At this point, CPU miners would be working at a loss anyway.

I see no reason that dropping support for them would upset anyone.


(Also, I leave for one morning to play WoW, and you guys push 120 and solve a bunch of blocks. I should play more WoW.)

It's because the old server is still struggling to keep up.

I spent yesterday preparing the new server while at the same time trying to keep the old one afloat.

Unfortunately the new code had a rare deadlock in it, so I had to restart the back end 2-3 extra times yesterday because it would seize up. I did not want to go back to the old code because it gave higher stales. Luckily I quickly located the problem and the new version seems to have helped a lot with stales. At one point we were over 3% BTC stales. Now with the new version it seems to manage to keep it around 1%. It should be lower stales than ever on the new server.

In the middle of all that I got the new server almost ready. Now the question is, when it is ready, is there any point waiting until saturday? The old server is barely limping along, giving high stales and making miners unhappy. Not sure how long it will take to make the switch. But I don't think it should take long. Stop everything on the old server, dump the database, copy over database and wallets to new server, import database on new server, then start everything up.

You're the pool op, Doc; ultimately it's up to you. If your opinion is that the old machine is too crippled, by all means switch earlier.
I believe most sensible miners do have a multi-pool contingency plan set up?
The newbs... will be the newbs. They'll get hit whatever you do.

Personally, I switched pools for 12 hours when stales had spiked and all my rigs dropped temps by 1°C. I'm back now - provisionally.

Dr. H it is your call but I wouldn't wait.  I moved my rigs to backup server so personally a move to new server would be optimal for me.  Waiting seems counterproductive.  Hashing power is on an upswing and given how tough it has been to grow the pool you probably don't want to lose the momentum.

The faster you can make the switch the better.

Well look at the live stats... i like the shift stales 

We have had downtime and a high number of rejected proofs of work (stales) in the last days. The old server is on its last legs now. It can no longer keep up with the load produced by so many miners. There's a new server standing by to take over.

I wanted to implement support for backup pools in the BitMinter client, and I wanted to announce the move ahead of time. Sadly the situation is now that we are running out of time. The old server is almost constantly slightly overloaded. This is producing high stales and a little more load could cause more downtime again. Therefore it appears the best move is to get over to the new server as quickly as possible. I will make the switch after I have prepared everything the best I can so that the switch can be done quickly.

You may want to set up a backup pool so you don't lose any mining time during the server switch or if the old server has any more problems before the switch. I understand not everyone will be able to set up a backup and I will try to make the switch as quick as possible to minimize downtime for miners.

Sorry for the inconvenience. Things should be much smoother on the new server.

I FINALLY MINTED A BLOCK!!!! (sure, it was only namecoin, but I love it! Need more hashes...)

I too, am curious