Validators work to restore the service
Update Feb 6, 11:55 UTC: Solana's verifiers began preparing for a reboot more than an hour after Solana's first major outage in 2024. Validators are preparing snapshots for slot 246464040 and rebooting the Mainnet-Beta cluster using version 1.17.20. Gito-Solana release is also available.
The Solana mainnet is experiencing a slowdown in block production, and block development is currently on hold, while core engineers and validators are actively investigating. The Solana blockchain browser confirmed the downtime by flashing a “major outage” on the network.
Users on social media note that the Solana blockchain has not produced a block for more than 25 minutes, which is much longer than the typical block time of 400 milliseconds.
Solana verifier Stakewiz said developers are currently building a release that contains the fix. Once built and tested, additional instructions will be released to verifiers. Stakewiz also noted that verifiers “started creating snapshots using their local registry state to prepare for the reboot as the lead engineers prepared the release.”
Validators are currently preparing screenshots for slot 246464040 and verifying consistency across bank hashes on this slot.
Validators restart the Mainnet-Beta cluster using version 1.17.20, a Gito-Solana release is also available. There are no inconsistencies in the state of discovery and the verifiers are awaiting final approval from the Chief Engineers to proceed.
Snapshots are a point in time representation of the global Solana state at a particular slot. The last brilliantly verified slot is what all the verifiers have done and is highly verified but incomplete, using this slot we can confirm that there is nothing…
— Laine ❤️ stakewiz.com (@laine_sa_) February 6, 2024
Snapshots are point-in-time representations of the global Solana state at a given slot. The last successfully verified slot is the last slot that all validators have made. A supermajority confirmed, but not completed; Validators use this slot to ensure that no transactions are rolled back.
Solana has released version v1.17.20 and asked verifiers to update and restart via GitHub instructions.
The Solana network outage has started to affect crypto exchanges, with Upbit announcing that it will stop depositing and withdrawing Solana-based tokens such as Solana's (SOL), GMT (GMT), Raydium (RAY) and Access Protocol's (ACS).
Related: The Solana Genesis Story: Anatoly Yakovenko's vision for a high-performance blockchain
This is not the first time the Solana blockchain has experienced network outages or delays in block production. The network has been plagued by various problems since its inception, with the latest outage being the eleventh in two years.
The Solana blockchain was launched in March 2020, offering a decentralized ecosystem with fast transaction processing times and low transaction fees to rival Ethereum's dynamic solutions. During the last bull cycle in 2021, the network grew in popularity due to the increasing adoption rate and token price. However, network-related problems persist, with developers having to reboot the network multiple times.
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