My Bobcat Miner 300 Beacons Have Zero 0 Witnesses – How Do I Fix This?

In this post, we’ll list the reasons why the Bobcat miner 300 has zero witnesses despite there being a transmitted beacon and solutions,

One of the most frequently asked queries is “My Bobcat miner 300 is sending out beacons.” However there are no witnesses and therefore zero HNT rewards. What is causing this and how can it be resolved? This post examines each of the potential causes—there are many—for why this might occur.

How Do Bobcat Miner 300 Earn HNT?

One way Bobcat miner 300 earn HNT is by completing a proof of coverage challenge. When a hotspot is challenged by another hotspot, referred to as the challenger, it sends out a beacon. A radio signal known as a beacon is one that is intended to be heard by other miners who are in your listening range. When miners witness a beacon they have to send a receipt back to the challenger. If everything goes smoothly, HNT are awarded to all parties involved in the transaction. The challengee is required to follow the same procedure.

Reasons for Zero Witnesses

Let’s examine the causes of situations where a beacon is transmitted but no witnesses are found, resulting in no HNT being earned.

No Miners Nearby

As shown in the above picture, the challengee sends out a radio beacon when challenged . But the challengee cannot hear any miners in his listening area. Due to this, no hotspots observe the transmitted beacon. Both the challenger and the challengee are not awarded beacons.

Solution: Experiment with a high gain antenna for increased coverage

No Signal Transmitted

In the situation below, the challengee attempts to transmit a beacon but there’s no actual radio signal emitted and therefore no witnesses. There are many possible causes for this. Your antenna may not be connected to the RF port of the miner. Your RF connectors at the ends of the RF cable might not be tight enough to make a good connection.

Solution: Tighten all the connectors, cables, and antennas. Verify the type of the RF adapters. For instance, an RP-SMA-F and RP-SMA-M connector must be paired.

Challenger is Relayed

Let’s examine yet another possibility for why you might lack any witnesses. A challengee sends out a beacon that is witnessed by miners. These miners try to send the challenger their receipt. However, because of the relay, the challenger is unable to receive the receipt from the witnesses and the challengee in a timely manner. As a result, there won’t be any witnesses, and everyone involved in the transaction will receive 0 HNT.

Solution: Fix a relayed miner by opening port 44158

Note: All Helium miners are anticipated to be transformed into light hotspots by the end of April 2022. The relayed problem will be permanently fixed as a result.

Witness Unable to Process Beacon

And finally, suppose that all of your hotspot’s listening capacity is occupied by just one or two Bobcat 300 miners, on which you rely to provide witnessing. Again, there will be no HNT awarded if these miners are “busy” with other processing tasks and are unable to see the beacon your miner transmitted.

You Just Started Mining

In addition to the reasons listed above, you might not see any witnesses if you just start mining or claim a new location. It might take some time before you start to see witnesses connected to your beacons.

Solution: Wait a while

Issues With the Network

There is a problem with Helium seed nodes that started in the fourth week of March and is still preventing miners from being paid as of the time of writing, in April 2022. No challenges, no witnesses, and no beacons.

Helium is working to understand and resolve this issue. As previously stated, switching to Light hotspots by the end of April 2022 ought to solve a lot of the network problems.

Error: Your miner shows no Proof of Coverage activity or no Witnessing activity.

Points to: There could be problems with the miner’s Docker container, antenna configuration, RF noise problems, miner is not onboarded, and many other problems.

What Else You Can Try

1. Verify the miner has been onboarded using the Bobber App
2. Verify the miner is deployed in the appropriate region or it will not operate
3. Try Reboot Bobcat miner 300
4. Try Reset Bobcat miner 300
5. Ensure there are other miners nearby within antenna range
6. Ensure the antenna being used is suitable for the topology and location of the miner
7. Move the miner to the DMZ in your router settings to eliminate firewall issues
8. Check with your ISP to determine if they have traffic filtering upstream which is blocking Helium activity
9. If your miner operates on EU868 frequency, consider installing a filter to eliminate RF noise

Read more: Tips for Bobcat Miner 300 Antenna Placement and DBI Selection – to Increase Witnesses

Summary: Bobcat Miner 300 Beacons Have Zero 0 Witnesses

The reasons why Bobcat Miner 300 has no witnesses despite a transmitted beacon have been covered in this post. Along with problems, we also talked about solutions. As a recap here are the mean reasons for zero witnesses:

• No miners nearby
• No signal transmitted
• Challenger is relayed
• Witness unable to process beacon
• You just started mining or asserted a new location

FAQs