Alert: chain fork caused by pre-0.8 clients dealing badly with large blocks - page 23.

bit365

sr. member

Activity: 350

Merit: 250

Quote from: etotheipi on March 11, 2013, 09:40:59 PM

The original post lacked info for "regular users". Here it is:

(1) If you are a "regular user" (not a miner), the best thing is to do nothing and wait a couple hours.
(2) If you are a "regular user", Upgrading, downgrading, whining, FUD, etc, will make no difference. Only miners have an incentive to do anything.
(3) Regardless of who you are, your transactions are not dead, your coins are not lost. They will just temporarily be held up. If you sent a transaction within the last few hours, it may take a few more hours before it's sorted out.
(4) If you insist on processing transactions right now it's probably best to wait 30+ confirmations. It's just due diligence though ... an attacker would still need a tremendous amount of mining power, quick thinking, and a victim willing to part with a lot of BTC.
(5) By tomorrow this will be in the past and everything will appear to be normal again. If you slept through this, you'd never know that anything happend (except for the price drop).

Let me reiterate, your coins are not at risk, your transactions are not lost. It'll just take some time for the network to "iron itself out." Everything will be okay.

Very good info.

ehoffman

sr. member

Activity: 378

Merit: 250

I do have transaction that are stucked. Probable cause is that the server I sent to is with the old code, and don't see my transaction. My client (0.8 ) does see transaction as confirmed.

bitpop

legendary

Activity: 2912

Merit: 1060

Thanks, reverted to .7. Seeing a lot of errors and going to just let it run.
I'm going to consider myself a miner because I run a p2pool node though I don't think anyone is using it at this point.

Quote from: Maged on March 11, 2013, 09:42:10 PM

Quote from: bitpop on March 11, 2013, 09:34:35 PM

will downgrading redownload the entire chain? because wasnt the old db converted?

Nope, because the developers thought ahead with that point. Your chain will start at the last point you ran a 0.7 or below client.

superfastkyle

sr. member

Activity: 437

Merit: 250

mt gox had disabled btc withdrawals
we will see below $30 before the night is over

dree12

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1077

Quote from: whitenight639 on March 11, 2013, 09:39:13 PM

So let me get this right,

IF we'd all upgrade to .08 then the blocksize restriction would have been lifted, but because not many did we now have a fork and because the 0.7 blockchain is longer we should revert to that until a proper upgrade path to 0.8 is made available?

so is 0.8 inherently flawed, I thought there was a consensus that the blocksize should be lifted? I think this is very poor

A simple retards guide summing up key points for and against blocksize restriction or lifting should have been stickied in the forum for some time and a poll taken by everybody not just miners, devs and long time posters.

An upgrade should have been built and tested on an isolated blockchain if that is possible,

A announcement about the upcoming availability of the upgrade should have been stickied referring to the poll results and post aforementioned,

A target date and block number should have been specified and downloads of the new client should have been made available along with an "alert£"

Some time before the specified date / block another last chance alert should hav been issued, anyone not upgrading after the date / block should have been left in the dust.

0.8 did not lift the blocksize. The block being big is just a specific problem, it could have been a block too small or too strange (the problem was, however, that the block was very big—but not "too big"). The problem was 0.7 and below rejecting a block that should have been accepted.

0.8 is not flawed. The flaw lied in 0.7 and below. If an upgrade was hastened, the problem would not have been a problem at all.

glitch003

full member

Activity: 219

Merit: 101

This sucks but at least we're working out all these bugs right now (how to handle version upgrades safely, etc) while Bitcoin is still in it's infancy. Better that this happen now than in the future when more people are utilizing the network and the consequences could be worse.

This is all part of the risk that we incur, and is exactly the reason why everyone says "don't invest more in Bitcoin than you can spare to lose"

Maged

legendary

Activity: 1204

Merit: 1015

Quote from: bitpop on March 11, 2013, 09:34:35 PM

will downgrading redownload the entire chain? because wasnt the old db converted?

Nope, because the developers thought ahead with that point. Your chain will start at the last point you ran a 0.7 or below client.

whitenight639

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

Also can I buy bitcoins on localbitcoins and take advantage of this crazyness without loosing my money??

etotheipi

legendary

Activity: 1428

Merit: 1093

Core Armory Developer

The original post lacked info for "regular users". Here it is:

(1) If you are a "regular user" (not a miner), the best thing is to do nothing and wait a couple hours.
(2) If you are a "regular user", upgrading, downgrading, whining, FUD, etc, will make no difference. Only miners have an incentive to do anything. Otherwise, it doesn't matter which version you are running.
(3) Regardless of who you are, your transactions are not dead, your coins are not lost. They will just temporarily be held up. If you sent a transaction within the last few hours, it may take a few more hours before it's sorted out.
(4) If you insist on processing transactions right now it's probably best to wait 30+ confirmations. It's just due diligence though ... an attacker would still need a tremendous amount of mining power, quick thinking, and a victim willing to part with a lot of BTC.
(5) By tomorrow this will be in the past and everything will appear to be normal again. If you slept through this, you'd never know that anything happend (except for the price drop).

Let me reiterate, your coins are not at risk, your transactions are not lost. It'll just take some time for the network to "iron itself out." Everything will be okay.

cypherdoc

legendary

Activity: 1764

Merit: 1002

Quote from: Pieter Wuille on March 11, 2013, 09:06:33 PM

Quote from: key2 on March 11, 2013, 09:06:06 PM

I made a purchase yesterday through localbitcoins.com before this all went down. I had that transferred to one of my blockchain wallets. It has at this point over 70 confirmations - is this entire transaction safe? I'm very new to this and I think I picked abad day to buy my first BTC Undecided

Perfectly safe.

my friend just made his first purchase around 2pm PST today with 0.8. Is he safe?

bitpop

legendary

Activity: 2912

Merit: 1060

What defines a miner? Someone solo mining? What about p2pool?
Why aren't wallets effected?

whitenight639

full member

Activity: 154

Merit: 100

So let me get this right,

IF we'd all upgrade to .08 then the blocksize restriction would have been lifted, but because not many did we now have a fork and because the 0.7 blockchain is longer we should revert to that until a proper upgrade path to 0.8 is made available?

so is 0.8 inherently flawed, I thought there was a consensus that the blocksize should be lifted? I think this is very poor

A simple retards guide summing up key points for and against blocksize restriction or lifting should have been stickied in the forum for some time and a poll taken by everybody not just miners, devs and long time posters.

An upgrade should have been built and tested on an isolated blockchain if that is possible,

A announcement about the upcoming availability of the upgrade should have been stickied referring to the poll results and post aforementioned,

A target date and block number should have been specified and downloads of the new client should have been made available along with an "alert£"

Some time before the specified date / block another last chance alert should hav been issued, anyone not upgrading after the date / block should have been left in the dust.

bitpop

legendary

Activity: 2912

Merit: 1060

Why? I want to help. I have a 24/7 server. And I do have a p2pool public node running off it.

Quote from: HappMacDonald on March 11, 2013, 09:37:27 PM

Quote from: bitpop on March 11, 2013, 09:34:35 PM

will downgrading redownload the entire chain? because wasnt the old db converted?

Just for everyone in the audience: Wallet users do not have to downgrade, this is just for the miners.

For the miners: that's not a bad question. :?

nelisky

legendary

Activity: 1540

Merit: 1002

Quote from: WhitePhantom on March 11, 2013, 09:32:44 PM

Quote from: Pieter Wuille on March 11, 2013, 08:29:57 PM

BTCGuild is switching to 0.7, so the old chain will get a majority hash rate soon.

I've switched to BTCGuild for the moment. Will switch back to BitMinter once DrHaribo confirms that the pool has reverted to 0.7.

Doc has confirmed, but something wasn't working and he is fixing it, I believe. So it is 0.7 but is currently down.

joecooin

sr. member

Activity: 359

Merit: 250

DoomDumas

legendary

Activity: 1002

Merit: 1000

Bitcoin

Quote from: ChanceCoats123 on March 11, 2013, 09:00:10 PM

Quote from: lenny_ on March 11, 2013, 08:58:20 PM

Quote from: ?? on ??

PANIC SELL!!

Price has just dropped to $30...

Im buying at $29 Cool

On which exchange?

He's bullshitting. There really isn't a big issue. In fact, I usually don't upgrade my software until there are other versions out after the one I upgrade to, so that I can avoid any issues like this. So everyone just relax.

I think older version mining had the bug !

HappMacDonald

newbie

Activity: 26

Merit: 0

Quote from: bitpop on March 11, 2013, 09:34:35 PM

will downgrading redownload the entire chain? because wasnt the old db converted?

Just for everyone in the audience: Wallet users do not have to downgrade, this is just for the miners.

For the miners: that's not a bad question. :?

Herodes

hero member

Activity: 868

Merit: 1000

Quote from: ChanceCoats123 on March 11, 2013, 09:13:23 PM

I stand corrected. I thought there were more than 10k nodes worldwide.

Edit: On a side note, that's pretty unsettling. This currency is supposed to play a world-wide role and only 10k computers have the bitcoin program running? Undecided

I think there's more pc's in a 24 hour window running it, not all pc's are on 24/7.

bitpop

legendary

Activity: 2912

Merit: 1060

will downgrading redownload the entire chain? because wasnt the old db converted?

WhitePhantom

sr. member

Activity: 348

Merit: 250

Quote from: Pieter Wuille on March 11, 2013, 08:29:57 PM

BTCGuild is switching to 0.7, so the old chain will get a majority hash rate soon.

I've switched to BTCGuild for the moment. Will switch back to BitMinter once DrHaribo confirms that the pool has reverted to 0.7.

Topic: Alert: chain fork caused by pre-0.8 clients dealing badly with large blocks - page 23. (Read 155551 times)