Ethereum experienced a 2nd finalization delay but has since recovered

Ethereum experienced a second finalization delay on May 12, developers said.

Terence.eth (@terencechain) wrote on Twitter:

“Mainnet is not finalizing again. Prysm is releasing a patch today. Will keep you updated!”

Later comments from Terence.eth indicate that those transactions have since been finalized and that other clients are also releasing patches. However, he said that Ethereum is “not out of the woods,” implying that the problem has not been fully resolved.

This represents the second finality delay in 24 hours. Ethereum also failed to finalize transactions for 25 minutes on May 11 for reasons that were unclear at the time.

The cause of the issue has now been partially identified. Terence.eth said that Ethereum nodes operating the Prysm client received troublesome attestations that led the client to use heightened CPU and memory, leading into a “death spiral.” He said that most clients, except for the Lighthouse client, are prone to similar issues.

Terence.eth also said that Prysm nodes found a “subtle bug” that occurs when clients enter the “death spiral.” This does not appear to be the ultimate cause of the issue.

Superphiz, who commented on yesterday’s delay, said that he expects a third incident to occur. He urged node operators to upgrade their hardware and switch to a minority client.

Neither incident involved a total outage of Ethereum. The blockchain continued to partially process transactions, which were later finalized properly.

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