The ETH 2.0 Medalla testnet crash has exposed a new time bug related to Cloudflare. The much-awaited Ethereum testnet promising a host of new features and functionalities has suffered its first every crash. The cause has been identified as a time bug in the Prysm client (related to Cloudflare).
As the final release of ETH 2.0 dawns near, the Medalla testnet crash has shown that there are many things that need ironing out before the due date. The long-awaited version may need to go through technical tinkering before it can be unveiled to the users.
However, the Medalla testnet crash represents significant milestone events that ultimately contributes to the final launch.
ETH 2.0 Medalla testnet crash resolved after developer efforts
On August 14, the Ethereum network struggled to reach finality for more than 90 minutes. ETH developers were aware that a severe bug is the reason behind the delay. Before the issue can be resolved, many testnet users saw their ETH holdings decline by as much as 75 percent.
The developers later discovered that Prsym clients had been infected by a Cloudflare time bug. Problematic roughtime responses on Prysm were connected to the Medalla testnet crash. Prysm depends on Cloudflare, a third-party infrastructure provider.
Normally, 0.1-second offset is permissible for Cloudflare roughtime servers. But the bug pushed the clock further by 4 hours. This time skew meant that testnet validators wrongly rejected and proposed blocks in upcoming time slots. In a report released by Prysmatic Labs, the bug caused the clocks to skew by 90 minutes.
Medalla testnet gives a glimpse of the final ETH 2.0
Close to 70 percent of the validators were active when this Medalla testnet crash struck. Reportedly, the testnet is at present heavily reliant on Prysm and developers are looking into this aspect. Uniform client usage distribution is the right solution.
The latest Medalla testnet crash reflects how important it is to weed out bugs at the testnet stage. Validator participation can expose more such hidden flaws so that they can be resolved before the final release.
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