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

[PennyBit]

I am waiting on FedEx to drop off my Apollo II full node. Any tips on setting it up that you might have. Should I let the node populate the blockchain before doing anything else?

First thing, make sure both the MicroSD card and the NVME card are seated all the way before you even plug it in. Then after you get it up and running (preferably hard-wired with an ethernet cable) I would let the node sync up fully (could be several days) before trying to mine beyond ECO mode. Besides, you can't mine to your own node until it is sync'd completely - but you can pool mine, just stay in ECO until the node is complete. Anything higher than ECO during the sync really puts a strain on the system. That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

Here is the full getting started guide on the Futurebit website:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a9c84ac89c172bcf087f4c0/t/662173d150d84b057cb14192/1713468369163/FutureBit-Apollo-II-Guide.pdf

Cheers!

Thanks I will wait for it sync and yes i plan on using ethernet cable

I am glad you recommended checking the MicroSD card but its about 70% sync'd now. It shows 10/32 connections, but the instructions say it should go higher (to the 32 I guess), so will it not go higher until 100% sync'd or do I need to do something.

It's been suggested to forward to port 8333 on your router if you're not getting more than 10. Personally, I've never been able to get my Netgear router to actually accommodate my efforts in this regard (could be my router acting up or just me being stupid). However, I did manually add a few node addresses from https://bitnodes.io/ and after that I can at least can get 12-13. It's obviously a common problem as this issue keeps coming up here and simple port forwarding just doesn't seem to address it in every case. I should state that I don't forward via UPnP as I don't believe it's that secure. In any case, until I get a new router I'll just live with 12 connections.

Cheers!

Thank you PennyBit for the reply. I switched it over to my piggybacked Eero hoping it might change but it looks like i might need to manually add a couple as well. Can you tell me the steps in adding the other connections? I am thinking at the "Bitcoin node configuration" and if so do I just need to add the IP address of some local nodes?

Take a look at a post from Sledge0001 here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5492150.0

About 2/3 of the way down of his pics he gives a good example using the addnode=IPADDRESS and listenonion=0 commands

Cheers!

I wanted to thank you again for your help and give an update. After getting the blockchain totally sync'd I was still only getting 10/32 and sometimes 11/32. I added 7 nodes from bitnodes.io and was only getting 11/32. I had port forward on my Eero to 8333 but wasn't until finding where my port forward on my main modem was able to add the 8333 there and my Appllo started getting 32/32 nodes.  For some reason, i can't access bitnodes.io anymore, I get a 403 forbidden notice, I am not sure what that is about?

Now I can thank you for your help! It never occurred to me to go into my modem and set the port forwarding as well as on the router itself. BINGO!!! It worked! I have more connections now than I've ever had in the past.

With regards to you not accessing the bitnodes website anymore, I can only guess that it may be related to your browser cache. Try clearing that site from your cache and/or try accessing the site from a different browser and/or computer. I don't have a problem accessing that site after all the monkeying around I did with the router and modem.

Cheers!

[aurel57]

Glad I helped! Like they say, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn once in a while.

[TunerDude007]

Hello so I flashed the new os 2 on my Apollo mcu1 seems to work. No hashrate from my dashboard like I said on support by email.

I have a question is that possible to point other miners on my own solo node for the solo mining or it’s exclusive for the Apollo ?

Hi your dashboard is showing 0 hashrate?

Yes you can point any Bitcoin miner to the solo pool. The LAN address is shown in the solo pool page, and you can also port forward 3333 to your LAN address so you can access the solo pool from your WAN address.

Yes I opened a ticket support they asked me to open the ssh port to check the hashboard im waiting for a response but I’m shure you’re all in the rush to bring us the new Apollo 2

I tried to point my 2pacs and my compacsf but doesn’t seems to work… put the stratum that is shown and my bitcoin adress I will try to port forward to perhaps it will work like this !

The solo mining part works both locally and externally if you port forward correctly!

Make sure that your using the following in your cgminer code

Code:

stratum+tcp://YOURLOCALIPADDRESS:3333 -u YOURBITCOINADDRESS -p x 

That’s exactly what I made and nothing happens on cgminer …

Since I forwarwed the port all seems to work flawlessly ! And to point another miner on the node on your local network use: Ip of the miner:3333 for ex : 192.168.1.xx:3333

Is it possible to rent hashpower from say Nicehash or MRR and point that hashpower to my futurbit node? How would I go about doing that? Thanks everyone

[jstefanop]

cant believe it...make no mistake everyone in the futurebit community just made history today

10 years of grinding for this and its surreal...today we took bitcoin back

So to hit a block, would the miner's Best Share have to be equal to BTC network difficulty?

Has Futurebit learned any more details about how this block was mined?

e.g.:

one miner or multiple miners feeding the solo node?

how many days had the miner/s been running before hitting?

Your guess is just as good as mine. We dont collect user data for this reason. If we get big enough where people are finding a block every day I would not be surprised if the powers that be come knocking on our doors requesting data on where these blocks are coming from.

The only thing we know 100% is that the block was found by someone running an Apollo BTC or Apollo II through the solo mode feature.

[Cloud9Mining]

Is it possible to rent hashpower from say Nicehash or MRR and point that hashpower to my futurbit node? How would I go about doing that? Thanks everyone

Here’s a quick guide:

- Use MiningRigRentals (MRR) for more flexibility compared to NiceHash.
- Ensure your FutureBit node is configured to accept external connections (set up port forwarding and secure access).
- Rent hashpower from MRR and input your node’s IP and port into the rental settings.
- Keep an eye on the performance to ensure everything is running smoothly.

[eagleye]

You need to format the new 2TB drive with the format command in settings. Don't format your old data drive.  Just to make sure all is good.   I did that with my new drive.  Then if you have a usb to pcie adapter, copy your 1TB drive to your new 2TB drive.  takes about 45 mins.  then shutdown, swap and reboot and it should work fine.  THat's my experience.  Keep the 1TB as a backup.  That's what I have.

I did the reindex-chainstate , took longer.  I found it to slow down the process on the raspberry pi. The raspberry cpu isn't fast enough for reindex-chainstate.  Also lack of ram slows the process.    Seems to actually be quicker to start an IBD after a formatted drive and it is quicker.  However, I highly recommend a backup like above.  Once my IBD was complete I copied the drive for a backup.  I also would backup the nvme drive mid IBD download when I was having problems with the raspberry pi crashing mid download.  That made recovery quicker in future crashes.  My hardest part was the IBD.  Once done my system is now running much better.  

I have low trust in the reliability of the included microsd card.  The original is possibly a much older 16GB microsd.   I purchased a new one cheap and with much higher bandwidth and more memory, Cheapest one I could find.  I flashed it and find it more stable than the included card was.

A follow up question about doing IBD and overcoming what seems to be too much stress for the RAM & processor.

I've got a backup NVME with about the first-half of the IBD on it. I would like to see if there's advice on the procedures for starting a node (Apollo BTC installing 2.0.5) by using the backed-up blockchain data.

Its a 2TB NVME drive in the node, with a 1TB NVME connected via USB and a flashed micro SD to install the system.

Questions are things like which folders need to go over and in what order should steps be taken from initial boot. Thank you!

/blocks  &  /chainstate
OK I haven’t done this before but I have been reading about copying the Bitcoin Core blockchain to another system and this is what I plan to do when I receive my Apollo II later this week.
I have a fully synched v22 Bitcoin Core node running on an Ubuntu PC that I’ve been playing with and I will copy it over to the new 2 TB SSD to avoid re-downloading the entire blockchain again, which might take me a week.
Bitcoin is installed on my Ubuntu PC in the home directory in the hidden folder .bitcoin. There are three subfolders within .bitcoin,   /blocks, /chainstate  & /wallets.
/blocks is 699.6 GB
/chainstate is 12.5 GB
I will not be moving over the /wallets folder or the individual files in the .bitcoin folder, files like bitcoin.conf mempool.dat, peers.dat... These are specific to that PC install and I believe the ones on the Apollo II system will already be in place or will be created on statrtup.
So basically I am moving over just two folders under the .bitcoin folder,  /blocks  &  /chainstate. That’s it.
Here’s what I plan to do when I receive the system.
Connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Power on and log into the Apollo system with minimum configurations settings. Stop the miner and node if they are running. Use a file manager on the desktop to make sure the file structure is the same on the SSD,  “cd /media/nvme/bitcoin” to look for the blocks and chainstate folders. If they are there then rename them to oldblocks and oldchainstate just to save them for now. Shutdown the system, remove the SSD and put on a USB/pcie adapter into my Ubuntu PC. I will put a fan blowing on the SSD during this copy as this will probably be the most work this SSD will ever experience, copying 700+ GB to it in one go. Obviously the Bitcoin Core node will not be running on my PC to ensure the files are all closed properly. After a successful copy, shutdown the PC, move the SSD back over to the Apollo II system and power it on and complete the setup.

I think it will work. Maybe someone else can chime in if this process looks reasonable or if I’ve left something out. Hope this helps. Good luck mining...

Sounds good and some say that should work, but the con to this is you have a duplicate blockchain from another node.  Each node creates its own database set.  The theory is copies can create risk of exposure to bad actors.  But from your own device should be ok.  Now, with the new copy of the database is the Node a different bitcoin node address or does it take on the same node address when copying that data?

Using a USB to pcie, I don't think the memory card will overheat as your limited to USB 3.0 speeds which is less than the actual memory card speeds.  No overheat here.  200mbps read/write through usb 3.0

directories in your linux raspberry pi is main bitcoin directory  media/pcie/Bitcoin.   The usb drive is media/futurebit.  I am very careful when opening windows and copying files on the node. I look at file properties to make sure I'm pointed to the right drive.

I just had a chainstate file get corrupted, chainstate file xxxxxx is corrupt.  possible system crash.  Tried to recover it. multiple node restarts failed.  reindex-chainstate=1.  That will delete all chainstate files on restart and rebuild the chainstate from start.   Bitcoin database stays intact.  I find the database blockchain files seem to be ok and no errors detected.  This process takes too long and My Node can't seem to cleanly rebuild it with anything else running such as the miner or open browser windows.  It seems to crash more.  If it crashes and you have the reindex-chainstate=1 set it will start from scratch every time.  have to delete this setting before any node restart after chainstate files have been deleted.  bitcoin will reindex chainstate files on restart even with this setting turned off.

So, what I did, which is quicker is take my backup nvme card and delete the chainstate files on the node that have a corrupt file and reinstall only the chainstate backup files to the node nvme.  On restart chainstate files are rebuilt from missing 3 weeks.

Yes, I didn't have the miner or node runnng.  Took a few hours to rebuild the missing chainstate from 3 weeks ago.  Now back to normal.  Node running ok and time to backup the files to todays date.  about a 45 to 60 minute time.  Carefully delete the usb nvme files and copy a fresh set.

How I can tell is when I shut down the node I look for a clean exit in the debug.log.  If there is a chainstate error it shows there.

[Finnskywalker359]

Aha this may work. Lets see, its processing.

screen -dmS node /opt/apolloapi/backend/node/bitcoind -reindex -datadir=/media/nvme/Bitcoin -conf=/opt/apolloapi/backend/node/bitcoin.conf

Yep, next release has a "Reindex node" option before the formate node drive as away to recover the node database without going to the extreme of wiping the drive in case of hard shutdowns etc

Could you please clarify the instructions for this? I'm only moderately experienced with this but I am having the same issue but only getting about 25% synced before I hit the error message.

[Supcoop73]

just received an apollo 2. why does my node say max btc block is 168,473?

also shouldnt ut take a bit to load node?

thx

its been stuck on 168,473 the whole time. but it keeps showing a found block. but when i connect my node to sparrow, it says connection to btc core successful, but it is still syncing, but its not going past 0%

[aurel57]

just received an apollo 2. why does my node say max btc block is 168,473?

also shouldnt ut take a bit to load node?

thx

I got mine last week and it took about 3-4 days to load the blockchain up.

[Supcoop73]

ok, so itll be stuck at 0% for a while, then itll kick in. so check in am?

thx bro

[eagleye]

Aha this may work. Lets see, its processing.

screen -dmS node /opt/apolloapi/backend/node/bitcoind -reindex -datadir=/media/nvme/Bitcoin -conf=/opt/apolloapi/backend/node/bitcoin.conf

Yep, next release has a "Reindex node" option before the formate node drive as away to recover the node database without going to the extreme of wiping the drive in case of hard shutdowns etc

Could you please clarify the instructions for this? I'm only moderately experienced with this but I am having the same issue but only getting about 25% synced before I hit the error message.

Looking at the debug.log in the bitcoin directory is the most important item to monitor actively.  An error message on the node GUI doesn't show you what's going on behind the scenes.  Did the node abruptly stop?  what errors? chainstate corrupt?

Do you have the browser open on the Node?  I close the browser and have minimal items on the node open to monitor the logs.  The node IBD performed better on my system with these closed.  I stopped the miner until download complete.   I monitor remotely as this only grabs basic data from the node. saves RAM

with the system monitor check the operating processes.  Sometimes the bitcoind process may still be running even though the system looks paused.  only when this process disappears is the node completely stopped.  You can get an error message in the logs that memory buffer exceeded limits and the bitcoind then writes the data to the chainstate database and continues on.  There is a pause when this happens.

[aurel57]

just received an apollo 2. why does my node say max btc block is 168,473?

also shouldnt ut take a bit to load node?

thx

its been stuck on 168,473 the whole time. but it keeps showing a found block. but when i connect my node to sparrow, it says connection to btc core successful, but it is still syncing, but its not going past 0%

It should not be stuck? mine would show ( eg) 253000/870397,  first number should grow slowly every few mins as it sync's with the blockchain and second number as new blocks are found, is either one changing? f your also show 0% thats not right. are you mining with it? are you using Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable?

[Poker8]

samsung pro plus sdxc 128gb was on sale at the local BB store.
180 mb/sec read 130 mb/sec write
I was looking for any new memory card with video grade speed microsdxc.

I picked up the same micro card mentioned. Thursday. I have a PC with two SD card slots. What program did you use to clone the old card to the new please?

[eagleye]

samsung pro plus sdxc 128gb was on sale at the local BB store.
180 mb/sec read 130 mb/sec write
I was looking for any new memory card with video grade speed microsdxc.

I picked up the same micro card mentioned. Thursday. I have a PC with two SD card slots. What program did you use to clone the old card to the new please?

follow the futurebit instructions online.
https://www.futurebit.io/flashing-sd-card

[Supcoop73]

just received an apollo 2. why does my node say max btc block is 168,473?

also shouldnt ut take a bit to load node?

thx

its been stuck on 168,473 the whole time. but it keeps showing a found block. but when i connect my node to sparrow, it says connection to btc core successful, but it is still syncing, but its not going past 0%

It should not be stuck? mine would show ( eg) 253000/870397,  first number should grow slowly every few mins as it sync's with the blockchain and second number as new blocks are found, is either one changing? f your also show 0% thats not right. are you mining with it? are you using Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable?

yes, it should say 168,473/870397, or some such number. its not growing. and i just got up and still at 168,473. i have it plugged in to ethernet. yes, im mining, but i know it prob doesnt matter since it cant mine if its not on the right block lol

[aurel57]

just received an apollo 2. why does my node say max btc block is 168,473?

also shouldnt ut take a bit to load node?

thx

its been stuck on 168,473 the whole time. but it keeps showing a found block. but when i connect my node to sparrow, it says connection to btc core successful, but it is still syncing, but its not going past 0%

It should not be stuck? mine would show ( eg) 253000/870397,  first number should grow slowly every few mins as it sync's with the blockchain and second number as new blocks are found, is either one changing? f your also show 0% thats not right. are you mining with it? are you using Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable?

yes, it should say 168,473/870397, or some such number. its not growing. and i just got up and still at 168,473. i have it plugged in to ethernet. yes, im mining, but i know it prob doesnt matter since it cant mine if its not on the right block lol

Your miner should still be mining to which ever pool you set up. You just can't solo mine thru your node until it's sync 100% with the block chain. You should be able to check your miner on the pool page to check on it.  I think I would shut down the unit by using the button on your miner page so it shuts down properly and make sure both crds are seated in and restart the unit. If your going to mine make sure on Eco only.

[Supcoop73]

just received an apollo 2. why does my node say max btc block is 168,473?

also shouldnt ut take a bit to load node?

thx

its been stuck on 168,473 the whole time. but it keeps showing a found block. but when i connect my node to sparrow, it says connection to btc core successful, but it is still syncing, but its not going past 0%

It should not be stuck? mine would show ( eg) 253000/870397,  first number should grow slowly every few mins as it sync's with the blockchain and second number as new blocks are found, is either one changing? f your also show 0% thats not right. are you mining with it? are you using Wi-Fi or Ethernet cable?

yes, it should say 168,473/870397, or some such number. its not growing. and i just got up and still at 168,473. i have it plugged in to ethernet. yes, im mining, but i know it prob doesnt matter since it cant mine if its not on the right block lol

Your miner should still be mining to which ever pool you set up. You just can't solo mine thru your node until it's sync 100% with the block chain. You should be able to check your miner on the pool page to check on it.  I think I would shut down the unit by using the button on your miner page so it shuts down properly and make sure both crds are seated in and restart the unit. If your going to mine make sure on Eco only.

yeah im solo mining. yeah ive done all the shut down stuff, reboot, it just comes back and is still 168,473.
i just did a support ticket. not a great day1 on the apollo2 for me lol

[AQUARIUZ88]

Good day all

I am some what a newbie in this field and would like proper steps to take ie solo mine with Apollo 2 full node.I've had the Apollo 2 since its first batch released.The various times my node stops running with a note to direct the Apollo to a solo mine pool hence my confusion isn't the unit a full node solo mine setup guide never directed me to connect to a solo pool the forum is very explanatory for pool mines but for Apollo 2 full node solo miners kind feel like I am hanging out to dry.Most times I have reboot it may continue to solo mine but most of the time I have to reformat the node all this began when I naively updated to v2.0.5 this node situation occurs every 5-6 days and the system disk usage is at 13/14 gb practically full any help would be greatly appreciated.

bless day family !!

[eagleye]

RE: stuck blocks

Have you checked your debug.log in the bitcoin directory and are there error messages or is it finding and counting blocks? There is a real time counter of events in UTC that should have reports at least every 30 seconds.

is your bitcoind daemon running If its not then it crashed for some reason.

RE : crashing node

My experience from receipt of an apollo II is to make sure you have a fresh formatted pcie memory card.  Once the node gets running close all non essential browsers and stop mining.  They say you can mine in eco mode but I had more bitcoind crashes with the miner running than not.  

I also replaced the microsd supplied with a new card and flashed  The supplied microsd card seemed to be less stable than a new faster card

The flaw is the raspberry PI base that this system is built on from research in other forums on the rapsberry pi running nodes.  The system is very sensitive.
I monitor the node remotely as it only requests core data that does not load the CPU and memory of the raspberry PI.  
the IBD(Initial Blockchain Download) consumes a lot of CPU usage and the bitcoind is sensitive to timing and other apps consuming memory or processor time seems to crash the bitcoind program more often in my case.

Once the IDB is complete(make a backup of your bitcoin database to a second drive), my node v2.0.5 is rather stable and solo mining in normal mode works fine.

Also, heat, i turn my apollo sideways hdmi pointed up. for better airflow and my fan speed drops.  It needs a regulated ups.  any types of power surges in the electric line can crash the node.  If that happens it can crash the database in a possible write event.

pay attention to the debug.log after any system pause.  That's your key to what happened.  Sometimes when it just drops off you can just restart the node and it continues as expected.  If you stop the node half way through IDB and you get a successful stop on the node in the log with no errors you could backup the database to an external usb to pcie memory card to save a point in the download.  

every 2 weeks i am backing up my node database to my 2nd drive.  you have to stop the node and miner before backing up the data.

[aurel57]

RE: stuck blocks

Have you checked your debug.log in the bitcoin directory and are there error messages or is it finding and counting blocks? There is a real time counter of events in UTC that should have reports at least every 30 seconds.

is your bitcoind daemon running If its not then it crashed for some reason.

RE : crashing node

My experience from receipt of an apollo II is to make sure you have a fresh formatted pcie memory card.  Once the node gets running close all non essential browsers and stop mining.  They say you can mine in eco mode but I had more bitcoind crashes with the miner running than not.  

I also replaced the microsd supplied with a new card and flashed  The supplied microsd card seemed to be less stable than a new faster card

The flaw is the raspberry PI base that this system is built on from research in other forums on the rapsberry pi running nodes.  The system is very sensitive.
I monitor the node remotely as it only requests core data that does not load the CPU and memory of the raspberry PI.  
the IBD(Initial Blockchain Download) consumes a lot of CPU usage and the bitcoind is sensitive to timing and other apps consuming memory or processor time seems to crash the bitcoind program more often in my case.

Once the IDB is complete(make a backup of your bitcoin database to a second drive), my node v2.0.5 is rather stable and solo mining in normal mode works fine.

Also, heat, i turn my apollo sideways hdmi pointed up. for better airflow and my fan speed drops.  It needs a regulated ups.  any types of power surges in the electric line can crash the node.  If that happens it can crash the database in a possible write event.

pay attention to the debug.log after any system pause.  That's your key to what happened.  Sometimes when it just drops off you can just restart the node and it continues as expected.  If you stop the node half way through IDB and you get a successful stop on the node in the log with no errors you could backup the database to an external usb to pcie memory card to save a point in the download.  

every 2 weeks i am backing up my node database to my 2nd drive.  you have to stop the node and miner before backing up the data.

Placed mine on its side and temp dropped 2-3 degrees. I guess by blowing the hot air up there is less of a chance for it to get drawn back in. Thanks for the tip!