ReleaseNotes.md

Release Notes

v3.3.2

• Fixed bug when an invalid transaction may persist in the payment queue.

v3.3.1

• The create_transaction method can now create transactions with fee < 0.01 BCN iff both fee_per_byte and transaction size are small enough.
• In the create_transaction method, if any_spend_address is set to true, leaving change_address empty now sets it to first wallet address.
• Added amounts to the message of the TRANSACTION_TOO_BIG error so that you see how much you can actually send (with desired or zero anonymity).
• Added a new new flag subtract_fee_from_amount to the create_transaction method to indicate subtracting fee from receivers.
• Tweaked the distribution of mix-in outputs returned by the get_random_outputs method to make it .
• Fixed error in the getblocktemplate and get_block_template methods which returned wrong reserved_offset.

v3.3.0

Consensus update (hard fork)

• Voting starts immediately, once 90% of mined blocks contain votes for update, the update height will be automatically selected so that consensus update will happen approximately 2 weeks after that.
• Market fees - any transaction fee including 0 is now legal for all transactions. Miners will increase block size only if it is profitable for them in a short run.

General improvements

• Better priority and exclusive nodes logic.
• Seed nodes are now contacted approximately once per day (greatly helps to catch up after bytecoind is started for users who run it after delay of several weeks or more).
• Binary methods now share single access point /binary_rpc.
• Code for consensus upgrade voting correctly counts votes on both main chain and each side chain.
• Limited on incoming connections (default is 100).
• Fixed ignored external port on peer handshake (made connects through exposed non-standard ports to nodes behind NAT impossible).
• Groestl hash function is updated from the official source.
• Keccak permutation function is updated from the official source.
• bytecoind never searches for blocks.bin and blockindex.bin outside the data folder.
• now when you specify --p2p-bind-address, but not --p2p-external-port, p2p external port will be set to p2p bind port. When you wish NAT tunneling, good practice is to specify both.

Command line changes/additions

• Paranoid mode to check every byte of blockchain when downloading (usually checks only blocks beyond the last checkpoint).
• Warning: Now walletd exits by default after --create-wallet and --set-password operations. This change can break your scripts. If you need the wallet running after those commands, you can add --launch-after-command parameter
• Now you can use --set-password with --export-view-only and --backup-wallet-data, to encrypt result wallet with a different password.
• Fixed bug with walletd not returning api::WALLETD_BIND_PORT_IN_USE error code when the JSON API port is in use and using inproc bytecoind.
• Fixed bug with bytecoind not returning api::BYTECOIND_BIND_PORT_IN_USE error code when the JSON API port is in use.
• walletd now prints address after creation of wallet.
• walletd now prints deprecation warning when using inproc bytecoind.
• walletd now binds to port 9070 on testnet and 10070 on stagenet resp. by default.

General API improvements

• Optimisation of JSON RPC calls (2x speed up on very large responses).
• Made the jsonrpc argument mandatory with value "2.0" in all JSON RPC calls according to the spec.
• JSON RPC id is required now according to spec.
• JSON RPC error's additional data moved into data object inside the error object according to spec.
• Now any field in requests that daemons do not understand will be reported as a error.
• Much better error handling, more specific error codes.

Specific API improvements

• New get_block_header method for blockchain structure inspection (to replace getblockheaderbyhash, getblockheaderbyheight, and getlastblockheader legacy methods).
• New get_wallet_info method.
• New VIEW_ONLY_WALLET (-304) error code, returned from create_transaction.
• In methods supporting longpoll (get_status and get_block_template) all longpoll arguments are now optional. So, for example, if you are interested in outgoing_peer_count only, you can specify only outgoing_peer_count in request and get response when outgoing_peer_count changes. Changes to other fields will not trigger response to longpoll.
• New ADDRESS_FAILED_TO_PARSE (-4) and ADDRESS_NOT_IN_WALLET (-1002) error codes, returned from lots of methods
• New fields in get_addresses request/response to iterate through list of addresses
• Now top_block_timestamp_median returned correctly from get_status JSON RPC methods.
• New need_signatures fields in APIs returning raw transactions.
• check_sendproof now returns values from sendproof in response if proof is valid.
• All methods return new correct values for block_size and transactions_cumulative_size.
• get_raw_block and get_block_header now return orphan_status and depth (consistent with height_or_depth fields where top block is -1).
• get_random_amounts has no more depth limit of 128 block (distribution would be skewed a bit for very large depths).
• get_statistics response now includes much more information.
• submit_block now returns block_header in result.
• All transfer objects now have transaction_hash field - especially useful when processing unlocked_transfers in result of get_transfers method.

API deprecations (will be removed in version 3.4.0)

• In all output and transaction objects unlock_time is deprecated (renamed to unlock_block_or_timestamp).
• In all output objects global_index deprecated (renamed to index).
• In get_random_outputs request outs_count is deprecated (renamed to output_count).
• In get_transfers request desired_transactions_count is deprecated (renamed to desired_transaction_count).
• In all transaction objects 'binary_size' is deprecated (renamed to size).

Incompatible API changes

• get_raw_transaction method now returns json error -5 if transaction not found.
• Deprecated prev_hash field remains only in result of legacy methods (getblockheaderbyhash, getblockheaderbyheight, and getlastblockheader legacy methods), use 'previous_block_hash' instead.
• Deprecated total_fee_amount field remains only in result of legacy methods (getblockheaderbyhash, getblockheaderbyheight, and getlastblockheader), use transactions_fee instead.
• Deprecated transactions_cumulative_size field remains only in result of legacy methods (getblockheaderbyhash, getblockheaderbyheight, and getlastblockheader), use transactions_size instead.

Incompatible API changes (likely to affect only developers of block explorers)

• In all raw block objects global_indices renamed to output_indexes.
• In all raw transaction objects vin, vout renamed to inputs, outputs resp.
• In all raw output objects key renamed to public_key.
• In all raw output objects target object removed and all its fields moved into raw output object.
• In all raw coinbase input objects block_index renamed to height.
• In all raw header objects (including parent_block) miner_tx, base_transaction_branch renamed to coinbase_transaction, coinbase_transaction_branch resp.
• In all raw input and raw output objects, tag:ff renamed to type:coinbase and tag:02 renamed to type:key.

Testnet/Stagenet related

• New command line parameter --net=test|stage|main configures daemons for testnet, stagenet, or mainnet resp.
• For testnet time multiplier can now be set to speed up all processes 10x, 100x or even more.
• When participating in testnet or stagenet, bytecoind now uses UDP Multicast to announce/discover other bytecoind nodes in local network. Thus in most local networks testnet will self-assemble without seed nodes. In mainnet multicasts are disabled due to anonymity concerns.
• Testnet/Stagenet now have fixed 1MB max block size limit.

v3.2.4

• Added the testnet functionality.
• Fixed WRONG_BLOCKCHAIN problem when walletd ends up in a state where it could not sync with bytecoind.
• Put a stop to infinite attempts to download blockchain from nodes lagging behind.

v3.2.3

• Fixed issues in SQLite logic in x86-32 daemons.
• Fixed a bug in the downloader, which hinders normal downloading blocks.

v3.2.2

• Fixed an output bufferization issue in the bytecoind daemon.
• Fixed a rare downloader's crash on Windows.

v3.2.1

• Fixed a severe bug in the downloader.

v3.2.0

• Warning: This version uses different format of bytecoind database and walletd caches, they will be upgraded to the new format on a first start of daemons. Prepare for downtime of up to 2 hours depending on your wallet size and computer performance.
• API change: Renamed methods create_send_proof and check_send_proof to create_sendproof and check_sendproof respectively (along with input parameter send_proof that became sendproof).
• Fixed minor bugs found in the beta release.

v3.2.0-beta-20180723

• Warning: This version uses different format of bytecoind database and walletd caches, they will be upgraded to the new format on a first start of daemons. Prepare for downtime of up to 2 hours depending on your wallet size and computer performance.
• Reworked the wallet cache storage to use 3x less space and run 2x faster.
• Intoduced the 'payment queue' which stores and resends all sent transactions until they are successfully confirmed. This fixes issues with sent transactions lost due to chain reorganizations under high loads.
• Changed the logic of the send_transaction method: It never returns an error, its result is always broadcast because all transactions are first stored in the payment queue and later sent for sure.
• Improved the downloader to reduce sync times.
• Made the params argument optional in all JSON RPC calls according to the spec.
• Improved error handling in the create_transaction and send_transaction methods (distinct error codes for common errors).
• Fixed issue when requests to walletd with address is not in the wallet (it now fails with an appopriate error).
• Changed the mechanism of the memory pool size adjustment to give miners more freedom in selecting transactions for including in blocks.
• The walletd command line parameter --backup-wallet is renamed to --backup-wallet-data and now it makes a hot backup of the wallet cache, wallet history, and payment queue in bulk (backward compatibility is maintained).
• Extended the number of bits of the cumulative difficulty parameter (it is now 128 bits).
• Made entering passwords in terminals/consoles invisible on all major platforms.
• Allowed entered passwords to contain Unicode characters on Windows (not recommended though).
• Changed the logic of the create_addresses method when called with at least one existing spend key and without setting creation_timestamp (or setting it to 0). walletd will perform rescan of the whole blockchain in this case.
• Added a better error message when walletd fails to be authenticated at bytecoind.
• Started versioning binary API methods for better detection of changes.

v3.1.1

• Added --backup-blockchain --backup-wallet command-line flags to bytecoind and walletd resp. to hot-copy blockchain and wallet data (wallet file and wallet cache).
• Fixed behavior of the walletd's methods such as get_balance, which until now returned zero balance for addresses not belonging to the opened wallet file.

v3.1.0

• Updated README in the part of linking with boost libraries to prevent using inappropriate versions.
• API change: Renamed field added_bc_transactions to added_raw_transactions in response of the sync_mem_pool method.
• API change: Renamed fields bc_header to raw_header, bc_transactions to raw_transactions in response of the sync_blocks method.
• API addition: Added the get_raw_transaction method to the bytecoind API to get a transaction by its hash.
• API addition: Added the prevent_conflict_with_transactions field to the create_transaction walletd's method to be used by resilient payout queues.
• Speeded up memory pool to handle large transaction load.
• Fixed rare bug in bytecoind when less than possible transactions were included in block for mining during large transaction load.
• Fixed rare bug in bytecoind when cumulative difficulty of the block was calculated incorrectly, leading to increased orphan block percentage. (bytecoind will now perform quickcheck on start once for all exisitng blockchain database, fixing all differences.)
• Fixed rare bug in bytecoind when it stopped accepting new P2P connections or stopped answering API calls under high transaction load.

v3.0.4

• Made early fixes to downloader to prevent long lagging behind.

v3.0.3

• Fixed consensus bug.

v3.0.2

• API change: In create_transaction, spend_address parameter of type string is changed to spend_addresses of type []string. This change is likely to affect only Web wallets developers.
• API change: In sync_mem_pool, added_binary_transactions of type string is changed to added_bc_transactions of type bytecoin::TransactionPrefix. This change breaks compatilibilty between new and old walletd and bytecoind, so make sure they are both the same version.

v3.0.1

• Added walletd option --export-keys to export keys in legacy format (for example, to print on paper and put in a vault).
• Changed logic of how walletd truncates cache in old wallet files: On writable media, it now tries to do that right after opening.
• Fixed wallet state undo logic, which rarely lead to sync crashes/stucks in version 3.0.0.
• Added test wallets for import/export testing.

v3.0.0

• Added HTTPS support between walletd and bytecoind.
• Added generating and checking send proofs.
• Added SQLite database support as an alternative to LMDB.
• Added several legacy bytecoind RPC API methods for miners.

v3.0.0-beta-20180219

• Reworked creating transactions with 100,000+ unspent outputs to make it much faster.
• Fixed rare crashes of bytecoind while downloading blockchain.
• Fixed stuck dowloading from misbehaving nodes.
• Added early support of JSON-RPC API basic authentification that prevents CSRF attacks.
• Added (experimental) support of 32-bit platforms.

v3.0.0-beta-20180206

• Project is moved to the new public GitHub repository.
• Added walletd option --export-keys to export keys in legacy format (for example, to print on paper and put in a vault).
• Changed logic of how walletd truncates cache in old wallet files: On writable media, it now tries to do that right after opening.
• Fixed wallet state undo logic, which rarely lead to sync crashes/stucks in version 3.0.0.
• Added test wallets for import/export testing.