Topic: ZenMiner (unmoderated) service discussion thread - page 9. (Read 27977 times)

I have seen that thread and am following very closely.   At this point I would classify it as "suspicious"....Eric's explanation seems genuine and based on other pretty glaring bugs I have seen in the product, a reasonable one.

That said, I think we should be wary at this point.

This is a critical point for the company.  By their actions now they will be found trustful or not.

Writing often lacks the intonation that accompanies speech. I said 'demand' in the context of 'asking for information from an entity' vs the more literal translation of 'requiring instantaneous response'. That said, I still stand by what I said.

Have any of you seen my other topic?

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/is-zenminer-scamming-us-650228

I've discovered Zenminer replacing my pool information with theirs on the device side and deleting my pools, causing my blades to mine for Josh. Maybe I'm misreading the situation, but, it's probably for the best if you at least check it out and weigh in. 

Understood.
I have a feeling as they get things shaken out from the rollout it will get better.
Fingers crossed.

Nice article, but it hardly counts as "transparency by the company on their own site"....if you hadn't posted here, I would have never heard of the article and thus would not have "transparently" known the comments from Thomas

Thomas of ZenMiner has been fairly public and was open with me when I interviewed him.
www.cryptocoinsnews.com/news/groundbreaking-deal-gawminers-zenminer-will-revolutionize-mining/2014/05/23

two things..first I didn't "demand" it...I said, I would like to see this....second, I suggested listing their "principals"...i.e. owner, vice president...this is quite common, even for private companies.

Ok, I can easily explain what's going on here. The ZenController was initially developed for GAW Miners to accompany their Generation A devices. GAW used these controllers in their labs and on their own devices for some time to test them and perform quality control before shipping them to customers.

It is not uncommon in this industry for a manufacturer to ship a controller with an "initial configuration" that reflects the pool the device was initially set up to use. GAW QC'd every one of these controllers using their own devices and pools prior to shipping them.

HERE is what went wrong, and the fault is ZenMiner, not GAW. The config that came shipped on the device was supposed to be wiped away upon initial activation using the 4 digit code. We had a major flaw in our activation that did not permit the devices to connect to the cloud and receive the customer's pool information. Therefore, the initial pool information did not get overwritten. This is the single issue that our developers have been working non-stop to remedy as it is the one that is diverting all of our resources, including me (help desk).

I can assure you, and the entire community that the ZenController has *zero* malicious intent to redivert your hashes. This was a launch bug that we are taking full responsibility for and doing everything we can to fix.

We will provide the community with 100% transparency from this point until total resolution.

I've also followed the above link and will use that thread for future updates.

Moved to new topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=650228.new#new

Same here, had mine for 2 weeks now, website can't find it. Zenminer shows it is trying to connect to an IP in their range but doesn't get a response. Was told this was being elevated to higher support, then nothing for 2 days....

/waiting

See my email exchange below.


I'm not aware of too many privately held companies that disclose all of their employees or the internal working of their company, such as what other avenues they might be pursuing. In that respect, I'm not sure it's reasonable to demand that information.

That said, I do believe they are sorely in need of more transparency and better support. It is an alpha product, which clearly wasn't ready for release, but people get dollar signs in their eyes, and throw caution and process to the wind.

They can't enable remote features and functionality through their website without access to your device. That means they will always have access to do nefarious things should they choose to. You should have recognized that from the beginning, as the remote access is the only real selling point of this product.

Also, Zenminer is a division or subsidiary of Gaw miners.

I thought I would go ahead and post my own personal opinion on the Zenminer after three days of trying to get it running.

While the software seems to have a nice web interface and the ability to view miner status remotely would be cool, I have to say that I am not a big fan.

Here are the three not insignificant issues I have with the product.

   1. Lack of documentation.  There is no "official" setup guide that I have yet been able to easily find.  Lots of people have put up their own on the forums or other places and Eric at Zenminers seems to be a decent guy who tries really hard to help but waiting a day for an email response on how to setup, configure and troubleshoot an installation is ineffective and frustrating.  Also, the information posted in anecdotal guides is often misleading.  As an example, I have seen several threads where it was claimed that the Zenminer supported both Fury's and Gridseeds on the same miner.  This quote from Eric in an email disavows that; "Please unplug the Gridseed as it is not supported yet. Once it is supported, you'll still only be able to use one type of device per controller."

   2. No "real support system" in place.  Again, Eric seems nice and answers emails and posts in forums but one guy trying to plug holes in a dike in such an informal manner is not a support system.  My own experience is that there is about an 8-12 hour delay between emails and after two days of working with him directly on getting my miner running, I would still not be mining if I did not have another rPi that I am just running cgminer on.  They could fix this by getting a ticketing system in place and letting users post their issues via their website.  With ticketing they would be able to correlate common problems and resolve them or update their non-existent documentation to better educate their users.  This would be much more effective than running one poor guy into the ground.

   3. Lack of transparency.  Zenminer needs to put on their website their terms and conditions for using the software and clearly state what they are getting out of this as well as a customer privacy statement.   Also, they need to give their users root access to their devices.  Obfuscating this leaves room for doubt as to what is going on behind the scenes.  Is my device which is sitting behind my firewall, but which they clearly have remote access to secure? Can they siphon off my mining?  What other access do they get that I am not aware of because they have not posted their terms and conditions and/or provided clear documentation?  I also would like to see more about the company, who the principles are other than Eric,  how many customers they are supporting, and what other mining related activities they are involved in.   Leaving us to fill in the blanks only leads to wild speculation that ultimately isn't good for their image.

At this juncture I would say that the product is "alpha" at best and I will probably not be using it until it, and the company mature and I am certain I won't get "Goxed".

I am so happy with gawminers and zenminer! I have just found out on my pool that my fury mined a block Now it makes me wish I solo mined and got a full litecoin block!

GAWMiners and zenminer are great!

Got mine free yesterday, it just stays on the zenminer site with "searching for your miner" how long does this take?
the gear seems to be mining its using power under load.
 

Hi,

Anyone know if there is a startup config file to edit to enable API support? I use a PHP script to monitor all my miners running on different machines\RPi's.

Thanks.

I want to add my kudos to Eric at GAWminers support for his excellent communication and patience in getting my zenminer up and running.  Like alot of folks here, I thought the pi was the interface and I was going through all sorts of config shenanigans directly with the pi until Eric explained how the zenminer is controlled through a WAN interface on a PC, not by a keyboard and display hooked up to the pi. GAWminers is standing behind their product, and while it has it's quirks, they so far has awesome customer service.

Yes please add gridseed support ASAP I bought one of these with the sole purpose of controlling my blades/minis with the ZenController.

+1 to this.  I ordered one from GAW as I keep having issues with the mining PC I have my blade currently hooked to.  GAW recommends it as a purchase on the Blade sales page and it didn't even work for it when I received last week.  I have been out of town for past few days, so if that has changed, will be welcome news.

Anyone know about having multiple zenControllers on one zenMiner account? Is it possible? How do?

I'm having some issues with my Fury device. I can see it connected to my ZenController on Zenminer.com. Its on the right hardware setting, correct pool settings, but all my shares are being discarded. Also the Miners Activity Status is Idle. I could use some help with this one please.

SMH...

Did you bother to look at the PCIe pin out or did you just solder your +12v to the top 4 wires? You're lucky you didn't short out your PSU.

It didn't power up because 8 Pin PCIe has the same number of +12v lines as 6 Pin PCIe, (3). 

It has 2 extra GND wires instead of +12v & GND. 8 Pin EPS on the other hand, that has (4) +12v & (4) GND.

I don't know what wattage you are working at, but also bear in mind that 6 pin PCIe is only rated for a conservative 75w. You could likely go to 125w before exceeding the pin rating, but be sure your wires that are feeding the pins are at least 18AWG. 22AWG, which is common on some of the cheaper connectors will melt.