[~1000 GH/sec] BTC Guild - 0% Fee Pool, LP, SSL, Full Precision, and More

[AjaxOfSalamis]

What is this, the never-ending round?

[fornit]

wtf?!
the round ended and something like seven hours were counted for the next round?!
very strange 

[eleuthria]

The round duration/block statistics were corrected this morning.  I wasn't able to stay awake long enough to monitor when we found the block to make sure everything worked perfectly in the live system.

Block allocations were done properly, it just didn't properly cut off the round timer/post the new block in statistics.  Fix was pushed onto the server this morning and everything is running smooth again.  As has been the case with all the bugs that have come out so far, the back end calculations have been working flawlessly, it's just the display that has had errors.

[SmokeTooMuch]

BTC Guild - http://www.btcguild.com

I am pleased to announce that my mining pool (BTC Guild) is now open for public testing after my internal testing has produced two blocks and proper worker/user allocations.  BTC Guild is a pool based in California, which is ideal for any users in the US or Canada.

You should add your pool to the wiki - https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Pooled_mining

[Miner-TE]

It it possible to loose a found block?     

Just noticed, on my account/worker page, that the "Blocks Found:" is reset to zero.

Anyone else loose a block or pick one up?

I guess, I'm looking for the block lost and found department.


   Paging block number 123189. Please report to the front office. 

[eleuthria]

It it possible to loose a found block?     

Just noticed, on my account/worker page, that the "Blocks Found:" is reset to zero.

Anyone else loose a block or pick one up?

I guess, I'm looking for the block lost and found department.


   Paging block number 123189. Please report to the front office. 

The person who found a block was being checked improperly.  It was looking at who owned the last timestamped share in the block.  The problem is, sometimes multiple shares were submitted that same second.

I ran a fix this morning which only gave credit to the person who submitted the actual solving share.  Sorry if you were one of the people who lost their block found count because it was given to you in error previously .

[Sukrim]

I ran a fix this morning which only gave credit to the person who submitted the actual solving share.  Sorry if you were one of the people who lost their block found count because it was given to you in error previously .

Well, actually that's a good thing - it means I got over 10% of what that block would have given me - without me finding any block at all, ever!

[Miner-TE]

Ok,  No problem. Congrats to whoever actually found the block for the pool.

[DareC]

I'm surprised that nobody here has mentioned that we have an IRC channel now! Come join us in #btcguild on Freenode. I hope it wasn't supposed to be a secret 

[eleuthria]

I'm surprised that nobody here has mentioned that we have an IRC channel now! Come join us in #btcguild on Freenode. I hope it wasn't supposed to be a secret 

Ah, I've added that to the front post now.  I forgot it was just nested in here in one of the posts rather than on the front.  Also adding it to the front page of the website.

[eleuthria]

The updates done over the weekend seemed to have fixed the hangups from new blocks.  Pool has remained online and strong with 5 blocks found since yesterday's maintenance.

One bug was found in the new block code.  It used the old rounding (AKA: Cutting off decimals after 0.001).  I have manually updated everybody's rewards and increased them by 0.001 per block for blocks #18 - 22.  This guarantees that everybody got more than what they should have for the blocks, to make up for losing the extra decimals of accuracy which were missing on those 5 blocks.

[Muhahahahaz]

Why is the Stale Share rate so high now? I used to be getting less than 1%, but since the update it's been more like 2-3%...

[eleuthria]

Why is the Stale Share rate so high now? I used to be getting less than 1%, but since the update it's been more like 2-3%...

There was a problem with the long polling monitor earlier this morning which has been corrected.  I was also making a few tweaks to prepare for what will probably be the final hardware upgrade (solid state drive for the database) this Thursday.  However, the slight backend tweaks should not have produced stale results like what you're referring to.

If you're running a slower miner (CPU/low end GPU), the stale % likely spiked due to the long polling monitor problem.

[Muhahahahaz]

Why is the Stale Share rate so high now? I used to be getting less than 1%, but since the update it's been more like 2-3%...

There was a problem with the long polling monitor earlier this morning which has been corrected.  I was also making a few tweaks to prepare for what will probably be the final hardware upgrade (solid state drive for the database) this Thursday.  However, the slight backend tweaks should not have produced stale results like what you're referring to.

If you're running a slower miner (CPU/low end GPU), the stale % likely spiked due to the long polling monitor problem.

Thanks! It seems to be clearing up now.

(I'm GPU mining on my 5970.)

[CydeWeys]

I'm running two 5850s for this pool now.  I've looked at all the options and I think I like this pool best, with one caveat -- I think Eligius's method of paying directly out of the generated block is better.  However, Eligius doesn't have an interface, and I really do appreciate the value of having an interface, so BTC Guild wins out for that.  However, I must ask, are there any long term plans for having payouts come directly from the generated blocks?  That seems like the optimal way to do it because it minimizes transaction fees.

[eleuthria]

Right now I have no plans to make the payouts come directly out of the block, it would require a significant amount of changes to both the site and the pool code.

In other news:  You can now view detailed block statistics which breakdown shares by user, reward by user, and donation by user.  It is kept hidden by User ID#.  Your personal contribution to the block (if any) is highlighted in yellow.  You can access this information by clicking the 'View' link on the right side of the block in the statistics listing.

[Sukrim]

In other news:  You can now view detailed block statistics which breakdown shares by user, reward by user, and donation by user.  It is kept hidden by User ID#.  Your personal contribution to the block (if any) is highlighted in yellow.  You can access this information by clicking the 'View' link on the right side of the block in the statistics listing.

Nice ~4 GHashes/s you're running there!

[PiGames]

Right now I have no plans to make the payouts come directly out of the block, it would require a significant amount of changes to both the site and the pool code.

In other news:  You can now view detailed block statistics which breakdown shares by user, reward by user, and donation by user.  It is kept hidden by User ID#.  Your personal contribution to the block (if any) is highlighted in yellow.  You can access this information by clicking the 'View' link on the right side of the block in the statistics listing.

Nice little feature.
Hopefully your pool gets some attention and takes off.

[steelhouse]

no downtime overnight.

[eleuthria]

There were some people experiencing disconnects or miner idles overnight, in short bursts.  As far as I have been able to tell from the logs, this is related to I/O wait and internal network latency between the web/pool server and the database server.  This is likely because the pool has doubled in size in the last few days, now over 50 gH/sec, which is far faster than I anticipated.

Because of this, I have moved the planned maintenance window from Thursday to Wednesday (4:30 PM PST - ~6:00 PM).  This maintenance will be installing a solid state drive for faster database access (which has been related to some of the miner idles/RPC errors).  I will also be installing a second NIC card into the web/pool server and connecting the database server directly to the web/pool server to avoid running this through the network router, which is likely the cause for some latency spikes and/or disconnects.