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Ethash mining issues

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:55 am
by Steve Sokolowski
We're currently aware of several ethash mining issues.
  • The Ethereum daemon appears to be repeatedly disconnecting from the mining servers, causing the coin to go into and out of error.
  • The Ethereum DAG size has increased so that E3 miners can no longer mine it, so it can't be considered for Proswitching anymore.
  • Many miners are unable to use software configured to mine etchash, the new POW algorithm for Ethereum Classic.
Vance is working on a combined resolution for all of these issues. In this resolution:
  • Ethereum Classic will be moved to a new "etchash" algorithm, and it will be the only coin on that algorithm.
  • A new "l=" password argument will be added. When provided, ethash miners will never be assigned to a network where the current epoch's DAG size is larger than the provided value of "l=." When "i=" is provided but "l=" is not, then the DAG limit will be automatically inferred from the amount of memory present in the miner. When neither is present, the current behavior will continue, and the Proswitching algorithm will assume that all ethash coins are mineable by the miner.
  • Chris will move the Ethereum daemon to a new (for us) Generation 4 Intel CPU server, which will replace the obsolete Generation 2 Intel CPU server that had a failing motherboard, and which was causing corruption to the Ethereum blockchain over the past month.
We hope to have all of these fixes released as soon as January 26, but certainly no later than January 29. Feel free to comment on any of the proposed changes!

Re: Ethash mining issues

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:54 am
by NeroV
Hi Steve!
Did I understand correctly that E3 owners will be able to mine with this january change?

Re: Ethash mining issues

Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 2:38 pm
by Steve Sokolowski
NeroV wrote: Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:54 am Hi Steve!
Did I understand correctly that E3 owners will be able to mine with this january change?
E3 miners will be able to mine at a much lower profitability than GPU miners, but they will be able to use Proswitching again. Unfortunately, the coins mineable for E3s have really fallen in profitability recently.