple pools now where hashrate is maybe 0.5TH at best and unstable, and pool side reports low difficulty shares.  it seems to work always only specifically on slushpool or something?

seems to be related to extranonce or asicboost or something.  I know there were arguments in these threads from someone saying they had to hack some work-around into their back end to get them to work correctly and urged the developer to make a simple change on the asic software, something about missing prefix of zeros in extranonce or something

Are you mining BSV? Their pools are horribly broken and I will definitely not be supporting this chain.

[mrbillishere]

Happy to report that the standard unit I ordered from Batch 3 arrived yesterday and I had zero issues connecting it into my existing Full + Standard ones that were from batch #2. I did have an old USB 2 hub at the ready in case it was needed, however it was not. I hooked up the additional standard unit to one of the full unit's USB3 ports and it was immediately added to the party when I powered everything back up.

Thanks for a great job Team FutureBit!

[notabeliever]

My standard unit shipped without the mini usb cable to connect it to the other futurebit miner i have. Also does the standard unit behave like a usb miner? where if I plug it into the computer using mini usb to usb that bfgminer would pick it up ?

[crypto_curious]

My standard unit shipped without the mini usb cable to connect it to the other futurebit miner i have. Also does the standard unit behave like a usb miner? where if I plug it into the computer using mini usb to usb that bfgminer would pick it up ?

Standard unit requires USB cable to work. Check again if you don't have it in the box. If not, use your own Micro-USB cable.
Yes, Standard unit is a USB miner, it requires USB connection to your computer or other controller.
Bfgminer will not pick it up, you need Futurebit closed source, proprietary miner software.

[Joelnolan]

Hey all! I’m expecting my set up within the next week or two. Any recommendations on mining pools or should I try solo?

I currently use F2Pool for LTC mining.

Cheers

[amanz360]

I’ve had a full unit since august and it’s worked great without any issues. Recently I got a standard unit (batch 3) to connect to my full unit. I can get the standard unit mining for about 10 minutes and then it goes to inactive status. Then I have to power it off and on then restart mining to get it to start again. But it only will mine for a few minutes again before going inactive. The full unit continues mining without any issues. The red light on the standard unit has the slow red blinking light like it’s mining but it’s showing inactive in the dashboard. I’m running apollo web v0.3.2

Any ideas what the problem could be?

Hmm, yeah I've been having the same exact problem for a while. I was hoping this most recent update would fix it, but looks like I'm still having the same issue. I have 1 full unit and 2 standard units, for some reason all 3 of them wont stay hashing at the same time and one of them will drop off after a while. It's always just one that drops off and they all keep blinking the slow pattern.

Do the yellow lights on the bottom continue to flash? The mean the board is still hashing but something is up with the USB connection. You can also try connecting the standard units to a USB hub and trying different USB ports. If a power reset/SD card re-flash does not solve it with latest firmware you can alway contact support and well take care of you.

I experienced the same issue, except that my standard unit doesn't go active at all anymore. Solid red light, no blinking yellow underneath, while connected via USB. Full unit will continue hashing as normal. Sent an email through the contact form on the futurebit site.

Hello guys, just wanted to give an update on something that should have been pretty obvious, but my standard unit that was having difficulty staying on is now running smoothly again. I had actually not been doing much maintenance and went and cleared out A LOT of dust that had managed to accumulate inside the devices. After doing that, it seemed like the unit that was having difficulty hashing continuously started working well again. I think it's been stable for a little over a week now which is a huge improvement.

Just wanted to toss that out there for people having problems with their miners that might be confused as what to do, again something that should have been obvious but I'm sure I'm not the only person who forgets to dust regularly. It may just be that instead of anything wrong with the device or the firmware.

[merenkov]

any built in ability for a vpn or tor?

my concern is mining at home over clearnnet

[jstefanop]

I’ve had a full unit since august and it’s worked great without any issues. Recently I got a standard unit (batch 3) to connect to my full unit. I can get the standard unit mining for about 10 minutes and then it goes to inactive status. Then I have to power it off and on then restart mining to get it to start again. But it only will mine for a few minutes again before going inactive. The full unit continues mining without any issues. The red light on the standard unit has the slow red blinking light like it’s mining but it’s showing inactive in the dashboard. I’m running apollo web v0.3.2

Any ideas what the problem could be?

Hmm, yeah I've been having the same exact problem for a while. I was hoping this most recent update would fix it, but looks like I'm still having the same issue. I have 1 full unit and 2 standard units, for some reason all 3 of them wont stay hashing at the same time and one of them will drop off after a while. It's always just one that drops off and they all keep blinking the slow pattern.

Do the yellow lights on the bottom continue to flash? The mean the board is still hashing but something is up with the USB connection. You can also try connecting the standard units to a USB hub and trying different USB ports. If a power reset/SD card re-flash does not solve it with latest firmware you can alway contact support and well take care of you.

I experienced the same issue, except that my standard unit doesn't go active at all anymore. Solid red light, no blinking yellow underneath, while connected via USB. Full unit will continue hashing as normal. Sent an email through the contact form on the futurebit site.

Hello guys, just wanted to give an update on something that should have been pretty obvious, but my standard unit that was having difficulty staying on is now running smoothly again. I had actually not been doing much maintenance and went and cleared out A LOT of dust that had managed to accumulate inside the devices. After doing that, it seemed like the unit that was having difficulty hashing continuously started working well again. I think it's been stable for a little over a week now which is a huge improvement.

Just wanted to toss that out there for people having problems with their miners that might be confused as what to do, again something that should have been obvious but I'm sure I'm not the only person who forgets to dust regularly. It may just be that instead of anything wrong with the device or the firmware.

You should always do this for any high airflow device. Almost all the the units we have received that have failed over time are because of dust accumulation and high humidity.