- Avalanche blockchain experienced a major issue halting block production across subnets, disrupting transactions and network functionality
- Problem began around 12:02 pm UTC after launch of new inscription wave; developers believe inscription bug or mempool issue may be the cause
- This is not Avalanche’s first block production halt, having seen a similar stall in March 2023 from a separate bug that was quickly resolved
The popular blockchain Avalanche experienced a major technical issue today that halted block production across its subnets. This disruption impacted transaction processing and functionality of the network.
Network Comes to a Halt
According to a report from Kevin Sekniqi, the Avalanche network stopped producing new blocks on its P-Chain, X-Chain and C-Chain. According to the blockchain explorer, the last blocks were minted over an hour before the stall happened.
Avalanche put out an official alert about the block finalization issue and its developers started investigating the problem. Block production is crucial for recording transactions and keeping the network running smoothly. Any interruptions can lead to delays and instability.
Potential Cause Identified
Kevin Sekniqi, Co-Founder of Ava Labs, believes the problem may be connected to a new inscription wave launched an hour before the issues began. Inscriptions relate to adding data to the blockchain.
Sekniqi thinks an edge case bug or mempool handling problem with the inscriptions could be the culprit. He assured the community it would be handled quickly.
Later, Sekniqi clarified that it was a code bug unrelated to performance. The inscriptions may have triggered it but did not impact performance themselves.
Previous Instance in 2023
This is not the first time Avalanche has seen its block production halt. A similar incident occurred in March 2023 due to a bug that was soon fixed.
The latest stall seems to stem from different technical issues. The Avalanche team is investigating to get the network functioning normally again.
