Solana network down: Validators act to restore service

The Solana network experienced a major outage on Feb. 6 at 10:22 UTC, and engineers from across the ecosystem are investigating the problem on the mainnet beta.

Update Feb. 6, 11:55 UTC: Solana validators started preparing for a restart over one hour after Solana’s first major outage of 2024. Validators are producing the snapshots for slot 246464040  and will restart the Mainnet-Beta cluster using version 1.17.20; jito-solana release is also available. 

The Solana mainnet is experiencing downtime in block production, and block progression is currently halted, with core engineers and validators actively investigating. The Solana blockchain explorer confirmed the downtime by flashing a “major outage” on the mainnet.

Users on social media started to notice that the Solana blockchain hadn’t produced a block in over 25 minutes, which is considerably longer than its usual block production time of 400 milliseconds.

Solana validator Stakewiz stated that developers are currently building a release containing a fix. Once it’s built and tested, further instructions will be released to validators. Stakewiz also noted that validators have “begun generating snapshots using their local ledger state to prepare for a restart” as core engineers prepare the release. 

Currently, validators are producing the snapshots for slot 246464040 and ensuring there is consistency on the bank hash at this slot.

Validators will be restarting the Mainnet-Beta cluster using version 1.17.20, jito-solana release is also available. There are no inconsistencies in state found and validators are awaiting final confirmation from core engineers to proceed.

Snapshots are a point in time representation of the global Solana state at a specific slot. The last optimistically confirmed slot is the last slot all validators have processed and has been confirmed by a supermajority but is not finalized, by using this slot we ensure no…

— Laine ❤️ stakewiz.com (@laine_sa_) February 6, 2024

Snapshots are a point-in-time representation of the global Solana state at a specific slot. The last optimistically confirmed slot is the latest slot all validators have processed. A supermajority has confirmed it, but it is not finalized; the validators use this slot to ensure no transactions are rolled back.

Solana also released version v1.17.20 and asked validators to upgrade and restart with the GitHub instruction provided.

The Solana network outage has already started to impact crypto exchanges, with Upbit announcing it will suspend deposits and withdrawals of Solana-based tokens such as Solana’s (SOL), GMT (GMT), Raydium (RAY) and Access Protocol’s (ACS).

Related: Solana’s genesis story: Anatoly Yakovenko’s vision for a high-performance blockchain

This is not the first time the Solana blockchain has faced a network outage or downtime in block production. The network has been plagued with multiple outages since its launch, and the latest outage will be the eleventh in two years.

The Solana blockchain was launched in March 2020, focusing on offering scalable solutions for a decentralized ecosystem rivaling Ethereum with faster transaction processing times and lower transaction fees. The network grew in prominence during the last bull cycle in 2021 due to an increasing adoption rate and token price. However, network-related issues have persisted, with developers having to restart the network multiple times.