Block Production Halted as Avalanche Interrupts Inscription Wave Launch

A technical disruption occurred on the Avalanche platform, which impacted the block production of its proof-of-stake blockchain. The disruption occurred on February 23 at 12:02:27 pm UTC, causing block production issues and temporarily halting the network. Avalanche’s blockchain explorer revealed that the last block on its P-Chain, X-Chain, and C-Chain subnets was produced over an hour prior to the disruption. Avalanche issued an official alert addressing the block finalization stall, stating that developers were investigating the issue preventing the acceptance of blocks on the Primary Network.

Block production is a crucial process for the stability and continuity of blockchain networks, as it involves the creation of new blocks that validate and record transactions. When interruptions occur in this process, transaction processing is delayed, impacting the overall functionality of the network. Kevin Sekniqi, co-founder of Ava Labs, announced that their team was already investigating the issue. He suggested that the halt in block production might be connected to a “new inscription wave” launched before the problems arose. Sekniqi believed that the issue was likely a mempool handling problem with inscriptions, referring to it as an “esoteric bug from some edge case.” He reassured the community that they would address the issue promptly.

About an hour later, Sekniqi clarified that the issue was a bug related to the platform’s code and not a performance handling problem. He explained that although inscriptions may have encountered the edge case, it did not affect the network’s performance. There were similar reports of block production halting on March 23, 2023, where the C-Chain stopped producing blocks. Sekniqi stated that the network had been unstable due to a bug in its v1.9.12 version, and their team had deployed a fix to stabilize the network.