The script will fetch a set of blocks and then backtest the specified blockTimings settings (target, deviation, and power) against those real life blocks. This allows configurations to be fine tuned to tighten up block times, and to adjust the timestamp variance between levels.
Usage:
block-timings.sh <startheight> <count> [target] [deviation] [power]
startheight: a block height, preferably within the untrimmed range, to avoid data gaps
count: the number of blocks to request and analyse after the start height. Default: 100
target: the target block time in milliseconds. Originates from blockchain.json. Default: 60000
deviation: the allowed block time deviation in milliseconds. Originates from blockchain.json. Default: 30000
power: used when transforming key distance to a time offset. Originates from blockchain.json. Default: 0.2
Initially set to 10 when used by the /crosschain/price/{blockchain} API, so that the price is based on the last 10 trades rather than every trade that has ever taken place.
Block.calcKeyDistance() cannot be called on some trimmed blocks, because the minter level is unable to be inferred in some cases. This generally hasn't been an issue, but the new Block.logDebugInfo() method is invoking it for all blocks. For now I am adding defensiveness to the debug method, but longer term we might want to add defensiveness to Block.calcKeyDistance() itself, if we ever encounter this issue again. I will leave it alone for now, to reduce risk.
This includes updating AdoptOpenJDK to version 11.0.11.9, because 11.0.6.10 is no longer recommended or available in their archive. It also looks like I am using a newer version of AdvancedInstaller itself.
Again, this wouldn't have affected anything in 1.5.0 or before, but it will become more significant if we switch to same-length chain weight comparisons.
This gives an insight into the contents of each chain when doing a re-org. To enable this logging, add the following to log4j2.properties:
logger.block.name = org.qortal.block.Block
logger.block.level = debug
This solves a common problem that is mostly seen when starting a node that has been switched off for some time, or when starting from a bootstrap. In these cases, it can be difficult get synced to the latest if you are starting from a small fork. This is because it required that the node was brought up to date via a single peer, and there wasn't much room for error if it failed to retrieve a block a couple of times. This generally caused the blocks to be thrown away and it would try the same process over and over.
The solution is to apply new blocks if the most recently received block is newer than our current latest block. This gets the node back on to the main fork where it can then sync using the regular applyNewBlocks() method.
If a peer fails to reply with all requested blocks, we will now only apply the blocks we have received so far if at least one of them is recent. This should prevent or greatly reduce the scenario where our chain is taken from a recent to an outdated state due to only partially syncing with a peer. It is best to keep our chain "recent" if possible, as this ensures that the peer selection code always runs, and therefore avoids unnecessarily syncing to a random peer on an inferior chain.
Now that we are spending a lot of time to carefully select a peer to sync with, it makes sense to retry a couple more times before giving up and starting the peer selection process all over again.
In these comparisons it's easy to incorrectly identify a bad chain, as we aren't comparing the same number of blocks. It's quite common for one peer to fail to return all blocks and be marked as an inferior chain, yet we have other "good" peers on that exact same chain. In those cases we would have stopped talking to the good peers again until they received another block.
Instead of complicating the logic and keeping track of the various good chain tip signatures, it is simpler to just remove the inferior peers from this round of syncing, and re-test them in the next round, in case they are in fact superior or equal.
The iterator was removing the peer from the "peersSharingCommonBlock" array, when it should have been removing it from the "peers" array. The result was that the bad peer would end up in the final list of good peers, and we could then sync with it when we shouldn't have.
The existing system was unable to resume without manual intervention if it stalled for more than 7.5 minutes. After this time, no peers would have "recent' blocks, which are prerequisites for synchronization and minting.
This new code monitors for such a situation, and enters "recovery mode" if there are no peers with recent blocks for at least 10 minutes. It also requires that there is at least one connected peer, to reduce false positives due to bad network connectivity.
Once in recovery mode, peers with no recent blocks are added back into the pool of available peers to sync with, and restrictions on minting are lifted. This should allow for peers to collaborate to bring the chain back to a "recent" block height. Once we have a peer with a recent block, the node will exit recovery mode and sync as normal.
Previously, lifting minting restrictions could have increased the risk of extra forks, however it is much less risky now that nodes no longer mint multiple blocks in a row.
In all cases, minBlockchainPeers is used, so a minimum number of connected peers is required for syncing and minting in recovery mode, too.
This could drastically reduce the number of forks being created. Currently, if a node is having problems syncing, it will continue adding to its own fork, which adds confusion to the network. With this new idea, the node would be prevented from adding to its own chain and is instead forced to wait until it has retrieved the next block from the network.
We will need to test this on the testnet very carefully. My worry is that, because all minters submit blocks, it could create a situation where the first block is submitted by everyone, and the second block is submitted by no-one, until a different candidate for the first block has been obtained from a peer. This may not be a problem at all, and could actually improve stability in a huge way, but at the same time it has the potential to introduce serious network problems if we are not careful.
It now has a new parameter - keepArchivedCopy - which when set to true will cause it to rename an existing TradeBotStates.script to TradeBotStates-archive-<timestamp>.script before creating a new backup. This should avoid keys being lost if a new backup is taken after replacing the db.
In a future version we can improve this in such a way that it combines existing and new backups into a single file. This is just a "quick fix" to increase the chances of keys being recoverable after accidentally bootstrapping without a backup.
