This article will cover common troubleshooting issues and questions you may come across for the Miners Page.
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Why are my miners not updating?
Miner is Hashing, but showing as not updating in Foreman
If you can see that your miner is currently hashing but not updating on your Foreman dashboard, you should first check if the IP address assigned to your miner has changed. If the IP address has not changed, reboot the miner that is not updating by using the remote commands on your Miner page.
If you see that the IP address assigned to your miner has changed, your network automatically assigns IP addresses to your miners using DCHP. You can create a recurring re-sync to find miners and automatically assign their IP addresses.
You can find Detailed instructions on how to set up a re-sync in this article:
How can I make Foreman update IPs automatically if they change (DHCP)?
Incorrect Miner Password
If you have a re-sync configured, but your miners are still not updating, it could be because your miners have an incorrect password setup in Foreman. While Foreman does not require miner credentials to be set to their factory default, typically admin/admin for Whatsminers and root/root for Antminers, the username and password you input must match how they are configured on your miners.
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Why Would a Whatsminer Unit Run Warm?
Foreman monitors the temperatures of both board and the individual chips on Whatsminer units but Bitmain only reports the board temperatures, which is why they appear hotter than boards.
To accommodate this, users should increase their temperature threshold settings accordingly by adjusting the sliders.
1. Click 'Miners'.
2. Click 'Bulk Edit Miners'.
3. Check the first box to select all or select the miners individually.
4. Click 'Edit' to confirm.
5. Click 'Choose items to edit for selected miners'.
6. Scroll down and click 'Expected Temperature Range'.
7. Adjust the slider.
8. Toggle on to confirm.
9. And then click 'Apply'.
10. To review the miners, go back to the Miner's table.
11. Hover over the Max Temp column to see the range.
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Why won't my older Avalons update?
Depending on the model of your Avalon miner, some configuration changes may be required so they can be monitored and managed by your team from your private Foreman dashboard.
Depending on the model of your Avalon miner, some configuration changes may be required so they can be monitored and managed by your team from your private Foreman dashboard.
New generation Avalons (models >= 1047) come with a new web interface and work flawlessly with Foreman right out of the box. However, if your miner requires an AUC controller/Raspberry Pi with multiple miners chained together, the miner's API will need to be opened.
This guide covers how to re-configure the following models:
- AvalonMiner 741
- AvalonMiner 821
- AvalonMiner 841
- AvalonMiner 851
- AvalonMiner 911
- AvalonMiner 921
While you do not need to use Foreman to open the miner's API, we are currently the only system that provides a way to do this across thousands of miners at once. If you wish to do it manually, from the miner's web page, add --api-listen --api-allow W:127.0.0.1/24,R:0/0 to the CGMiner Configuration, More Options field.
Adding Miners
To get started, first you'll need to scan in all of the miners that you wish to manage with our platform. Assuming you've completed our installation guide and have Pickaxe online and running, click Find Miners and complete the prompt (be sure to fill in the correct IP range for your network):
Once the scan completes, click Save on the following page and all of your miners will be added.
Opening the API
By default, all of your miners will appear as Pending. Typically, it should take less than 2 minutes for them to changed to either Okay, Warn, or Fail. If it takes longer than this, it could be because the API is closed and Foreman is unable to reach the miner. By default, older generation Avalons come with a closed API, so this is expected behavior.
To open the API, click Bulk Edit Miners, select the miners that are unable to be reached, and run an Open API command.
Once you click Apply, a new window should open top-right where you can track the command's progress. As soon as it shows Complete, your miners should appear online within a few minutes.
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Why are my Remote Commands failing?
This guide will help you identify what each failure means and guide you towards getting them addressed.
Through remote commands, Foreman provides the ability for users to remotely manage their cryptocurrency miners. The actions that can be performed include:
- Change Pool/Stratum
- Reboot
- Factory Reset
- Change Power Mode
- Change Password
- Assign Static IPs
- Blink LEDs
- Firmware Upgrade
- Replace (locate button-based miner replace process)
The progress of your command will be displayed top-right on the dashboard:
When they're successful, it will be clear:
There are situations when they'll fail, however. This guide will help you identify what each failure means and guide you towards getting them addressed.
Command Status Breakdown
ConnectionTimeoutExceeded: connect timed out
Similar to Miner is unreachable (see further down).
Dispatch timed out
Typically, this message only appears when the server running Pickaxe is underpowered for the number of miners that you're monitoring. Pickaxe will check-in with the Foreman API every 30 seconds, attempting to obtain and run any commands that have been dispatched. If the command isn't started within 3 minutes of it being created, it will timeout, with a message of 'Dispatch timed out' being displayed.
To address this:
- Restart Pickaxe and see if the error appears again.
- Verify that the CPU usage on the computer running Pickaxe is no higher than 50%. If it is, consider moving Pickaxe to a different machine with more available CPU, or split your miners across multiple Pickaxes (example: rather than using 1 Raspberry Pi for 1,500 miners, use 2 Raspberry Pis with 750 miners each).
- If you're running Pickaxe in a VM, allocate more threads to the VM.
Failed to login
This message is returned when the credentials entered on the miner in Foreman are incorrect and our agent is unable to authenticate with the miner.
To address this:
- Verify that the username and password on the miner in Foreman are correct. This would be under the Settings page of each miner.
Failed to obtain a response
See Failed to obtain a response from <ip>:<port> below.
Failed to obtain a response from <ip>:<port>
An error occurred while communicating with the miner, which caused the miner to not return a response to our agent.
To address this:
- Verify the miner is functioning properly (connected to the network).
- Verify the miner's IP address in Foreman is correct.
- Verify the miner's username and password in Foreman are correct.
- If you're running under a VPN or experience network latency, go here and Configure your Pickaxe to use longer socket read and write times.
Firmware outdated or bad password
When communicating with a Whatsminer, the miner was found to either be using an old firmware or the username/password combination is incorrect.
To address this:
- Verify the miner's username and password in Foreman are correct.
- Verify that the miner is running a firmware version that's >= 202009.
- Follow this guide.
Miner didn't respond
While attempting to determine the miner model, the miner was found to be unreachable. As a result of this, the desired action failed to be performed.
To address this:
- Verify the miner is functioning properly (connected to the network).
- Verify the miner's IP address in Foreman is correct.
- Verify the miner's username and password in Foreman are correct.
- If you're running under a VPN or experience network latency, go here and configure your Pickaxe to use longer read and write times.
Miner is unreachable
This message represents a situation where a command was issued against a miner, but the miner isn't accessible on the network. For a command to complete successfully, Pickaxe, our agent, needs to be able to connect it.
To address this:
- Verify the miner is functioning properly (connected to the network).
- Verify the miner's IP address in Foreman is correct.
- Verify the miner's username and password in Foreman are correct.
- If you're running under a VPN or experience network latency, go here and configure your Pickaxe to use longer read and write times.
Write API must be enabled
When communicating with a Whatsminer, the miner was found to have a closed API. The API must be opened.
To address this:
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Why do remote commands fail on Whatsminers?
Whatsminers require a little extra attention to open their APIs so Foreman can dispatch remote commands.
By default, Whatsminer ASICs typically allow read-only API access. This provides the ability to remotely monitor the devices, but prevents them from being managed. The Write API must be enabled for the following actions to be performed:
- Rebooting
- Changing pools
- Network re-configurations (static IPing)
- Factory resetting
- Changing the power mode
- Changing the miner password
- Blinking the LEDs
- Etc
This guide will walk you through how to turn it on.
Your Whatsminer Firmware must be newer than 20200801, but we recommend at least 20211116. Remote management of older versions is minimally supported by both Foreman and Whatsminer. Their API was very defective prior to this release, with bug fixes getting applied all the way up to 20211116.
Download the Whatsminer Tool
The Whatsminer Tool is an official utility provided by Whatsminer and it must be used to enable the API. You can download the latest version here (see Tools and documentation section).
Enter IP Range
Once you extract and run the exe, you'll need to tell it where your miners can be found. To do that, click "Miner IP" and then enter the range. Be sure the range is selected in the bottom box so the tool knows where to look:
Start the Scan
Click the "Monitor" button and wait until all of the IP addresses have been scanned. You'll know it's completed when the Total and Scanned counts match at the bottom of the window. Once the scan is complete, select the "All" checkbox at the bottom since throughout this tutorial, we'll be re-configuring all of the miners it finds:
Change Miner Passwords
Before the tool will let you enable the API, you have to change the miner passwords. You must do this. By default, the Whatsminer credentials are:
- Username: admin
- Password: admin
You can use this opportunity to either change to an entirely new password, or you can use the tool to change the password from admin / admin to admin / admin. It doesn't matter what the password is. It just needs to be changed and it can be changed back to the same one:
Enable the API
Now you can enable the API. Click the "Remote Ctrl" button at the top, and in the window that appears, select "Miner API Switch" and click "Ok". In the following window, select "Enable" and click "Ok".
Change Miner Passwords Again
Yes, this must be done for the setting to hold. We recommend never changing from admin / admin, so perform another change from admin / admin to admin / admin.
Congratulations! Now your Whatsminer's API has been opened and you can use all of the features that Foreman has to offer. 🍻
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