Bobcat has released an OTA (Over the Air) update to address the 0 beacon issue experienced by some deployed miners. Within hours of the update, miners previously with 0 beacons started to show valid witnesses, and we believe these miners will start to get beacon results in the coming days. There is a high probability that this update will fix the majority of miners that have experienced this issue over the last few weeks.
For all customers currently experiencing this issue, we advise the following steps to fix and/or prevent this issue from happening again:
-
Make sure your miner remains connected to the internet to receive this update. No manual intervention is needed
-
If your miner had 0 beacons and no witnesses before, you should expect to start seeing valid witnesses hours after this update; beacon results may come days later. As long as your miner starts seeing witness results, it means the OTA update is successful and the issue has been resolved.
-
Please note, the firmware version display is not fixed in this OTA update. It’s normal to see the firmware display show 2019. This does not mean you have outdated firmware.
The specific issues this update has fixed are:
-
Fixed incorrect local_conf.json file that caused the zero beacon and no witness issue.
-
Identified three failure causes: the file contained multiple gweui; the file was missing; the file was corrupted.
-
The update has implemented a check that will run every 3 minutes going forward. The check will regularly examine the lora packet forwarder, update local_conf.json file, and restart the forwarder if needed.
Additional Notes:
If your miner has any radio traffic shown in the activity list (eg. packets transferred, witnesses, beacons, etc.), it means the hardware is in working condition. The fluctuation of rewards is determined by the blockchain and the number of miners on the network. In some cases, there are miners with regular witness activities but no beacons. This is not a hardware issue and most likely caused by other variables such as the location of the miner, the router being used, and/or other miners (POC challengers) on the network that are being relayed.
If your miner is a lone wolf, meaning you have no hotspots nearby, 0 witnesses and/or beacons are to be expected until more miners are deployed in your area.