Quote from: Jesse Livermore on August 01, 2014, 02:50:19 AM

End of month payouts a go?

Guys, the nodes are down again but doesn't seem to be related to masternode software; seems to be cloud provider related this time (the first time a node issue was cloud provider related from what I can tell). The bad news is they need to be rebuilt (yet again) which is what I was attempting again this evening. Sigh. They're cloned servers but there's still things you need to customize or set up from server to server.

Wish I had some good news to report on Node 3's database error. Was giving it another go but it seems to be out of my hands that when the wallet updates to July 2, it executes the phantom self-payment to an inaccessible self-address the same day the database error showed up. System restore points and having access to the orig. wallet file (and a copy of the corrupted database) are useless to address this database error. I can add an address label but there doesn't seem to be a way to manually add a receiving address (the receiving address is grayed out on the local wallet using the latest wallet client) else this would be a simple fix.

Re: Community and Full Nodes: Had to do some soul searching about this and made a difficult decision. I've talked this over with my wife; these nodes are just too finicky, and unstable right now IMO. Having to do constant server rebuilds and trying to troubleshoot Nodes 1 & 3 during a short vacation attempt wasn't fun either.

The nodes that were running operated at a net loss since payouts are so hit and miss and stability was a major issue. For over a decade I've worked with dozens of remote and local servers of various types and applications; remote servers running a non-taxing single simple task aren't supposed to need this much babysitting. For a remote server - except for patches and updates - You should be able to "set it and forget it" for the most part. I admin many remote servers that need attention a few times a year, if at all.

The excessive troubleshooting of this RC3 beta software and nodes might be worth the trouble if they paid out more often but to run these nodes with the services currently set up they would have to average more DRK a day for this to not be a net loss.

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I'll be shutting down this community node service tomorrow on 8/2. Even with 2 nodes "running" they weren't profitable with current payouts and node instability. Perhaps they'd be more profitable if they weren't so unstable (IMO).

I may look at opening up this up again if nodes seem to be more stable after RC4 or RC5 but I feel that I may have gotten involved with this too early. There doesn't seem to be a good mechanism to get help if something weird goes on with node transactions: such as Node 1's RC2 hot wallet never being returned from mempool (where Evan ignored my polite request to take a look) or a database error on Node 3's local Cold wallet introducing a phantom self-payment to a self-address that doesn't appear accessible.

For myself: I'm out 450 DRK from Node 1's hot wallet payment never being returned from mempool when the orig. first server was shut down for a rebuild, and the node service/management fees have been a net loss so far, so I've lost funds on that end as well. In perfect hindsight, if I could pick a better time to be involved, I would've gotten involved either after RC5 or during Version 1.0 (whenever that is) and I would've spread that 450 DRK out to 4 nodes with 100 DRK in each node, to have spread "risk" to 4 nodes instead of 1.

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Thank you for being part of this experiment/project. I didn't want to shut this down because I was the first to offer these setup services. I wish I could report this as being more successful but for now I deem this as too high risk even for someone with my high risk tolerance and willingness to operate and troubleshoot beta software/servers. Even though its beta software, I've spent way too much time troubleshooting what are supposed to be simple, single use application servers.

In the morning: I'll finish the payouts I didn't get to because I was trying to get the nodes back up this evening without having to build new servers or having to do another round of self-payments for cold wallets (because these self-payments sometimes"go bad").

In the afternoon/evening after those payouts: I'll be refunding Nodes 2, 4, 5 without any refund penalties. Please provide a payout address for this refund if I don't have one on record for you.

I am halting the setup AND management of full nodes as well. I'll still be willing to set them up but besides one large previous agreement which I plan to co-admin with another administrator, I'm now unwilling to manage a bunch of nodes if they're going to be this much trouble. Except for a large order I'll be able to focus on: the only nodes I plan to set up going forward would be 1 or 2 full nodes where I don't touch funds...and they'll need to find someone else to manage them (which I could point out to a couple of capable and experienced admins I met on DRKcoin talk).