The first one I have to reproduce that (Browser? Can you look at the cpuminer log when you click to see if something happens?)
Thanks for getting back to me. I'm using Safari 6.1.4 on Mac OS X Mountain Lion.
This might just be a display problem, or a delay in switching the pools. Because while tailing the log in a terminal window, I pressed the button to switch to another pool, then went to look a the log. Nothing interesting happened so I switched back to Safari. At that point the browser updated and it appeared to have switched pools. So I went back to the Terminal window and saw the "Starting Stratum on…" message indicating a pool switch.
Maybe the switch doesn't kick in until a browser update cycles along? Maybe cpuminer needs another API call to "goose" it into actually using the changed pool?
The second one is simple, the problem is: I don't overwrite the settings when switching a pool from the dashboard, it's completely on-the-fly and not permanent, it just sends the command to cpuminer without saving anything. But of course, if you prefer and you think it's better I can easily add the save too.
I understand the non-permanence issue. While that's important to consider, I think it's not the effect I'm seeing here.
My guess is that when you start cpuminer with the pool list from a config file, that establishes the failover order. If you later use the API to tell cpuminer which one to use, and that one fails at some point, maybe cpuminer goes back to the original list provided in the config file.
Does Sandor's JSON API allow you to specify all of the pools dynamically, or can you only tell it which one is current? I think what would be needed here to round out the feature and prevent the need for a restart of the miner is the ability to provide the entire list via the JSON API, re-establishing the failover order.
Regarding the permanence issue, I think it would be nice to have the option to be able to save the order change. Or maybe you just always save it without asking when the order is changed.
In my use case, I rarely change the pool order. When I make a change, it's because I'm dissatisfied with a pool's profitability (or something) and I want to use another one. At that point I might not make another pool order change for weeks. It would be nice to have that change be permanent so that if something bad happens, my rig doesn't go back to the original order.