The proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain network Solana suffered another outage on September 30 and the network restart did not take effect until six hours later on October 1. Solana has suffered a myriad of network outages during the last year, and the blockchain’s latest downtime caused the network’s native currency to slide 4% lower against the U.S. dollar in the last 24 hours.
Solana’s Blockchain Deals With More Downtime — Misconfigured Node Blamed for the Outage
Solana’s network had an outage again after validators failed to process blocks due to a misconfigured node within the system. On September 30, 2022, the Twitter account Solana Status wrote:
The Solana network is experiencing an outage and not processing transactions. Developers across the ecosystem are working on diagnosing the issue and to restart the network. More information will be provided as it becomes available.
Following the Solana Status update, a Solana proponent explained that the blockchain would be restarted. “The Solana mainnet network will be restarted at slot 153139220, the last confirmed slot,” the individual said. “It appears a misconfigured node caused an unrecoverable partition in the network. Validators, please participate in finding consensus on the relevant data.”
Amid the outage, Solana Status shared instructions on how validators could participate in the restart. “Mainnet Beta Validators: Please follow the cluster restart instructions,” Solana Status stressed. Around 3 a.m. (ET) Solana Status detailed that the cluster restart has been deployed. “Validator operators successfully completed a cluster restart of Mainnet Beta at 7 AM UTC,” Solana Status wrote. The team added:
Network operators [and] dapps will continue to restore client services over the next several hours.
Observers Ask: ‘What Good Is a Nakamoto Coefficient of 30 if 1 Misconfigured Node Can Bring Everything to a Halt?’
Solana took a lot of criticism from the crypto community when the outage happened, as the blockchain is nearing its tenth outage since Solana’s inception. The founder of Cyber Capital, Justin Bons, gave the project flak over the most recent outage. “[Solana] has gone down again,” the Cyber Capital founder tweeted. “This is the 8th time [Solana] has gone down in the past year. Blockchains should never have [downtime], yet [Solana] goes down almost every month. This is another consequence of bad design,” Bons added.
Another person asked about the misconfigured node problem. “Def not FUD…honest question…what good is a Nakamoto coefficient of 30 if 1 misconfigured node can bring everything to a halt?” the individual asked. Meanwhile, Solana supporters shrugged off the criticism and told people that the blockchain network will continue to improve as long as the engineers are persistent.
“Solana will be fine,” one person remarked on Twitter. “As long as the [developers] continue to improve the [blockchain]. That is what’s important. Still bullish on [Solana] for the long term.
What do you think about Solana’s latest hiccup on September 30? Do you agree Solana will be just fine or do you agree that it’s a “consequence of bad design?” Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
