Status as of Saturday, July 29, 2017

[JKDReaper]

i still believe we should be limiting workers past a specific number, that way accounts don't gain value by locking out registration and we have a round robin style of availability, this will allow miners to failback to another pool after the set number of workers are reached and will reconnect once the set amount of workers drops below threshold. as it stands now, miners will connect to the pool even under performance issues and just sit there. this solves two problems... miners won't sit idle, holding open a connection, and maintains pool stability by limiting workers to a set number.. everyone gets their turn to mine profitably. i believe this is a great strategy and i would appreciate it if you guys took a serious look at this option. these issues are issues we as the community have been discussing as a solution via slack, everyone has had their input and we believe this one is the most viable.

steve, chris, we know you don't want to lose your user base. this is in no means a threat to leave, because god knows you've heard that time and time again. but even with these temporary changes, we've seen people pack up and leave, not only PH, but the unofficial community on slack. the hatred for downtime and pool issues is beginning to hit home for these guys, and patience can only go so far before people pop their top, or give up believing in promises.

if you need assistance or weight taken off your shoulders via support, i've offered to help you guys there both formally in chris's email, and informally here on the forums. i have 3 years experience in customer support and operating technical user base applications, again the offer is open to take some weight off chris.

we all hope you can seriously mull these opinions over and come to some sort of agreement with what the community put on the table in regards to some failsafe as mentioned limiting workers above, or something your technical minds can draft up. the lower diff cap is causing smaller miners to jump ship, leaving renters and large miners to rule the roost, and when it comes down to that, the profitability is just not there right now, both for renters to ROI and big miners to also hit their expected ROI goals.

thanks for reading, best regards.

I agree with this as well as Friskie...But I'm going to take it a bit further. I used to mine here exclusively, the profits were exceptional, support was great, and you guys always seemed to communicate and help us frequently and well. But, as many in slack will affirm, I've slowly started mining here less and less to the point that I practically only solo here with my orbs...Oh wait I can't do that now either. Are the profits still here? Sure, I can still make profit here, not to the same degree I used to do to the market in general as well as pool downtime, lost shares, errors etc...But still better than other pools with limited exceptions. The reasons I don't mine here much anymore have been stated by myself and many others several times over, but I'll sum it up pretty simply...I rent most of my hash and I can't afford to waste a rental knowing that there's a very good chance the pool will big out on me, and then there's the general principal of how things are being handled in general. Ya, most here know I'm not one of the big miners, and by no means is this bragging, but I can say with confidence that the pool makes more from me than the majority of miners using 3x my hash. Point being, you ARE loosing customers.

I've talked about this before, as have you yourself, but as a business owner, my priority isn't to grow my business first and for-most...Its to keep the clients I already have, and to keep them happy. Once this is done, then and ONLY then can I try and grow. I fully understand that what you are saying when you refer to the demand growing as soon as an improvement is made...But bottom line is, all these new customers and such will soon be where us veterans are at now...They will be tired of how this is going and be told that "we can't stop new customers, accounts will grow in value", so you can keep adding new miners. I'm not saying the stopping new accounts is or isn't the best option...But why in the h*ll would I sell my account and loose my profitability? And if I did...stupid move in my part. Who CARES if an account here gains value? Because once you fixed this mess, it would loose it because you could reopen new accounts. Again, I'm not saying this is the best or isn't the beat option...But its an example of what is one in a looooong line of responses that just hold no water...and honestly just make no sense in the long run.

Point of all this...Something has to be done, and your CURRENT customers HAVE to take priority, regardless of how big or small (because I can assure you...It won't be long before many of us smaller guys are going to become one of the bigger guys) we are. Reputation in a business means a lot...and the reputation of PH is going down the tube.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I love this pool...You created a system like no other! And I'm not saying "I'm done with ProHashing", but I am getting closer to that point, as I can assure you, many others are as well. I know that statement means absolutely nothing...I recall a private conversation I had once a couple months ago where I was told by Steve that it didn't matter how big I was, they wanted everyone to be satisfied customers...Well, I don't k ow what exactly changed but something obviously has because big or small, we just don't seem to matter. All that seems to matter now is proving yourselves right at any cost and making some kind of political jab at someone or some group.

I said it the other day and I'll say it again with a little more "umph"...To hell with proving your right...Take some advice, help, and support from the people who are making you money...I don't think most of us profess to know it all, but there's been a ton of ideas that are just dismissed for what seems no reason other than it wasnt yours.

Please, work on keeping your current customers happy before you worry about the next guy that is inevitability going to join and be in our shoes.

[aricee23]

Is it possible that your experience differs from that of others because of a configuration issue?

I just tend to be much more vocal and outspoken about it Steve.

Please follow the suggestion from @frphm

Join the Slack!

I am actually amazed, confused, and quite irritated to discover that after all these weeks, you apparently have no idea just how bad things are.


Nevermind mate, just nevermind

I normally wont say anything I just point somewhere else, but I can tell you I have had nothing but headaches with mining @ PH honestly the only reason I'm still here at all is the slack group members.
When I first started using this pool things were great seemed like a great community and made good profit.
Now however I have so many stales that it is more profitable to mine with NH and it shouldn't be.. I mean do the math it should be significantly lower.
This is in large part do to stales but Before you say it...
its not my settings I've been doing this for years and I'm not stuck in my ways I have tried all kinds of changes to get the stales down; and I can reduce them some buy lowering the diff... (still have triple the stales I have had in the past) not to mention can't go any lower and its not good for my hardware anyway, point is something is wrong... None of that even speaks to the amount of downtime which seems to be the norm these days. If I don't have the time to sit here all day and watch everything then I have no choice but to switch to another pool which can actually stay online.
I know I'm not a huge fish but I can tell you if this continues I will not continue to "Try" to mine here anymore.
Your biggest claim to fame is you are a "Profitable x11 and script multipool" but I hate to say it but you are no longer that and have not been for sometime now.
The biggest reason you don't hear complaints in my opinion is that miners read your other posts and (like me) figure it will fall on deaf ears.
So here it is I like the service you guys used to provide and I do hope you do again but right now you are not.
what you Are providing is a dodgy multipool that sometimes works but never consistently whether it be stales, disconnects or general Zombie Pool symptoms; however don't think for a second that just because everyone doesn't complain that there is no issue... mrr support states plainly that PH is having many problems.... if they and all of us see it why don't you. my point is don't give up on a solution or I doubt you will have many people left and I would like to see this pool grow and be around a long time. Thanks for reading.

[joshn712]

I think this.

There has been issues like crazy, way more then when we started mining here. Ultimately you can do what you want its your business. But let me give you a example. I own and ISP, when a tower gets full of customers we quit selling in that area until we can upgrade it. What good does it do for me to have them all pissed off by adding more?? The old customers are mad, and the new ones are mad because service is half ass if you just keep adding them. You make the hard choice, stop hooking up people and make sure your current customers are happy. If they grow and you grow and can keep up with them then great you still win. If you keep this going it is just going to be more of the same crappy service. Thus lots of mad customers, old and new. It really is business 101. But will you make the right choice?

[mjgraham]

Oh have been here a long time, and this latest change has been the worst. I know I have been bad about lower diff shares not like 512 but 8k, i know everyone says higher is better but if you have HW errors I would much rather loose an 8k share over a 128k one.

On the NH side of things I find it nearly useless now to try, I was running 1 to 1.5 BTC a day through here making 10 to 15 percent, and you all get a fee on all of it so easily making the pool $100+ a day and I am sure there are others that are doing that as well, I have seen the BTC payout blocks some were much higher than mine. I graph and log nearly everything and when my bot was running a rarely saw the share delay issue start, most times it seemed to just start randomly.

I don't know the full answer, I do thank you for the work that has been put in.

[vinylwasp]

Lets examine some of the ideas.
1.) Limit Users: User buys more or faster miners - solution broken
2.) Limit connections: User builds local stratum proxy (single connection), OR user buys faster miners (same number of connections) - solution broken
3.) Limit hashrate: Theoretically this has potential, but tell me, how does PH decide how much hashrate a user should get? Is it based on the current Max capacity/current user no's? Is it a daily limit or a per coin hash/min rate? If it's the former what does the miner do when they've hit their limit? If it's a per coin rate (remember miner hashrate goes up and down per coin - per diff - and per luck), then how should Chris and Steve calculate how much each user gets and how would they implement this, its going to be a pretty complex solution with lots of variables to work in.

At some point they would have to stop or slow down the rate at which they send the miner new blocks, but I'm still struggling to work out how they'd decide what the acceptable rate is.

I really don't think any of these approaches will work because simple economics says that as long as PH is more profitable comparative to any alternative pools, the more capacity they add, the more hashrate will come and on and on until all the X11 and Scrypt in the world is hashing on PH (which is precisely what we're seeing). So we need an economic solution rather than a technical one.

A market forces solution. A couple of possible models off the top of my head.

1.) An SLA model. On registration you agree to pay higher fees for guaranteed capacity in set GH/s bands - difficult to implement
2.) Pool fees start out very high and get lower and lower over a few days/weeks, the longer you maintain a fixed hashrate +/- 15% - easier to implement + rewards loyalty/penalises short term swing mining
3.) A policy is introduced which says short term miners (need a statistical definition) will be charged a high premium on their payouts (say 10%). You'd need to base it on a large variance in hashrate over a period time otherwise a swing-miner could just leave a single 100MH/s A2 mining permanently (so they appear to be a longterm user) while they swing 50 GH/s in and out a few hours per day while profits are high and break the system in the process.

We're all here to make money, so we should let market forces set the price for mining here with the strong caveat that I hope will resonate with at least a few of the other contributors to this thread; that loyalty should be rewarded and short-term profiteering should pay a market premium. I have no issue with people using market bots to buy hashrate on NH, but as someone who bought and runs quite a large number of miners, I'm also a bit miffed that I'm not rewarded for my day in/day out loyalty and the consistent revenue stream it brings to PH, and that the swing miners do not have to pay a premium for the luxury of only mining when profits are high.

The proposals above may or may not be the solution, but I strongly believe that the answer lies in setting the market price right.

[Steve Sokolowski]

After reading all this, it seems to me that people want stability and the only true way to achieve that is to raise fees. They would have to be double what they are now to make an appreciable difference.

Is that what people would prefer?

[Steve Sokolowski]

It has been DAYS we hash with Zero Valid shares messages, calculating hashrates and TONS of rejects, and our graphs are BLOODY are YOU IGNORING it?

No, of course not. I'm focusing 100% of my time on improving the database share insertion issue.

You should be aware that I don't anticipate being able to fix any UI issues like graphs any time soon. The effort is being put into capacity increases.

I've scheduled three additional days of work this week to get the share insertion issues ironed out. I don't know what else to say except that we're working as quickly as possible, about 12 hours per day, and that we'll continue to do so. After this is done, we're going to perform an evaluation of options to address these problems more quickly.

[joshn712]

Why would the #1 first step not be to stop letting people sign up? sure there are all these others issues that may go with it. Bitmain and Innosilicon both stop selling when they can't meet demand. Why not here? It lets the owners control more rather then others controlling it.
I don't understand why not at least do that.. Unless of course you are only signing up 1 or 2 a day. You are working in your business right now not ON it.. shutting off signups is an ON issue...

[FRISKIE]

After reading all this, it seems to me that people want stability and the only true way to achieve that is to raise fees. They would have to be double what they are now to make an appreciable difference.

Is that what people would prefer?

Although raising fees has been a very unpopular suggestion in the past, if this is the only idea that you believe in and are willing to try, then yes I am personally willing to pay double fees for a usable service.

My logic? - - lost profits are much higher than that so the net result is a gain (not to mention all the time I recover by not having to monitor everything so closely anymore)

I vote YES to double fees (I can't believe it's actually come to this though)

[zckmnr]

I do appreciate the response Steve, though the essential message is unchanged - -

Until you guys find a strategy to set max performance thresholds - with viable mitigation that kicks in and prevents the system from becoming overloaded . . nothing will improve for us miners, i.e. the system is not profitable for most of us for weeks now.

We are all focused on August 6th now - please have max thresholds for critical system parameters already set (OS first!), and some kind of limits that kick in when these thresholds are exceeded - this MUST be in place BEFORE you perform the upgrades or its useless . . not the temporary fixes and workarounds like now, but serious measures that effectively defend system performance. And Always >> Protect the lowest layers first, then add layer after stable layer on top!

If these thresholds and mitigation strategy are not in place prior to implementing the next upgrades, the capacity again fills up quickly and the pool remains useless to most of us.

And, I really don't mean this next comment to sound cynical, but it is important that you and Chris both understand that it is only the 2 of you who have really benefited from the tripled capacity - the fees are pouring in faster and faster now . .

. . but it's all meaningless to us until we can mine again profitably

Please get this one right Steve - god knows you have a loyal community who deserve it - FRISKIE

I understand that you are disappointed, and there are a few complaints from others, but I haven't heard from most customers that the pool is unusable as you are describing. Is it possible that your experience differs from that of others because of a configuration issue?

Steve we're and been experiencing these problems but these problems are already being addressed to you by active forum members already. Writing down same things with different words over and over again while problem is out there kinda feels pointless. At least it feels pointless for me because when i face an issue and see that on the forum when someone already addressed it, i think 'alright, people have already pointed out the issue i'm facing' and wait for that issue to be solved and move on. Think of it this way, if every PH member would have created a ticket or wrote it down same issues on forum, you'd have so many posts and tickets, you and Chris wouldn't have time for development or full-time job you have.

Also i'm sorry but i just don't see how raising fees would bring stability to the pool. As i understand, what causes pool to having problems are huge amount of hashpower comes in time to time. This hashpower comes mostly from NH and these orders on NH created by bots, comparing NH price and PH profitability and adjust their bidding. Currently, NH orders are 10% to 20% below the PH profitability, on average. Which gives me the idea that people/bots on NH aims for average 5-10% profit including fees, deltas etc. Lets give it a second and think that you raised fees from 5% to 10%. surely that'll bring stability to the pool for a short amount of time. I mean 2 maybe 3 days. Then people adjust their bidding or their bots to bid for 5% less than they are bidding now and NH market will adjust to your raised fees. At least i am. I don't have a rig but i rent from either NH or MRR for average 3-4 hours a day depends on profitability on PH and fixed orders price on NH or prices on MRR. Therefore what actually happen would be people who are regular and have a rig here will get stuck with raised fees and unstable pool after a while.

As i said, i rent 3-4 hours a day. Actually i was renting via NH, a fixed order and run it for 15-20 hours a day. Since pool is unstable, i need to keep an eye on the performance, monitor stales, pools status etc. every aspect that could affect my rental and if there is trouble, point that to another pool if i rented it on MRR or cancel the order, eat fees on NH. So if raising fees would give stability to the pool, sure, go ahead but people already been thinking that other pools even mention that litecoinpool more profitable because of these issues.

That being said, join Slack channel please and if you think that people would ask you questions and take your time there, join anonymously and just read what people think, their problems regarding to pool once or twice a day.

And lastly, don't get me wrong, i do like this pool and its community which is a huge plus over other pools don't have. Just wanted to give my opinions.