Update on ZCash fixes

Steve Sokolowski avatar
Steve Sokolowski
Archived posts: 4559
Joined: Aug 27, 2014

Update on ZCash fixes

by Steve Sokolowski · · Post #21235

Yesterday, the mining server detected an error with the ZCash network and stopped mining the coin. After some investigation, I determined that there was a hard fork on the network that created a new transaction format. I believe there are three parts to solving this problem: upgrading to the latest version, downloading the latest blocks of the testnet, and implementing support for two new fields in the transactions for ZCash.

We've successfully implemented support and upgraded the daemon, but we can't test the system until we are able to download all the latest blocks for the testnet and the production network. The servers are downloading the blocks now, but at the current rate, we expect about 10 more hours of downloading. Since that will be just before bedtime, this issue is going to require the full day tomorrow, at the least, to resolve it.

At the same time, I also added and certified a new behavior on the mining server. Whenever the anchor coin is in error and no other coins are available to support all connected miners, the mining server will now disconnect the miners who are unable to be supported, so that they can mine at backup pools. This feature will be released at the same time as the ZCash changes are.
jeffms2003
Archived posts: 43
Joined: May 11, 2018

Re: Update on ZCash fixes

by jeffms2003 · · Post #21250

Also, just as an FYI I'm attaching a reddit link that is supposed to be tracking which equihash coins will fork and which won't in response to the ASIC machines being released. Just something to be on the lookout for to help manage the changing mining environment for that algorithm.

https://www.reddit.com/r/zec/comments/8h14ms/equihash_antiasic_fork_every_equihash_coin_and/
Steve Sokolowski avatar
Steve Sokolowski
Archived posts: 4559
Joined: Aug 27, 2014

Re: Update on ZCash fixes

by Steve Sokolowski · · Post #21261

Simon_says wrote:I see the Zcash coin have been removed from the block explorer, does this means that coin is not available for mining at Prohashing?
Yes. It's not currently available for mining.

It's also not available on the block explorer, but that's because ZCash is an anonymous coin. Most of the transactions on ZCash cannot be tracked, so a block explorer is of limited value on ZCash.
S3KshuN8 avatar
S3KshuN8
Archived posts: 26
Joined: Aug 04, 2017

Re: Update on ZCash fixes

by S3KshuN8 · · Post #21272

Just curious how close you are to a resolution of this issue. I know elsewhere it's been stated that Zcash wasn't a significant portion of profit, but I don't see how that is possible given that it accounted for roughly 50% of the Equihash hashrate in the 3 days prior to Overwinter being activated. I don't doubt that the Comcast outage today diverted some attention away from this problem and delayed the fix, but hopefully not by much. I hope that your reply is that it's been fixed and Zcash is available again, but if not it would be nice to get an updated ETA on when that should happen. Thanks for all of your hard work!