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5.2.0.0-mandatory

Tag: github:gridcoinReleases
Published 2021-03-01 04:30:11

[5.2.0.0] 2021-03-01, mandatory, "Hilda"
The core team is proud to present the Hilda milestone release, which is a mandatory upgrade.
The mandatory aspect of the upgrade here is the complete fix for the "newbie bug" that was
not completely fixed in Gladys. This mandatory provides a permanent fix for the bug, and
also will pay newbie's back accrual when they stake post-fix to the point of their original
beacon confirmation superblock, as long as they have not already staked with their CPID. (For
reference, the "newbie bug" is where newly confirmed beacons would have their accruals
reset to zero at each superblock instead of continuing like they are supposed to.)
The transition height ("hard fork") is at 2197000, which will be approximately Sunday, March 14.
All nodes MUST be upgraded by then or face disconnection from the network. There is a disconnection
grace period of 2000 blocks higher than the hard fork, or 2199000. Any node not on 5.2.0.0 at that
time will automatically be disconnected.
In addition to the mandatory inducing changes, this release contains LOTS of goodies that should
improve the experience with the wallet. Some highlights:


A Port of the data directory dialog box from Bitcoin Core for a brand new installation, allowing
a different directory than the default to be specified. This will be memorized by the wallet as
an alternative to providing a -datadir value on the command line. This should be especially useful
for MacOS folks.


Another goodie for the MacOS folks is the implementation of the AppNap manager ported from Bitcoin Core,
which suspends AppNap when the wallet is staking to avoid lost stake opportunities.


Significant optimizations were done to memory usage that reduce memory requirements by 30% or more.
This should really help using the wallet on SBCs and also reduce hardware requirements on other
platforms. It also results in another modest improvement in sync speed, although we are getting
to the point of diminishing returns there. Mainnet can sync from zero in less than 2 hours on a
fast machine.


Several bottlenecks were removed in the GUI code that caused the wallet to bog down very badly
if the wallet has a lot of transactions or a lot of UTXOs. This drastically improves the GUI experience,
especially if resyncing an existing wallet from zero with the blockchain, or on a slower SBC.


The GUI now remembers the size and position of the wallet window for both mainnet and testnet, and some
font work was done to improve scaling on various displays. (The font and scaling work is still a
work in progress, but it is much better than before.)


A big bug was fixed in CreateTransaction that was causing insufficent fee transaction rejections
and driving everyone crazy! This bug has actually been in there forever and is finally slayed!


Related to #3, but also generally useful for folks interested in monitoring their staking
efficiency are new measures in the getmininginfo RPC: staking_loop_efficiency measures the percent
of elapsed time that is covered by an active staking loop, and staking_efficiency measures the overall
staking efficiency, which takes into account staking_loop_efficiency and the UTXO's that are on
cooldown.


The beacon registry in the wallet, which holds in memory the beacons for the network, has received
enhancements that solve some thorny problems related to contract lookback and beacon renewals, and
does this with high performance by using leveldb for specialized storage of the beacon structures.


Consolidateunspent has been enhanced. The function now allows the consolidation of ALL addresses
to the specified address, and also allows the sweeping of associated change addresses.


The wallet no longer depends on external IP resolvers, but instead uses the Bitcoin Core style of
IP resolution. This also means the wallet will correctly update its IP if a notebook is put to sleep
on one network and then awoken on another with a different IP. Before the wallet would have to be restarted
to accept incoming connections. Note that UPNP can still be an issue though.


Other bugfixes and enhancements too.


This was a pretty hefty release. We hope you enjoy it! :)
[5.2.0.0] 2021-03-01, mandatory, "Hilda"
Added

gui: Add RAC column to wizard summary page projects table #1951 (@cyrossignol)
rpc: clean up the superblocks function and add magnitude to getmininginfo #1966 (@jamescowens)
rpc: Add transaction size to RPC output #1971 (@cyrossignol)
voting: Add user-facing support for poll response types #1976 (@cyrossignol)
gui: Port Bitcoin Intro class (implement the ability to choose a data directory via the GUI) #1978 (@jamescowens)
gui: Port Bitcoin MacOS app nap manager #1991 (@jamescowens)
mining, rpc: Implement staking efficiency measure and improve SelectCoinsForStaking and CreateCoinStake #1992 (@jamescowens)
accrual, rpc: Implement auditsnapshotaccruals #2001 (@jamescowens)
docs: add doxygen support #2000 (@div72)
beacon: Specialized beacon storage in leveldb #2009 (@jamescowens)
rpc: Add a call to dump contracts in binary form #2011 (@div72)
rpc: Add boolean option to report active beacons only in beaconreport #2013 (@jamescowens)
consensus: Set Hilda mainnet hardfork height to 2197000 #2022 (@jamescowens)

Changed

refactor: [Memory optimization] Block index duplicate PoS state #1945 (@cyrossignol)
refactor: [Memory optimization] Block index superblock and contract flags #1950 (@cyrossignol)
refactor: [Memory optimization] Remove stake modifier checksums #1954 (@cyrossignol)
refactor: [Memory optimization] Block index allocation overhead #1957 (@cyrossignol)
refactor: [Memory optimization] Remove block index subsidy fields #1960 (@cyrossignol)
refactor: [Memory optimization] Separate chain trust from the block index #1961 (@cyrossignol)
refactor: [Memory optimization] Eliminate padding between block index fields #1962 (@cyrossignol)
beacon, gui: Add check for presence of beacon private key to updateBeacon() #1968 (@jamescowens)
util: Enhance ETTS calculation #1973 (@jamescowens)
refactor: Use new clamp in util.h #1975 (@jamescowens)
gui: Redo global status for overview #1983 (@jamescowens)
util: Improvements to MilliTimer class and use in the miner and init #1987 (@jamescowens)
rpc: Move rpc files to directory #1995 (@Pythonix)
rpc: Enhance consolidateunspent and fix fee calculation #1994 (@jamescowens)
contract: Double the lookback scope of contract replay #1998 (@jamescowens)
net: Don't rely on external IP resolvers #2002 (@Tetrix42)
beacon: Change beacon map to pointers #2008 (@jamescowens)
gui: Update bitcoin_sv.ts #2014 (@sweede-se)
util: Update snapshot URLs and add accrual directory #2019 (@jamescowens)
beacon: Tweak BeaconRegistry::Revert #2020 (@jamescowens)
rpc, qt: bump fees @2023 (@div72)

Removed

researcher: Remove automatic legacy beacon key import #1963 (@cyrossignol)
util: Revert "Close LevelDB after loading the block index" #1969 (@cyrossignol)
ci: Fix python symlink issue & remove travis #1990 (@div72)
ci: remove python workaround #2005 (@div72)

Fixed

gui: fix mandatory/leisure detection of upgrade check #1959 (@Pythonix)
voting: Fix title in "gettransaction" RPC for legacy poll contracts @1970 (@cyrossignol)
gui: Fix missing menu items on macOS #1972 (@scribblemaniac)
rpc: Fix answer offset in "votedetails" #1974 (@cyrossignol)
voting: Implement missing try-catch in VotingVoteDialog::vote #1980 (@jamescowens)
scraper: Add check for minimum housekeeping complete in scraper #1977 (@jamescowens)
voting: Fix nonsense vote weights for legacy polls #1988 (@cyrossignol)
voting: Fix incorrect field returned in ResolveMoneySupplyForPoll() #1989 (@cyrossignol)
consensus, accrual: Fix newbie accrual #2004 (@jamescowens)
log: grammar correction #2016 (@nathanielcwm)
wallet: Correct nMinFee fee calculation in CreateTransaction #2021 (@jamescowens)
rpc, miner: Correct GetLastStake #2026 (@jamescowens)
wallet: Fix bug in CreateTransaction causing insufficient fees #2029 (@jamescowens)


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