Topic: Official FutureBit Apollo BTC Software/Image and Support thread - page 3. (Read 49501 times)

Of course we will warranty, all Apollo II units have at least 6 months of warranty left. If you have a bad switch we can either setup an RMA or send you the replacement if you feel like swapping it out yourself to save downtime. It's a pretty easy snap in module, but you need to cut off the tabs or take both top and bottom covers off to squeeze the old one through the case.

If you have access to media/nvme/Bitcoin, then you have access to your nvme drive, that is your nvme drive.  You may have to reformat the nvme card within the Apollo GUI.  Wait for the message, completed as it takes some time to format with no indicator its working on it.  The microsd is the main drive for system files.  Please clarify which drive you are talking about.  SD card to me is microsd and no bitcoin data is stored there other than apollo program files.

I had a corrupted chainstate file recently.  My best solution was to delete the chainstate files, which is done by reindex-chainstate anyway, and copy the old chainstate files from my backup from a month ago.  My database files were ok.  the node updated the chainstate and caught up to the current blocks.  I then backed up the nvme with the newest block set.
my node and miner have been running non-stop for 7 days with no errors.

RE: other miners
The solo apolllo node is a pool miner.  Apollo node bitcoind sends the information the other miners who request the data from the node.  The miner within the apollo is a program like any othe miner requesting data from a pool it just so happens the pool is the apollo node itself.  You can see this in the logs.  just like any other pool on the bitcoin network, but it's your own private pool.  Each miner has its own success rate.  no prioirty or privilage.   Each miner on your node will receive updated live transaction blocks used to mine the next successful block.  The pool doesn't know what equipment is trying to connect.  it will only see the difficulty of the miner that requests the data and adjust difficulty for performance.

Success?  I had a small futurebit moonlander running for over a year and it hit best shares upwards of 1 billion and once hit over 1 trillion(still not enough to solve a block). 

Still waiting to hear from Futurebit to see if they will warranty my unit.  I don't want to open it up before I hear from them, but what are the steps to get to the switch?

I have 2 Avalon Nano3 miners mining thru my Apollo and so far the Avalon's have hit higher best shares, they are all mining independently of each other.

An unexpected issue occurring upon system startup.

The NVME SSD is not mounting. It's not detected in Disks, or GParted, or command line prompts like -lsblk.

The node will start upon -reindex with the data-dir at /media/nvme/bitcoin, but that data is existing on the SD card. The NVME SSD remains unreachable.

Might this be something to address in BIOS settings?

The SSD itself is in working order and will mount via USB in another Ubuntu laptop.

I should have clarified that I am SOLO mining. I am just wondering whether hooking up a different miner (from a different manufacturer like BitAxe) to the Apollo 2 node/miners will result in a proper distribution of work assigned to each of the Apollo and non-Apollo miners. I want to make sure that the BitAxe doesn't replicate the same hashes as the Apollo miners but hashes on a different set of nonces (or extra nonces).

@jstefanop, can you please confirm?

The way I understand it is, all miners are working to solve the same next block, and it's more of a race to see you cracks it first. There are some advantages some have, a few are due to internet connections and some pools/miners are thought to hold back, so they can start on the next one before anybody else. I tend to think this is a possibility when you see a pool/large miner hit 2 blocks minutes apart. 

Hi, I have an Apollo 2 (both node and standard miners) and I’m also getting a BitAxe. Question, if I want to connect the BitAxe to my Apollo 2s, would it properly allocate work to the BitAxe? Meaning, I wouldn’t want the BitAxe to repeat hashing the same hashes as the Apollo 2 miners but add additional (unique) hash rate. Is this automatically managed by the Apollo or are there settings to ensure there is no duplicate hashing?

Your node connections constantly change as they can get stale.  Check out the debug.log in the bitcoin directory.  It will show you your connections.  You will see block only connections and full node connections.  There is also a count of the connections made while your node has been live that shows over a day or two it can make hundreds of new connections.  This is more decentralized as it doesn't rely upon a single node connection for a long period of time to verify data.

This is great! Thank you so much!

Thanks for that information. Good to know.

Cheers!

You can always check your own node as being available and reachable to other nodes on the network by going to the website I gave you: https://bitnodes.io/

With regards to the right-hand-side number being grayed out, it is just a reference displaying how many nodes you have chosen as a maximum. It doesn't change unless you change the maximum and it will always be grayed out. It's just for looking at and smiling.

Cheers!

The default Outbound connections a Bitcoin Core node will make is 10, sometimes 11. This is hard coded into the application. You can force it a little higher with the addnodes command.
All the rest of the connections you have are Inbound connections.
31/32 means you have 10 Outbound and 21 Inbound connections.

What makes you sure of no inbound connections?  I assumed that all connections are inbound and outbound.

Thank you for response. However, I am ok with the number of outgoing connection. My issue is that there is NO incomming connections, so the numer 32 is grayed out. How can I make sure that I there are incoming connections?

Basically, you have three options:

1) Wait. It will eventually get to 32, but for how long is anybody's guess. Maybe a minute, maybe more, maybe less.
2) Increase your Max Connections if you want more than 31/32. However, I've seen that it will just as often stay one under even then: 37/38 - 41/42, etc.
3) Go to https://bitnodes.io/ and find some juicy nodes to add to your list using the addnode=IPADDRESS:8333 command. I've found this will usually max out my connection choice: 32/32 - 42/42, etc.

Cheers!

My Node shows 31/32 Connections. With number 31 in bold, but number 32 is grayed out.
I have confirmed with portchecker.co that my 8333 port is open. My node is synced months ago. I have also added port forwarding to my router.
I am sure I do not have inbound connections, what should I do?

Yup.  Your not alone.  My best way to minimize it from happening is to keep minimal processes running on the Raspberry PI linux interface.  Only the node, the miner status monitor and a couple of log monitor windows showing me the node report and the miner status.  no browser window open.  Backup UPS with line conditioning.

Sometimes, I've been able access the GUI remotely while the mouse and keyboard were frozen and shut down the miner and node exit and do a restart which fixed it.  Keep an eye on heat and fan speed, which tells you if its running hot. 

i'm on v2.0.5

I have not yet investigated the linux logs after a crash like this.

@bubbAJoe
Well, if you don't get satisfaction from Futurebit or your CC company, and you also decide to not and try to fix it yourself, you could always sell it at a loss for parts. I for one would be willing to pay an insultingly low price for your misfortune as I'm sure I could dissect it over time to feed my needs.

Cheers!

Did you buy it with a credit card? If so file a claim/charge back against BitCoinMerch.

If FutureBit is no help a VO meter is your best friend to check the PSU and the switch which was mentioned to be a problem.