Avalanche, the decentralized application (DApp) platform, 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 block production for the stability and continuity of blockchain networks. The interruption in the block production process resulted in delays in transaction processing, impacting the overall functionality of the network.
Kevin Sekniqi, the co-founder of Ava Labs, addressed the issue in a post and stated that the team was already investigating the matter. Sekniqi suggested that the halt in block production might be connected to a “new inscription wave” that was launched just before the problems arose. He believed that the issue could be an “esoteric bug from some edge case” and mentioned that it was likely a mempool handling issue with inscriptions. Sekniqi assured the community that the problem would be resolved quickly.
Approximately an hour later, Sekniqi clarified that the issue was a code-related bug that was unrelated to performance handling. He explained that while inscriptions may have encountered the edge case, they did not impact performance.
Similar reports of Avalanche’s block production halting were observed on March 23, 2023. During that time, the C-chain stopped producing blocks. However, Sekniqi clarified that the network had been unstable due to a bug with its v1.9.12 and that the team had deployed a fix to stabilize the network.
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