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

[JoeDirticus]

Anyone got a picture of the GPIO connector? I took mine off to attempt to change the heatsink (didn't push my luck so left it) but I didn't take note of how the black connector was orientated and what pins it was plugged into  

EDIT: Took a gamble and thankfully it paid off. All running again no problems

FYI you would have completely fried both boards if you plugged that in the wrong way...your a lucky dude

So do you have a picture of how it should be? I took mine apart to clean it and the filthy grinding fan. I took pictures of everything, but that. Thanks

[Mod note: merged posts]

NVM, I got it like the last guy, lol. I got the tiny fan down to a bee buzz now. It was filthy. At least the temps dropped, too, while mining. Not sure why, but I initially took it apart because it dropped out of service while still running the other two satellites, and no matter what I did, it wouldn't get back online unless I unplugged the other two, the other two kept working though. So I formatted a new flash drive and installed it too. That fricken ribbon cable for the NVME drive, what a pita.

[SG11]

I'm having two separate issues with my Apollo Node (Full + Standard) affecting its continued operation:
(1) The unit randomly stops working while maintaining power and the appearance of hashing activity.  The miners remain on with the fans running, but the unit does not "wake up" when the mouse or keyboard are manipulated and there is no output from the video (HDMI) port to my monitor.  I have tried all possible layer 1 manipulations to wake the machine, but my mining pool shows a reported hashrate of 0, and the only way to regain control of the system is a hard shutdown and restart.  This wastes both my time and my power at a premium.

(2) My machine is randomly dropping off the network with a syslog error reporting a failed handshake and stating my device has the WRONG KEY.  However, the password has not changed since Ive owned the Apollo and it is the only one on my network to drop its LAN connection in this manner.  Unfortunately, I don't know what (if anything) the following log dump is telling me, due to my limited, but anyone venture a guess as to why my LAN connection keeps dropping or how I might fix it?  
Mar 18 18:55:44 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: Trying to associate with **:**:**:**:**:** (SSID='*****WiFi' freq=5200 MHz)
Mar 18 18:55:44 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-ASSOC-REJECT bssid=**:**:**:**:**:** status_code=1
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc kernel: [2534781.191339] unisoc_wifi unisoc_wifi wlan0: sprdwl_report_connection sm_state (5), status: (2)!
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc kernel: [2534781.191399] unisoc_wifi unisoc_wifi wlan0: sprdwl_report_connection *****WiFi failed status code:1!
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.0030] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: completed -> associating
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.0032] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: completed -> associating
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.0179] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: associating -> disconnected
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.0181] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: associating -> disconnect>
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc gnome-shell[1803871]: An active wireless connection, in infrastructure mode, involves no access point?
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.1072] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> scanning
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.1074] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: disconnected -> scanning
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: Trying to associate with **:**:**:**:**:** (SSID='*****WiFi' freq=2462 MHz)
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=**:**:**:**:**:** reason=0
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-REGDOM-CHANGE init=CORE type=WORLD
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.8560] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: scanning -> associating
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.8563] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: scanning -> associating
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: Associated with **:**:**:**:**:**
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SUBNET-STATUS-UPDATE status=0
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: nl80211: kernel reports: key not allowed
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: WPA: Failed to set PTK to the driver (alg=3 keylen=16 bssid=**:**:**:**:**:**)
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-DISCONNECTED bssid=**:**:**:**:**:** reason=1 locally_generated=1
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: WPA: 4-Way Handshake failed - pre-shared key may be incorrect
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc wpa_supplicant[1558]: wlan0: CTRL-EVENT-SSID-TEMP-DISABLED id=0 ssid="*****WiFi" auth_failures=1 duration=10 reason=WRONG_KEY
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9110] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: associating -> disconnected
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9112] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: associating -> disconnect>
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9116] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> 4-way handshake
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9117] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: disconnected -> 4-way han>
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <warn>  [1679180145.9139] sup-iface[0xaaab0a17a100,wlan0]: connection disconnected (reason -1)
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9143] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: 4-way handshake -> disconnected
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9245] device (wlan0): Activation: (wifi) disconnected during association, asking for new key
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9253] device (wlan0): state change: activated -> need-auth (reason 'supplicant-disconnect', sy>
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9261] dhcp4 (wlan0): canceled DHCP transaction
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9263] dhcp4 (wlan0): state changed extended -> done
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9333] manager: NetworkManager state is now CONNECTING
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc dbus-daemon[1514]: [system] Activating via systemd: service name='org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher' unit='dbus-org.freedesktop.nm-dispatche>
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180145.9836] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: 4-way handshake -> discon>
Mar 18 18:55:45 futurebitbtc systemd[1]: Starting Network Manager Script Dispatcher Service...
Mar 18 18:55:46 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180146.0302] device (wlan0): supplicant interface state: disconnected -> inactive
Mar 18 18:55:46 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180146.0304] device (p2p-dev-wlan0): supplicant management interface state: disconnected -> inactive
Mar 18 18:55:46 futurebitbtc dbus-daemon[1514]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.nm_dispatcher'
Mar 18 18:55:46 futurebitbtc systemd[1]: Started Network Manager Script Dispatcher Service.
Mar 18 18:55:47 futurebitbtc kernel: [2534783.200532] Purging 4202496 bytes
Mar 18 18:55:47 futurebitbtc kernel: [2534783.216659] Purging 4198400 bytes
Mar 18 18:55:47 futurebitbtc kernel: [2534783.222814] Purging 4399104 bytes
Mar 18 18:55:57 futurebitbtc systemd[1]: NetworkManager-dispatcher.service: Succeeded.
Mar 18 18:57:31 futurebitbtc Tor[1780]: Tor has not observed any network activity for the past 107 seconds. Disabling circuit build timeout recording.
Mar 18 18:57:46 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <warn>  [1679180266.0625] device (wlan0): no secrets: No agents were available for this request.
Mar 18 18:57:46 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180266.0629] device (wlan0): state change: need-auth -> failed (reason 'no-secrets', sys-iface-state:>
Mar 18 18:57:46 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180266.0695] manager: NetworkManager state is now DISCONNECTED
Mar 18 18:57:46 futurebitbtc gnome-shell[1803871]: An active wireless connection, in infrastructure mode, involves no access point?
Mar 18 18:57:46 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <warn>  [1679180266.0813] device (wlan0): Activation: failed for connection '******WiFi'
Mar 18 18:57:46 futurebitbtc NetworkManager[1515]: <info>  [1679180266.0863] device (wlan0): state change: failed -> disconnected (reason 'none', sys-iface-state: 'm>
Mar 18 18:57:46 futurebitbtc gnome-shell[1803871]: An active wireless connection, in infrastructure mode, involves no access point?
Mar 18 18:57:46 futurebitbtc gnome-shell[1803871]: message repeated 2 times: [ An active wireless connection, in infrastructure mode, involves no access point?]
Mar 18 19:00:01 futurebitbtc CRON[1834468]: (root) CMD (/usr/lib/armbian/armbian-truncate-logs)
Mar 18 19:01:49 futurebitbtc Tor[1780]: Failed to find node for hop #1 of our path. Discarding this circuit.
Mar 18 19:01:49 futurebitbtc Tor[1780]: Our circuit 0 (id: 127850) died due to an invalid selected path, purpose General-purpose client. This may be a torrc configur>
Mar 18 19:05:01 futurebitbtc CRON[1834483]: (root) CMD (command -v debian-sa1 > /dev/null && debian-sa1 1 1)
Mar 18 19:05:27 futurebitbtc Tor[1780]: Failed to find node for hop #1 of our path. Discarding this circuit.

[TheAnimist]

I've got a batch 4 (1x full node + 2x standard nodes), it eventually sync'd and is running fine, however I only see two hashboards on the miner tab, so was wondering if it was possible to use all 3x units as miners and if so, how do you configured such things?

[Sledge0001]

I've got a batch 4 (1x full node + 2x standard nodes), it eventually sync'd and is running fine, however I only see two hashboards on the miner tab, so was wondering if it was possible to use all 3x units as miners and if so, how do you configured such things?

I found that using the 2 x USB 3.0 ports work the best. Also try this..

Shut down the entire setup. Start the 2 standards first (assuming you have separate power supplies) and then start the full node.

If not then give it 10 minutes and then reboot through the gui!

Best of luck!

[TheAnimist]

Sadly that didn't work. I powered off the 2 add on units, and rebooted the full node, it came up but didn't enable the miner, I tried to start the miner, it flipped to the dashboard but then went back to miner offline.

Can't seem to start that as a miner just on it's own...

At a bit of a loss right now, any help most appreciated

[Sledge0001]

Sadly that didn't work. I powered off the 2 add on units, and rebooted the full node, it came up but didn't enable the miner, I tried to start the miner, it flipped to the dashboard but then went back to miner offline.

Can't seem to start that as a miner just on it's own...

At a bit of a loss right now, any help most appreciated

Is the node fully synced? If not then don't run the devices past ECO mode until you have a fully synced node. It has been reported that the miner may stop if it is pushed beyond ECO when syncing up with the blockchain.

If that doesn't do it then I would consider re-flashing the sd card with Futurebit's newest image and see if that sorts things out. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5340015.msg57091052#msg57091052

[JoeDirticus]

Sadly that didn't work. I powered off the 2 add on units, and rebooted the full node, it came up but didn't enable the miner, I tried to start the miner, it flipped to the dashboard but then went back to miner offline.

Can't seem to start that as a miner just on it's own...

At a bit of a loss right now, any help most appreciated

I just went through that myself. I redid the flash drive, either let the node sync or shut the node off, then power it down, start both standards, then power on the full node miner, and make sure the node is either fully synced or shut down. You should be able to punch in the IP of it to get to the UI start up or shut down the node, and start the miner, with all three showing up. My issue was either it would mine, or the other two would mine, not all three at once, reflashed, did the methodology stated and they all work again.

[TheAnimist]

Yeah it was fully sync'd, just the two standard units mining, and the full node not appearing in the miner dash. I'll try the reflashing and report back! Thanks so much for the guidance and hints everyone, amazingly helpful! Fingers crossed

[Mod note: Merged posts]

That worked! Reflashed, booted the full node, started the miner and off it went, the node was still fully sync'd and full connections! Fantastic, thanks all

[Draco22]

How do I configure my node to mine my own node

[bictoincat]

Hello, I have some troubles accessing my Apollo via web browser. When I try to access I get an "internal error" while putting my password. If I use a hdmi screen and keyboard/mouse I have no problems with my user/password but when accessing via web browser I can't do it. Any idea on how to solve this? I'm having this issue since the very beggining of using my miners, but doesn't was an important issue until now. I don't have any hdmi screen available and simply connected the miners to the network, and I don't know how to access and modify settings. Furthermore, two days ago one of the miners got stopped and I want to know what happened and set it up again.

Thanks for your help, I've tried to lookup for an answer here but it seems there's nobody with this same issue.

#Edit:

The front red led starts flashing fast but about 15 seconds after plug in of stop blinking and stays fixed.

The bottom yellow led doesn't blink never.

The rear leds are as follows:
- VD1 red: stays fixed
- VD5 green: blinks fast
- VD4 green: stays off

In my running miner this two green leds acts diferent: VD5 is fixed on and VD4 is blinking

I'm sorry, I don't know what else to look for, if anybody knows what can I do to check and find the problem I would really appreciate it!

Thanks for your help in advance!

[Jota_US]

Hello,
I've been running the BTC miner with full node for a while now, but since this week end the node randomly goes offline and does not reconnect.
Anyone having this issue? I need the node to stay online.
The miner is still mining but the node just goes offline

[Satayasat]

Hello,
I've been running the BTC miner with full node for a while now, but since this week end the node randomly goes offline and does not reconnect.
Anyone having this issue? I need the node to stay online.
The miner is still mining but the node just goes offline

I have been having the exact same issue, which means it's not us but something wrong on futurebit's end. I wrote them and they never wrote back 

[Satayasat]

As per my previous reply, my Apollo has been rendered useless since last week. Node can't even go 12 hours without randomly going offline. Mining just fine otherwise. Nothing seems wrong and others report the same problem.

[bnapp1]

Anybody know how the heatsink is attached to the chip? thermal pad or paste? Could this be upgraded to improve cooling?

[Frisco415]

Hello,
I've been running the BTC miner with full node for a while now, but since this week end the node randomly goes offline and does not reconnect.
Anyone having this issue? I need the node to stay online.
The miner is still mining but the node just goes offline

I have been having the exact same issue, which means it's not us but something wrong on futurebit's end. I wrote them and they never wrote back 

Good luck trying to get support, its almost non existent, if not EXTINCT... 

[jstefanop]

Hello,
I've been running the BTC miner with full node for a while now, but since this week end the node randomly goes offline and does not reconnect.
Anyone having this issue? I need the node to stay online.
The miner is still mining but the node just goes offline

I have been having the exact same issue, which means it's not us but something wrong on futurebit's end. I wrote them and they never wrote back 

Good luck trying to get support, its almost non existent, if not EXTINCT... 

Not sure where you are coming up with this, we respond to every email and im looking at our support que right now and there are only 10 outstanding tickets that will probably be answered in the next few hours (and we only have queues after weekends).

So if your definition of non existent support means not answering your immediate question within 10 minutes, then yes we have non existent support and will continue to have non existent support. Im not hiring random support agents from India and driving up costs of our units by 20% to satisfy this urge.

All our support emails are answered by my team that work on the units themselves (including myself) and can actually answer your question, but this means you might not have a response for a few days.


Now in terms of the nodes issues we are not seeing anything on our test systems, nor any widespread outages (my first thought was the ordinals/BRC-20 fiasco causing issues, but even with 1G mempool we have plenty of memory overhead).

Second issue could be if you have a recent system (bought after Nov/Dec last year), we switch to a new controller heatsink and some units were assembled without the heatsink adhesive properly installed. If your node/system is shutting down, or your your MCU temp (the one on the top menu bar) is higher than 85c then this could be the issue. You'll need to remove the side panel the MCU is on and remove the MCU and reseat the heatsink (press down on it hard for at least 10 seconds to make sure the thermal pad is stuck on there well).

Second step if your still having an issue is to reflash your SD card to make sure there is no corruption that could be causing system instability, if your still having node issues email us with two below logs:

take a screenshot of system monitor while the node is still active (preferably after it has started up and synced), you can open a terminal and type htop for this
send log file of bitcoind, its in the Bitcoin folder inside the node drive (debug.log)

[SG11]

I'm having two separate issues with my Apollo Node (Full + Standard) affecting its continued operation:
(1) The unit randomly stops working while maintaining power and the appearance of hashing activity.  The miners remain on with the fans running, but the unit does not "wake up" when the mouse or keyboard are manipulated and there is no output from the video (HDMI) port to my monitor.  I have tried all possible layer 1 manipulations to wake the machine, but my mining pool shows a reported hashrate of 0, and the only way to regain control of the system is a hard shutdown and restart.  This wastes both my time and my power at a premium.

(2) ...

I think I have the LAN issues figured out (2), but still getting random equipment stops as is laid out in (1) above --unit appears to be running, hashing, but it is actually doing nothing.  My mining pool shows no connection and periphery manipulation is unable to wake the device, the keyboard caps/num lock are both unresponsive, and the monitor says its receiving no signal and auto powers itself down.  I've already reached out to this group but did not receive a response to my initial post.  Anyone have any ideas, or do I just contact support and knock on their door until they answer a warranty call?

[Bosiman]

I can't reach one of my FutureBit Apollo FullNode with Ethernet LAN.
It does not appear in Portscanner. It was 2 weeks not in operation, before it worked fine.
The other two Fullnodes appear in Portscanner.
What is my problem?

https://abload.de/img/apollofuturebiti2d65.jpg

edits
- Reset of Router, no success
- Turn On/Off FullNode, no sucess

[Jota_US]

Hello,
I've been running the BTC miner with full node for a while now, but since this week end the node randomly goes offline and does not reconnect.
Anyone having this issue? I need the node to stay online.
The miner is still mining but the node just goes offline

I have been having the exact same issue, which means it's not us but something wrong on futurebit's end. I wrote them and they never wrote back 

Good luck trying to get support, its almost non existent, if not EXTINCT... 

Not sure where you are coming up with this, we respond to every email and im looking at our support que right now and there are only 10 outstanding tickets that will probably be answered in the next few hours (and we only have queues after weekends).

So if your definition of non existent support means not answering your immediate question within 10 minutes, then yes we have non existent support and will continue to have non existent support. Im not hiring random support agents from India and driving up costs of our units by 20% to satisfy this urge.

All our support emails are answered by my team that work on the units themselves (including myself) and can actually answer your question, but this means you might not have a response for a few days.


Now in terms of the nodes issues we are not seeing anything on our test systems, nor any widespread outages (my first thought was the ordinals/BRC-20 fiasco causing issues, but even with 1G mempool we have plenty of memory overhead).

Second issue could be if you have a recent system (bought after Nov/Dec last year), we switch to a new controller heatsink and some units were assembled without the heatsink adhesive properly installed. If your node/system is shutting down, or your your MCU temp (the one on the top menu bar) is higher than 85c then this could be the issue. You'll need to remove the side panel the MCU is on and remove the MCU and reseat the heatsink (press down on it hard for at least 10 seconds to make sure the thermal pad is stuck on there well).

Second step if your still having an issue is to reflash your SD card to make sure there is no corruption that could be causing system instability, if your still having node issues email us with two below logs:

take a screenshot of system monitor while the node is still active (preferably after it has started up and synced), you can open a terminal and type htop for this
send log file of bitcoind, its in the Bitcoin folder inside the node drive (debug.log)

So it appears the node goes offline only when I connect to it after a few minutes (via Sparrow Wallet). Can it be because it is overheating, connecting to the node actually makes it run hotter?!? I bought the unit couple years ago and I just cleaned it so it shouldn't overheat? The fan is on Auto as well.

[MikeDownUnder]

Hello,
I've been running the BTC miner with full node for a while now, but since this week end the node randomly goes offline and does not reconnect.
Anyone having this issue? I need the node to stay online.
The miner is still mining but the node just goes offline

I have been having the exact same issue, which means it's not us but something wrong on futurebit's end. I wrote them and they never wrote back 

The only time I've had this issue is when the inlets/heatsinks were full of dust. Once cleaned all good.