Prysm Releases Hotfix Version for Ethereum Network Instability

The Ethereum client Prysm has released a hotfix version, v4.0.3, to address the recent network instability issues. This update comes with optimizations that can prevent beacon chain nodes from taking up excessive resources during periods of network instability.

According to the announcement, the latest release is essential to prevent beacon nodes from consuming high resource usage during turbulent times, as observed on May 11th and May 12th. Additionally, they highly recommend that nodes under high resource usage upgrade to this release.

The release notes state that when the node receives an attestation for an old target, it must regenerate the beacon state to validate the attestation. Multiple replays of these attestation targets stress the nodes’ CPUs and cause memory usage bloat.

The node’s cache of seen attestation targets fills quickly due to larger validator sizes and untimely attestations. As a result, it replays in the same state multiple times.

Optimization To Prevent Beacon Node Overloading

The new version contains a heuristic to filter out unviable checkpoint attestations. If any known chain has not checkpointed the target and has recognized it as old. The node will overlook attestations. The node doesn’t consider these attestations reliable.

The announcement recommends using the following commands to run the prysm script:

USE_PRYSM_VERSION=v4.0.3-hotfix ./prysm.sh beacon-chain for using prysm.sh and set USE_PRYSM_VERSION=v4.0.3-hotfix prysm.bat beacon-chain for using prysm.bat.

The developers of Ethereum client Prysm also mentioned that they would have a formal point release, 4.0.4, early next week that contains more changes from 4.0.3, which they are currently testing over the weekend.

This latest release contains many important fixes and is a recommended upgrade for all users. Notably, it contains bug fixes in the external block builder code path and key manager.

The release notes also highlight some new additions and changes, including the addition of REST API endpoint for the beacon chain client’s GetChainHead, support for modifying genesis.json for Capella, and support for engine_exchangeCapabilities.

The team addressed several issues, including Panic in Builder Service, Attester Slashing Validation in Gossip, and Key Manager fixes for bad file writes.

They resolved these problems through active measures and updates to ensure a smoother experience. They have also enabled the misspell linter and fixed findings, and deflaked TestWaitForActivation_AccountsChanged.

However, Many users who recently faced network instability issues welcome the latest version of Prysm as a much-needed release. This version is expected to address their concerns and provide better performance.

The hotfix version will boost the Ethereum network’s performance and stability, especially for Prysm users, through optimization and fixes. Overall, these enhancements are set to deliver a more reliable experience.

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