The validators deviating from the main code path got stuck on the wrong fork, leading to a power outage. That outage is not an isolated incident, as Solana has experienced at least seven since its launch.
The Solana network recently suffered its second most serious disruption since January, frustrating many users. It took its developers a few hours to solve the partial power outages causing the price of SOL to drop by 6%.
The Validators of Solana Reset the Mainnet
The Solana group first brought attention to the outage on the Solana Status Twitter page. They stated that the network was experiencing a power outage and not processing any transactions.
After noticing their progress while solving the problem, Solana provided updated information and shared detailed instructions for restarting the cluster. After joining, four-fifths of the validators of the Solana mainnet network could finally bring it back into operation.
Why the Network Stops Processing Transactions
Validation operator Stakewiz.com explained on Twitter that a single validator had spread an invalid block. According to the post, that was not a big problem as it was something the network had to handle.
However, the validator produced a block from each of two duplicate instances, creating a fork on the network. Therefore, other validators could not determine which block was valid when they found one of them.
Stakewiz said an unrecoverable network partition had occurred due to the misconfigured node. Those validators deviating from the main code path could not return as they got stuck on the wrong fork. That may have led to the power outage when the network stopped processing transactions.
The developers said the misconfiguration might have been a failed node failover setup. When they understood the source of the problem, they decided to restart the cluster. The validator started the mitigation process after identifying that 153139220 was the last confirmed slot.
The Outage Curse of the Solana Network
The above outage is far from being a mere isolated incident since Solana has experienced at least seven (7) power outages. In 2020, the year of its launch, there were a maximum of five (5) disruptions. That happened about a year after the Ethereum killer had suffered electrical failures for almost 18 hours in September 2021.
Anatoly Yakovenko, the founder of Solana, recently described the outages as the curse of the network. Members of the community expressed their discontent with that situation, complaining about the frequency of the disruptions.
The founder of Cardano, Charles Hoskinson, made fun of the competing network after it disconnected. The entrepreneur reposted the announcement by Solana, while he shared a meme. Some users urged Hoskinson to stop mocking other blockchain platforms when they face occasional issues.
Meanwhile, SOL is trading at around USD 32.83 and has accumulated a 0.7% loss over the last 24 hours. While its daily trading volume is above USD 444.29 million, its market capitalization is about USD 11.66 billion, according to CoinGecko.
By Alexander Salazar
