Question about my setup

Ok, so as some of you know, I’ve been having issues winning with my relatively large farm (to me anyways). I’m sure yall have seen me in here whining about not winning lol. I’ve been trying to find problems in my setup. I saw someone somewhere mention to check ping times, so this is what I did. I checked ping times to introducer.chia.net. Getting 100% packet loss. Also, can’t perform a traceroute. Looks like it’s trying to use IPv6. Can a couple of you check for me and see if you can ping introducer.chia.net or introducer-va.chia.net? I can’t get any pings from any of the official chia introducers… Could this be my problem???

This is nothing to worry about. Apparently, that host has disabled ICMP protocol, as such will not reply to your pings. It also means that traceroute will not get back data from that host. It is really, really moronic to do so (block that protocol) as it is just a false sense of security thing (but one can put it in a weekly report, if the boss has no clue). When people look for exploits, they don’t ping, they port-map every single IP on the block, as that is the only reliable way. On the other hand, those that look for a particular service know exactly what to attack. Really retarded thing.

Also, I assume that the only job that host have (or at least the main one) is to provide your node with peers to connect. So, if you have peers in your Connection tab, I would assume that this host is alive and happy serving data.

To show how idiotic blocking ICMP protocol on that host is, just do:
telnet introducer.chia.net 8444
And voila, you are connected to that host.

Also, as that host’s main job is to provide you with a list of peers to connect to (and register you as another peer other nodes can connect to) it is really irrelevant what the ping times look like. Your node will be hitting that host potentially once in a while (hours / days), and response times will not matter.

Still, if you would like to roughly know the ping times, do a nslookup on that host. You will get a couple of IPs behind that friendly name. Note the first / two bytes from the IP addresses of those two host and run traceroute. Usually, the one host / router in front of that host will reply, with potentially the same starting bytes, and that is the best what you can get as far as ping times.

As that host is really crucial to the whole network, I would assume that it is overbuilt, and has all kind of bells that will go off in case shit happens. So, really no worry about it.

On the other hand, if you have NFT plots, I would join a pool that provides good stats (e.g., Flex, most likely Space) for a day or so, and check stales. There is no difference from your node point of view, whether it reports directly or to a pool.

Also, I am not sure how many plots you have, but if you have headaches (as looks like you have right now), a 1% pool fee is about the same as what you are missing from your stales, but in my opinion may be worth to pay, if not to just not have those headaches. At least with a pool, you can contact them, and they will help you. When you do solo, you are basically on your own.

I am currently in Space Pool. Been there for the past 3 months. 100% valid partials. I’m at 5,921 plots. Lookup times are around 1 sec give or take. So, probably nothing to gain by disabling ipv6 on my network huh? I’m just racking my brain trying to figure out why I haven’t won in such a long period. HAS to be something going on in my setup…

Then you should be good. If your pool recognizes your partials, and your stales are around 0.1% or less, that implies that everything is fine (IMO).

Also, if you belong to a pool, you should not be looking at times, but rather at your pool rewards. You should be getting roughly one .25 XCH for every 1.75 XCH rewards from your pool. I guess, if you have 3x / 4x of those rewards, but you still didn’t hit your 0.25 XCH it is kind of time to start worrying. However, with all what you said, I don’t really know what else could be done, and I don’t think that chia provided any guidelines about what could be done. Actually, some time ago, I asked one chia guy about that 4x thing, as he was going from 2x to 3x, …, where does he draw the line. His reply was “don’t really know.” And of course, he didn’t offer any troubleshooting ideas.

I try to block IPv6, but that is an old habit. To me, that is yet another route to get to your home network. There are also more tools to work with IPv4, but maybe I am wrong here.

1 Like

Yeah. I have been earning roughly what I’m supposed to daily from the pool, but I’m never getting my 0.25 rewards. If I were getting those on schedule, I’d have quite a percentage more XCH than I’m looking at right now. Probably another 25% more. That’s what’s worrying me.

Again, if you joined Space pool 3 months ago, and were ramping up your plots during that time, then your average win would be about a month, maybe month and a half. So, maybe you are just 2x behind?

On the other hand, another way of looking at those rewards is that it will either go lambo way or down to a toilet. Of course, we hope the lambo way. So, if it goes Social Security way (bare minimum monthly), only whales will be interested in this project.

By the way, that 0.25 XCH wins are just 12.5% of what you should be getting if everything would be going average. I saw plenty of farms (on Space or Flex) that had stales in the 20% ranges. The sad part is that most likely, those people even don’t realize that, and somehow pools are not making that front and center error messages with guides what to do.

Check reward addresses on farming page. Mine were incorrect and I lost my rewards forever.

Space Pool reports a number of blocks found in your account webpage.
I’ve been with Space since May, ramping up plots (in tranches) to 3800.
2 blocks found in the mean time (last one December 3) and received the .25 XCH both times in cold wallet.
Being rewarded little over 8 XCH from Space I beginning to feel I’m letting my fellow Spacepoolers down, with only 3.50 contributed…
No stales (expect some during dust storms).
Also wondering if something is wrong except luck? But it can be just that I guess.

Holy fucking shit! It just hit 5 minutes ago! At least I know something’s not wrong! And WTF on that drought!?!?!? That’s the worst I’ve ever heard of!

3 Likes

Congratulations! On the 0.25 but even more so on knowing your setup is capable of winning a block :+1:

I have some faith in mine since winning one Dec 3 with no errors in the log only warnings on block validation time ~2-3 seconds. From other threads on the forum I take it those warnings are not that important to worry about.

Check your recipe address in the app. Change them if necesary. You can adjust recieve address 1 time every hour. They could be diffrent. If you have 2 instances of the same pool that could be an issue if you dint check the recieve address to make sure is accurate.

Just hit again tonight lol. WTF!? Dry spell for 4 months on a medium-large sized farm then start hitting left and right…

1 Like

Nice way to start a new year :grin: All the best :champagne:

Congrats, my brother has a small solo farm of about 1200 plots, went over double his ETW, then won twice within a few days, its just the way it goes.

I also have around 1200 plots, one win in July and another in August, and then no wins since. ETW is 2 months, I’m double that now, perhaps I should go solo…

Yeah, I’ve been doing this since July, so I definitely understand that going over the ETW is normal. I just figured that there was something wrong with going over by 12 or 1300%!!! Idk.

I have noticed a slight positive correlation between the ending of droughts and posting about it here.

Probably nothing, just my imagination.

1 Like

Not sure what you mean? A lot of people posting about their non winning streak ending?

Hehe, just observing that posting on this forum seems to help with one’s losing streak.

Doesn’t make sense, I know.

Ah! Nah. I don’t think so lol. I’ve been in here for the past month or two wining about not winning lol.

1 Like

Agreed! However, I did happen to win, literally, just as I wrote my response above.

I’m blaming Bigfoot, or possibly aliens.

1 Like