The decentralized application (DApp) platform Avalanche recently experienced a significant technical disruption that affected the block production of its proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain.
At 12:02:27 pm UTC on February 23, Avalanche’s primary network encountered block production issues, causing the network to come to a halt. The blockchain explorer for Avalanche revealed that the last block on the P-Chain, X-Chain, and C-Chain subnets had been produced over an hour prior. Avalanche promptly issued an official alert regarding the block finalization stall. In a status update, Avalanche emphasized the importance of the block production process in maintaining the stability and continuity of blockchain networks. This process involves creating new blocks that validate and record transactions. Any interruptions in block production can lead to delays in transaction processing, thus impacting the overall functionality of the network.
Kevin Sekniqi, the co-founder of Ava Labs, the team behind Avalanche, posted on the X forum that they were already investigating the issue. Sekniqi suggested that the halt in block production may be linked to a “new inscription wave” that was launched an hour before the problems arose. He speculated that the issue could be an obscure bug arising from an edge case, particularly relating to mempool handling of inscriptions. However, Sekniqi assured the community that the team would resolve the problem swiftly.
About an hour later, Sekniqi clarified that the issue was actually a code-related bug unrelated to performance handling. He explained that inscriptions may have encountered the edge case but did not impact the network’s performance.
It is worth noting that similar reports of Avalanche’s block production coming to a halt were also observed on March 23, 2023. During that time, the C-Chain stopped producing blocks. Sekniqi clarified that this instability was due to a bug in version 1.9.12 of Avalanche and that the team had implemented a fix to stabilize the network.
In related news, Sports Illustrated has moved its NFT ticketing platform to Avalanche, further showcasing the platform’s potential in real-world applications of AI and crypto.
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