Need some serious help getting started mining PPCoin

Economics Mining (Proof of Work)
1

Hello folks! I’ve been watching this forum for a few weeks, and decided to finally join last night. I’ve been using PPC on trading platforms as a good way to store fiat between buying other alt coins (mainly BTC, sometimes LTC) because it is fairly stable, and fluctuations compared to BTC are minimal. In other words, though I’ve rarely lost money using PPC, I’ve never lost much, and usually I even gain a little if I’m patient. I want to start mining PPC a little bit, but I’m having trouble, and need some help.

I’ve followed various instructions found here (thank you FuzzyBear, but I’m unable to use most of what you’ve provided, as I do not use GPU), and most of the stuff on ASICs is either incomplete, or I’m also missing something. I can’t figure out what. I’ve used a few pools to try testing (ppcoin.d7.it - their quick start guide always fails, even with the proper drivers; and I’ve tried Ecoining - their instructions are not as simple as they look, and I any mining software I use fails almost instantly). I’m using a BFL 12 GH/s unit, and have tried various version of both CGminer and BFGminer. Always the same result. With Ecoining, I first realized that I hadn’t properly set up a worker, but after resolving this, I still ended up with the same results. My hardware is good. It has been a part of my ~300 GH/s BTC mining operation for a few months, and apart from the fact that it runs a little hot after several hours, I’ve not had problems with it.

With CGminer, I changed the .exe command to exclude GPU mining, since I have a new card, but it unsuitable. I tried creating a .conf file based on the one found in one of the stickys that is geared towards BFL SC’s, but no luck. I just want to do some simply PPS or PPLN mining at the moment to get my feet wet and add to the PPC coins I picked up a few days ago. I’m hopeful that someone here can help me sort this out. I’ve mentioned in another thread that I know a couple employees at BFL who mine PPC, but I am kind of persona non grata there, and they would not help. I appreciate any assistance, and am excited to start mining PPC. I think it is the strongest next to BTC. Not because of attached value, but because I’ve observed that it’s price is not nearly as interdependent as LTC, or especially NMC. It’s also a way to extend the lifetime profitability of current ASIC hardware, which is also very appealing. Again, thanks in advance, and sorry that I write massive posts. It’s just what I do.

Note: Just thought I’d add this, too: When I first tried mining PPC a week or so ago, I tried creating the .conf file for the PPCoin wallet, as well as the .bat fine. I used the same links posted by FuzzyBear for the .conf and the .bat for a locked wallet for minting. I could never get it to work. While I’m not sure if I made an error with the .conf file, I’m positive that there was an issue with the .bat file. I’m admittedly ignorant when it comes to code. I find it intimidating, but I’m not afraid to make many, many mistakes, if I end up with a positive result. I never did. Mining was always shown as disabled due to a locked wallet. That’s when I tried simply using a pool with the hopes that I could simply provide a wallet address and the PPC would show up. I use Eligius for BTC mining, and am used to unconfirmed BTC showing up in my wallet and taking a day to become available. Something tells me that PPC is a little more labor-intensive in this respect. And, for instance, the instructions on the Bitcointalk link are somewhat difficult, as it doesn’t seem the hash marks are always used consequently. I can’t make much sense of FuzzyBear’s example, as there are hash marks for each line, which I find even more confusing. I posted my outcomes (one of them, at least) at the Bicointalk thread FuzzyBear directs users to, but have yet to receive any response.

To be straight with the community here, I don’t really need hand-holding. I just need to know how to make sense of your formatting, as it is not uniform in the cases I’ve mentioned, which is why it is somewhat confusing. I’m hopeful to find more help here, since I found no answers to posted questions at those Bitcointalk threads posted by FuzzyBear - they are at least a good starting point, just totally lack support.

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I read your 3 paragraph question, and got to this single statement:

I'm using a BFL 12 GH/s unit, and have tried various version of both CGminer and BFGminer. Always the same result.

What is the result? (You mentioned it “fails”)

Do you get an error? Do you have a screenshot or a youtube video we could see?

How are you starting the miner? What does the command line look like? What’s in your config file?

Where did you get your cgminer or bfgminer, was it pre-built or did you compile it? What version is it?

I assume your on Windows, what version? Is it 32-bit or 64-bit?

These types of details may help someone better answer your question.

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Thanks ppcman. As I mentioned, I write a lot.

I don’t have a screenshot because after entering in my pool data, all verson of CGminer and BFGminer crash/close.

Versions of CGminer I’ve tried: 2.7.0-win32, 2.11.4 windows (doesn’t say 32 or 64), 3.1.0 win32.

Versions of BFGminer: 3.4.0 win64, 3.7.0 win64, 3.9.0 win64, 3.10.0 win64.

Also have an account with D7 and tried their quick start bundle. It tells me something isn’t loading correctly, and to ope with cgminer( -T).exe [assume they mean something like cgminer-T.exe, or a variation] but the program would close before I could read the error or make a screenshot). In the case of both both applications, I do as I would do when mining BTC, I double-click the .exe file, enter in the pool URL:port, username, and pass word. No standard command line.

I’m using fresh versions of both programs when I try, and after reading the thread from FuzzyBear regarding .conf files, I noticed the post below his was for BFL SC’s. I used it as a template, and came up with the following (username and password omitted, of course):

{ "pools" : [ { "url" : "stratum+tcp://peercoin.ecoining.com:3336", "user" : "usename", "pass" : "Password" } ], "api-listen" : true, "api-port" : "4028", "api-allow" : "W:127.0.0.1", "no-pool-disable" : true, "queue" : "2", "scan-time" : "60", "shares" : "0", "kernel-path" : "/usr/local/bin", "icarus-options" : "115200:1:1", "icarus-timing" : "3.0=100", "auto-fan" : false, "auto-gpu" : false, "expiry" : "120", "failover-only" : true, "gpu-threads" : "2", "log" : "5" }

I got cgminer from github (prebuilt) and bfgminer from bfgminer.org (also prebuilt) - older prebuilt versions were pulled from github as well. I do not know how to compile, or at least have never needed to.

I run Windows 7 64-bit.

That’s about all the info I have, but if you have additional questions, I’ll do my best to answer them. Thanks for the response.

4

cgminer 2.x supported CPU and GPU mining. I think ASIC support didn’t occur before 3.x

Even then I wouldn’t run anything less than cgminer 3.5.x

When you say that the program would crash before you see anything, I have a suspicion that perhaps you are running 32-bit version on a 64 bit operating system.

You mentioned win32, that’s a 32-bit binary, expecting 32-bit DLL’s, etc. This might explain why cgminer was crashing. (I’m not a much of a Windows person, so I don’t know for sure)

I don’t have Win7 nor do I have the same Asic hardware that you do, so I can’t help much more than this, but it gives you a little more information. cgminer less than 3.5.0 is a big no no for something like what you’re using.

Good luck.

5

First of all download the last cgminer version and try again.

Could you tell me what part of the getting started page (https://peercoin.ecoining.com/index.php?page=gettingstarted) you found confusing?

Remember that if your device doesn’t support stratum, you must use a stratum proxy. Running it should be trivial following the instructions.

Also, errors!! CopyPaste all errors you find! :slight_smile:

By the way, if you try in Ecoining remember the username is “username.workername”!

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[quote=“mrbickle, post:5, topic:1674”]First of all download the last cgminer version and try again.

Could you tell me what part of the getting started page (https://peercoin.ecoining.com/index.php?page=gettingstarted) you found confusing?

Remember that if your device doesn’t support stratum, you must use a stratum proxy. Running it should be trivial following the instructions.

Also, errors!! CopyPaste all errors you find! :slight_smile:

By the way, if you try in Ecoining remember the username is “username.workername”![/quote]

cgminer supports startum so no proxy required. Can you create a .bat file in your cgminer directory with a line like this:
cgminer -o http://stratum.d7.lt:3333 -u d7login.workername -p password
and run it? Works for most ASICs

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[quote=“mrbickle, post:5, topic:1674”]First of all download the last cgminer version and try again.

Could you tell me what part of the getting started page (https://peercoin.ecoining.com/index.php?page=gettingstarted) you found confusing?

Remember that if your device doesn’t support stratum, you must use a stratum proxy. Running it should be trivial following the instructions.

Also, errors!! CopyPaste all errors you find! :slight_smile:

By the way, if you try in Ecoining remember the username is “username.workername”![/quote]

The part I found confusing was the bit about the workername. I tried several adding my Username.Worker (literally my Username +.Worker, since most BTC pools function in a similar fashion. I’ll keep this in mind whn I make my next attempt.

@ppcman: I wasn’t aware that pre-3.0 CGminer didn’t allow stratum mining, but the last time I used CGminer on anything other than the version that came with my KnC was back when I was using an FPGA. Thanks for the info

@sahkan: Thanks for the info regarding the .bat file. I will give it a go sometime when I have time make another attempt at mining PPC.

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[quote=“mrbickle, post:5, topic:1674”]First of all download the last cgminer version and try again.

Could you tell me what part of the getting started page (https://peercoin.ecoining.com/index.php?page=gettingstarted) you found confusing?

Remember that if your device doesn’t support stratum, you must use a stratum proxy. Running it should be trivial following the instructions.

Also, errors!! CopyPaste all errors you find! :slight_smile:

By the way, if you try in Ecoining remember the username is “username.workername”![/quote]

The errors occur faster than I can make a screenshot. I did make some progress. I downloaded the latest version of cgminer, entered the information as instructed, and go a line that said : 'Pool difficultty changed to diff 16; (not exactly what it said, but I was concentrated on the next one) & ‘Pool setup failed’

After I see ‘Pool setup failed’ cgminer simply closes. It’s the farthest I’ve come, but am still not mining.

Thanks for the tips, and I hope you have more. I’ll try creating the .bat file to see if I have more success, but I’ve never used one with mining software, so errors may abound.

9

Okay. Got that solved, and am mining. I appreciate all the help, and the patience. If you ever want to build an electric guitar, or learn how to make ammunition (sport shooting only… I’m not much on killing), I’ll be happy to return the favor. Now to figure out how this Proof of stake business works, and why when I follow tutorials, I always fails. Got a thread going for that, though. I think I’m finished here…for now. Thanks again!

10

[quote=“ppcman, post:4, topic:1674”]cgminer 2.x supported CPU and GPU mining. I think ASIC support didn’t occur before 3.x

Even then I wouldn’t run anything less than cgminer 3.5.x

When you say that the program would crash before you see anything, I have a suspicion that perhaps you are running 32-bit version on a 64 bit operating system.

You mentioned win32, that’s a 32-bit binary, expecting 32-bit DLL’s, etc. This might explain why cgminer was crashing. (I’m not a much of a Windows person, so I don’t know for sure)

I don’t have Win7 nor do I have the same Asic hardware that you do, so I can’t help much more than this, but it gives you a little more information. cgminer less than 3.5.0 is a big no no for something like what you’re using.

Good luck.[/quote]

Though mrbickle mentioned the same thing about updating to the newest version of cgminer, you were indeed correct. I had been trying to use older versions because of the info in the thread found at Bitcointalk.org that I posted. It’s a bit older, and was probable geared towards CPU/GPU miners. Since you’re not a Windows guy, here’s some info that generally applies to Windows 64-bit, but not always: Many apps in Windows are both 32-bit and 64-bit. Windows ‘Program Files’ has program folders for both. For example, when you download and install software such as iTunes 64-bit, it installs in the 32-bit directory, while some components are actually 64-bit. You can run most any 32-bit applications on on a 64-bit Windows OS. I’ve heard of some not functioning properly, but have not had that problem myself. I use a lot of audio production software, and while much of it is 64-bit, certain main applications are still 32-bit. I have no trouble using these, and sometimes I have to connect such software together to use them in tandem, sort of like plugins, but not. While I’m certain that there are some differences between Peercoin-QT and Bitcoin-QT, but are 32-bit. I run Armory 32-bit as my wallet, but have been using BFGminer 64-bit since that option became available, with only minor issues occurring, which I assume were unrelated the application being 32-bit or 64-bit. Some versions just didn’t want to work, so I used an older one until the next one came along. At any rate, I have no idea how 32-bit and 64-bit affects other OS types, as I haven’t used a Mac OS in a very long time, and only used to use Linux on occasion at work, and only know enough about it to do whatever task I needed to do… often testing miners. :wink: You may be right in this instance, though to test your theory, I switched my BTC miners on BFGminer 3.9.0 running on a separate PC to my PPCoin mining account, and had no problems there. I must say I find it odd that I cannot sync wallets, so the one running on one machine isn’t the same as the one running on another. Perhaps I’ve overlooked something. That’s a problem for another post.

Thanks for your tips on how to better formulate my questions. It seems to have worked!

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You’re very welcome, and do appreciate your extra comments in case it helps other people (and me too).

One of the things I love most is when something works out for someone and we hear back. It’s frustrating when someone complains about a problem, we give advice, they disappear for 6 months, and when you question them if it worked or not, they’re like “oh yeah, sorry maybe I should have told someone it worked”.

Welcome to the forums!

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Glad to hear you managed to make it work! :smiley:

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You’re very welcome, and do appreciate your extra comments in case it helps other people (and me too).

One of the things I love most is when something works out for someone and we hear back. It’s frustrating when someone complains about a problem, we give advice, they disappear for 6 months, and when you question them if it worked or not, they’re like “oh yeah, sorry maybe I should have told someone it worked”.

Welcome to the forums![/quote]

I like to give credit where it’s due, and though you might sometimes find that I sound pretty desperate (as already experienced - lol), I try not to blame my own ignorance on anyone but myself.

You’ll learn through non-technical posts, given I now know how I need to narrow my questions to help people help me, that I can and do write a lot. Still, it’s good to know how to narrow down a problem. Sometimes I don’t know how to do that at first.

With the help from this thread I was able to get mining, and am thankful for that. Ben spent like an hour this evening helping me figure out why I wasn’t able to enable Minting. So far, I’m really impressed with the members of the community I’ve dealt with. My prior experience was, of course, with BTC. I don’t need to tell anyone here about that community. I’ve met some good people there, of course, but I find many to be quick to simply not give you a second glance, as being a ‘noob’ is totally stigmatized. I’ve posted more on these boards that I have in a year at the big BTC hangout. I call it the ‘den of vipers.’ Even though I’m using ASICs, PPCoin mining DOES take more effort, and I have gained more respect for this community on those grounds as well. People are helpful, friendly, and I’ve yet to have someone call me names. I’m sure there be trolls here, too, but I’ve honestly got to say that this feels more like a community, and not a pissing competition.

So, yeah, I’m all about showing my gratitude. ppcman, mrbickle, and outside of this thread, Ben (oh, and another user, whose handle I can’t currently recall), have been very helpful, and when they don’t know the answer, they simply say so. Again, you’ve got my thanks, and I look forward to slowly becoming a permanent member of the community. Doubt I ever fully understand much of the code involved, though. lol