Solana outage caused by a previously identified bug, devs say

The report, by Anza, detailed the technical issue behind the Tuesday stoppage

article-image

Vladimir Kazakov/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

A post-mortem report on this week’s Solana network outage pointed the finger at a previously known bug.

The network was unusable for five hours Tuesday. Validators — a key infrastructure layer of Solana, responsible for running the software that adds and verifies transactions to the blockchain — later restarted the network before 10 am ET.

The post-mortem, penned by Anza, concluded that a bug resulted in an infinite loop, which caused the validators to stall on a certain block. An infinite loop is a type of error that occurs when a condition to terminate a loop is never met, causing it to run indefinitely. In the context of the Solana network, such a bug within the validators’ operations would lead to them being stuck in a continuous cycle of attempting to process the same block, thereby preventing the network from confirming more transactions. 

Specifically, Solana’s Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation cache encountered a bug, leading to an infinite loop of recompilations for some older programs, thus monopolizing network resources and halting operations. 

Read more: Solana price dips as outage requires a network restart

As a result, the compiler — meant to enhance performance by compiling code in real time — became a bottleneck. To resolve this, the Solana team deployed a fix in a new release, addressing the bug and preventing such loops. 

The issue was “consistent with a bug that had been identified during the investigation of a recent Devnet outage and for which a patch was to be imminently deployed.” ​​The problem was first flagged to the Solana security team in April 2022.

Read more: Solana’s DeFi users mostly unbothered by network outage

“This fix eliminates the ability to create the preconditions required to trigger the bug, which was a simpler resolution. A more complete fix will be included with further improvements to LoadedPrograms and allowed to stabilize with the regular release cycle,” the report explained. 

This was the sixth major outage incurred by Solana since its inception. The network’s last outage took place in February of last year. 

As Blockworks’ David Canellis noted at the time, the price of SOL — Solana’s native asset — dipped briefly on the news of the outage. But it recovered swiftly, and according to market data, the event indicated that market responses to Solana network outages have become more muted over time.


Start your day with top crypto insights from David Canellis and Katherine Ross. Subscribe to the Empire newsletter.

Explore the growing intersection between crypto, macroeconomics, policy and finance with Ben Strack, Casey Wagner and Felix Jauvin. Subscribe to the Forward Guidance newsletter.

Get alpha directly in your inbox with the 0xResearch newsletter — market highlights, charts, degen trade ideas, governance updates, and more.

The Lightspeed newsletter is all things Solana, in your inbox, every day. Subscribe to daily Solana news from Jack Kubinec and Jeff Albus.

Tags

Upcoming Events

Javits Center North | 445 11th Ave

Tues - Thurs, March 18 - 20, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

Brooklyn, NY

TUES - THURS, JUNE 24 - 26, 2025

Permissionless IV serves as the definitive gathering for crypto’s technical founders, developers, and builders to come together and create the future.If you’re ready to shape the future of crypto, Permissionless IV is where it happens.

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Flashnote Template (6).png

Research

Trading of the President's TRUMP memecoin sent the market capitalization to over $15B, resulting in all-time highs for Solana’s Real Economic Value, DEX volumes, and stablecoin supply. This event further validates Solana as the venue for high-throughput onchain activity, with Solana DEXs and DeFi applications as primary beneficiaries, while also signaling to further experimentation, utilization, and adoption of memecoins as legitimate financial instruments for speculation, crowdfunding, or capital formation. President Trump’s continued willingness to experiment in crypto reaffirms a highly-favorable political and regulatory climate for the industry.

article-image

Donald Trump has slightly backed off from the ambitious tariff goals he touted on the campaign trail

article-image

Some have called it “a relief” that the task force will be led by the crypto-friendly Hester Peirce

article-image

By leveraging L1 validators for proofing and execution, native rollups remove the need for centralized sequencers and complex governance

article-image

The new task force shows that crypto’s officially entering a new era

article-image

After seven long years, ICOs could be back on the menu

article-image

The Solana network housed around $6.1 billion stablecoins on Friday, according to Blockworks Research data