- The article highlights the incident of a block finalization stall on the Avalanche blockchain, shedding light on the importance of robust bug detection and mitigation strategies within blockchain ecosystems.
- Despite the six-hour outage, the Avalanche development team’s quick identification of the gossip-related mempool management bug and the subsequent update to address the issue demonstrate the resilience of blockchain platforms in handling unexpected challenges.
In a recent incident report, Avalanche has acknowledged a block finalization stall, temporarily preventing the acceptance of blocks on its primary network. The disruption was flagged as developers promptly initiated an investigation. The last block recorded on the Avalanche subnets, including P-Chain, X-Chain, and C-Chain, was over an hour ago according to on-chain data.
The issue was attributed to a gossip-related mempool management bug, identified as a code-related matter rather than a performance-related one, as clarified by Kevin Sekniqi, co-founder of Avalanche developer Ava Labs. Initially thought to be linked to a surge in inscriptions, Sekniqi affirmed that while inscriptions encountered an edge case, they did not impact performance.
Avalanche’s incident report update at 11 a.m. ET shed light on the root cause, revealing a bug in the logic governing stake-weighted bandwidth allocation for each peer. This bug led to nodes saturating their allocation with superfluous transaction gossip, impeding pull queries and causing consensus stalling. The recommended solution involved validators updating their nodes to AvalancheGo v1.11.1.
At 11:36 a.m. ET, Avalanche reported the resumption of block finalization on the primary network, with the team vigilantly monitoring stability. Ultimately, the incident was officially declared resolved at 12:43 p.m. ET, marking the conclusion of a six-hour disruption.
This isn’t the first time Avalanche has faced operational challenges. A brief outage occurred in March 2023, affecting subnets C-Chain and X-Chain. Additionally, on February 1, block ingestion delays were reported, attributed to an issue with an infrastructure provider. However, it’s emphasized that these incidents did not compromise the performance or stability of the overall Avalanche network or its subnets. It’s worth noting that such challenges are not unique to Avalanche, as other Layer 1 blockchain competitors, like Solana, have also experienced intermittent outages in recent times.
Avalanche Blockchain Faces Block Finalization Stall, Resolved After Six-Hour Outage
Avalanche, a prominent layer one blockchain, recently experienced a block finalization stall, preventing the acceptance of blocks on its primary network. The issue, identified as a gossip-related mempool management bug, was swiftly addressed by the development team. Kevin Sekniqi, co-founder of Avalanche developer Ava Labs, clarified that the bug was code-related and not tied to performance handling.
To resolve the situation, validators were urged to update their nodes to AvalancheGo v1.11.1. After six hours of investigation and updates, block finalization resumed on the primary network, with the incident officially declared resolved at 12:43 p.m. ET. This marks another challenge for Avalanche, which aims to position itself as a leading smart contract blockchain, rivaling Ethereum.
Disclaimer : This article was created for informational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. An asset’s past performance does not predict its future returns. Before making an investment, please conduct your own research, as digital assets like cryptocurrencies are highly risky and volatile financial instruments.
