Error message: failed to send witness, max retry

Symptoms

When checking the error logs, you see errors like these:

2022-02-07 05:06:22.892 6 [error] <0.18164.3>@miner_onion_server:send_witness:{207,5} failed to send witness, max retry

Cause

Most often, these errors happen as a combination of network overload and your hotspot being relayed or using some more exotic network configuration (using power LAN adapters, multiple gateways/routers in series, misconfigured VPN, etc.). Sometimes, we have also seen this error happening on devices that are plugged into a slower and/or unreliable internet connection.

In general, the issue is known to Helium (Github issue) and if the fixes below don't help, we will need to wait for Light Hotspot software to arrive, which will get rid of these problems.

Fix

The first step to check is if your miner is relayed, and get it out of relayed status. Please check the Dashboard articles to see how you can find out if your miner is relayed or not. Do NOT use Explorer or the App, as there the information can be delayed.

Hint: your hotspot will most definitely stay relayed if you use 3G/4G/LTE/5G internet, even if you made your port settings correctly. This is due to lots of providers not allowing port forwarding. Please contact your internet provider to see how to proceed.

The second step is to check your network configuration, if you have a non-standard configuration. Just Hotspot <--- LAN CABLE ---> Internet Router is considered a standard configuration. Try your setup in a standard configuration and see if the errors get away or get less.

Also, if you have 3G/4G/LTE/5G internet, we strongly urge you to configure a VPN that allows port fordwarding. Don't use any cheap VPNs, use quality ones. Also, take your time to configure the VPN properly - if you don't know what you are doing, please ask in our Discord channel for help.

If the fixes below don't help, we will need to wait for Light Hotspot software to arrive, which will get rid of these problems.