Speed Up Helium Miner Hotspot Sync / Fixing “Relayed” Status

Bobcat Miner
Bobcat 300 Helium Miner*

I recently received my Bobcat 300 miner* after months of waiting. Much of the advice I’d read/seen on the subject suggested to leave the hotspot alone and that it takes a very long time to sync.

This is true but it assumes you configured your network correctly first and have the correct port opened to the outside world. If it’s not it will take even longer to sync the blockchain and your hotspot will have a yellow “Relayed” status. This is slowing down your sync and will harm your rewards even when it finishes since your responses to challenges will be “relayed” and will often time out before they are relayed through other hotspots.

In this guide I’ll show you how to get your network configured correctly for your hotspot to sync as fast as possible and remove the “Relayed” status!

Overview

The Helium hotspot uses peer to peer networking similar to other cryptocurrency wallets (with “nodes” etc.) as well as BitTorrent and other peer to peer applications. Xbox Live and PSN also both use peer to peer networking where one console with a high quality internet connection will be chosen to be the “host” and the other players in the game lobby create a peer to peer connection to the host console.

Just like every other peer to peer application not having the correct ports open on your firewall impacts your speed. On our Xbox Live/PSN example you would get a “poor” connection rating and never be chosen as a host. With Helium the “Relayed” status is the equivalent of the Xbox Live/PSN “Poor” connection quality rating. The ports are not publicly accessible over the internet and you get penalized / a downgraded experience for this.

Here’s an example of a relayed hotspot:

Relayed Helium Hotspot
Relayed Helium Hotspot

The solution is to open the correct port on your firewall by creating a “port forwarding” entry in your router.

Port Forwarding

The specific instructions for your router will vary but can be found with a quick Google search. It’s likely you’ve encountered this before for something else but if you haven’t it isn’t too difficult.

Once you feel confident you have the knowledge/instructions you need ready to set up port forwarding the main critical port you need to forward on your router is TCP Port:

44158

This is the port that will eliminate the “relayed” status and allow inbound connections to your device. This will also speed up your sync as outbound only points are at a disadvantage here since sometimes the people who connect to you end up sending you blocks!

Once you’ve set up the port forwarding it should update the status on it’s own eventually or if you want to speed things up you can unplug the power cable from the hotspot for about 10 seconds and then plug it back in. With all the hotspots joining it may take 15-30+ minutes (depending on many factors) but it should show up as solid green with no “relayed” status:

Happy Status Helium Hotspot
Happy Status Helium Hotspot

Observe that even though I am not 100% sync’d I still am green status with 91.31% sync’d. This can get very sluggish to update sometimes but unless you’re seeing no activity whatsoever for at least a few hours I would urge leaving it alone for the most part.

Note on Offline Status

It’s not unusual for the hotspots to go offline when trying to sync with the blockchain. They should however still be connecting periodically and you should see your sync slowly making progress.

My hotspot has got stuck several times where it went off for the entire night and when I turned it back on it had made no progress.

My best rule of thumb is to leave it alone as long as the light is “green” (for the Bobcat miner*) unless you aren’t seeing any change or progress for a long period of time. This may vary based on your miner but the problems actually seem to be with the Helium network as a whole. Which miner you have can have an impact but most of the congestion is on the Helium network itself from so many new hotspots joining and syncing at once!

Conclusion

I’m still not fully synchronized yet with the blockchain but it’s staying green and doesn’t have the relay status. So many points are joining the network that the hardware is having a difficult time keeping up!

Remember, the relay status does penalize your mining rewards. It also prevents you from participating in several other features in the Helium blockchain so make sure you have a green non-relayed status.

It’s definitely frustrating how slow it can be but as long as you periodically monitor that the percentage is going up (wait a few hours minimum before power cycling) and have your ports opened you will sync as fast as anyone else is (slowly) but you won’t be at a disadvantage!

If you have a Bobcat 300 they have just released a utility called the “Diagnoser”. Full guide here: Bobcat 300 Diagnoser Tool / Utility Guide

Update 6/23/2021

I woke up this morning to find the hotspot 99.79% sync’d. It was offline and after a quick unplug and plug back in I’m syncing again and at 99.81%. This is the way folks, open that port and get out of relayed!

Update 6/24/2021

Success! My hotspot has completely sync’d. I’ve issued and completed a challenge now and am just waiting to witness my first hotspot and even earned 0.05 HNT for some reason (maybe my issued or successfully completed challenge?):

Helium Hotspot Fully Sync'd
Helium Hotspot Fully Sync’d
Hotspot First Earnings
Hotspot First Earnings

All in all it took about 5.5-6 days. This is because of so many new hotspots coming online so if you’re in a similar time range don’t panic unless you’re still at a really low % sync’d. Don’t give up, mine took forever but it’s finally working.

Update 6/29/2021

I’ve investigated the effects of relayed vs. non relayed status. If you observe the connections with an enterprise firewall you can see how many connections it has at a time. When you are in relayed status you will only have about 4 connections. When your ports are opened you’ll have closer to 20-100 connections! All of these connections are transferring data so it definitely helps speed things up.

The point has been running for a few days now and has already earned about 15 HNT! Hang in there, it’s worth it!

Update 8/7/2021

If your miner and radio aren’t the same unit (not the case with newer miners) you should also port forward UDP port:

1680

I discovered that this was a listening public port when writing my guide on the new Bobcat 300 “Diagnoser” tool. I then was able to confirm this on the official Helium GitHub page.

The document says that if your miner and radio are the same unit then port forwarding this from the internet is not important so the Bobcat 300 (and all other Helium miners that have a name) do not need this but I wanted to add it here for completeness.

In other words, your Bobcat 300 (and the other newer “approved” models) and your radio are already the same device so they don’t need any ports opened or forwarded to talk to each other even though you can see it listening on the diagnostics. On older miners (back when you were able to make your own homebrew frankenminers and join the network without a special enrollment key) this wasn’t necessarily the case and then you would need to forward this port.

A port forward should not be necessary for most people unless you know your radio is separate from your miner (it probably isn’t, and you can’t make these types of miners anymore).

If you didn’t build your hotspot yourself, from parts, by hand, you do not have this. An external antenna does not apply, That is NOT a radio unit. It’s just an antenna and it can’t do anything by itself without a radio unit controlling it.

A “radio unit” is the computer/device that the end of your antenna plugs into. It has to have a CPU to process signals from / send signals to the antenna. If your antenna plugs directly into your miner then your miner *IS* the radio unit for sure and this is almost certainly the case for you.

It’s no longer possible to do this (only approved manufacturer hotspots can join the Helium network now, but you used to be able to homebrew) and hasn’t been for a long time because people used to make tons of hacked/spoofed hotspots (still a problem to this day but it used to be much, much worse).

Was your hotspot manufactured by a company like Bobcat, RAK, Synchrobit, any of them? Then you didn’t build a homebrew hotspot from parts by hand so you don’t have one and this does not apply to you. There has never been one sold like this that has a name or brand. If you can tell me what your hotspot “is” and that actually means something you don’t have it!

Hopefully this clears up some confusion for anyone else who is investigating this. The new Bobcat 300 diagnostic tool will undoubtedly make many other people wonder about this as well. The answer is that yes the Bobcat is listening on that port, but it’s talking to another chip that is also literally a part of the Bobcat. It’s like a computer talking to localhost or 127.0.0.1.

It doesn’t matter what your internet connection’s firewall is doing in this situation. It’s only a “localhost” connection in a modern Helium miner’s case because it doesn’t need to make any external connections like old school homebrew setups may have had to at some point.

You for sure do not have to worry about this now with any hotspot that has a “brand” or “name” and you didn’t build yourself!

Other Resources

For the best place to mine and exchange your altcoins such as Helium (HNT) to Bitcoin (BTC) check out my Best Altcoin Mining Pools and Exchanges article

If you have a Bobcat check out my Bobcat 300 Diagnoser Tool guide to learn how to use this tool

If you have a Nebra hotspot check out my getting root and SSH access to the Nebra guide

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Tony
Tony
1 year ago

Hi James and also to everyone here. I hope you guys are having a great time wherever you might be.

James, would you be able to help me understand few things about my setup.?

I have two antenna and bobcat 300. 8 dbi and 4 dbi. My question is this. Would it be possible to have two antennas mounted to my miner? Has anyone done this?

The other question is this. Why is my miner doing the mining only few times a day and not every 20 to 30 minutes? Iā€™m in London\UK and the city is really big. I should be getting rewarded every few minutes. The reason I took two antennas is to have this 4 dbi picking up those close to me and the 8 dbi to reach those outside London. The 8 dbi when in use can go sometime over 50 km away.

Hopefully Iā€™m not taking too much of your time to help me.

Thank you.

Tony
Tony
1 year ago

Thank you so much for replying. So I wasted close to Ā£90 for this 8 dbi in thinking it would work? A lot of people online keep saying you should have 6 dbi or 8 dbi so you can escape the city and reach the ones that are outside London. So helium mining inside cities like London is actually pointless.? When I have the 4 dbi antenna it mines just few times a day. Is that normal? Should the mining happen more often?

Michael
Michael
1 year ago

Hi James,
I have a Bobcat300. I have changed my router recently, and have port forwarded 44158, set DMZ, and reserved the IP address for the miner.
I did this on my old router to get rid of ‘relayed’ status.
The Bobber app (Hotspots tab) says ‘relayed’ all the time. I dont quite understand if its right or wrong? As in the Bobber App diagnoser it doesnt say ‘relayed’.
I have read that with ‘Light Hotspots’ update which i assume i have got now, ‘relayed’ doesnt happen anymore. So unsure if im ‘relayed’ or not.
In the Bobber App, Hotspots Tab, Status, i can’t see ‘Gap’, or ‘Network Status’ anymore. Although my miner shows a Green Light.
Any ideas? If you can help, would be greatly appreciated.
Im still mining, and receiving HNT, but unsure if im maximising my miner, if it not set up correctly.
Thanks
Michael

Michael
Michael
1 year ago

Hi James,
I did wonder if it could be just the app not syncing up properly. It was good to see the ‘Gap’, and ‘Network Status’ before, but now just a ‘-‘ there. Its only happened recently. Its been running fine for over a month.
Its been about a week since i rebooted it (for the same issue).
The miner is on ethernet in my loft (from a powerplug) Speed is 15 down & 4 up.
I have ‘reset’ the miner, but still same issues.
Appreciate the help.
Thanks

JamesS
JamesS
1 year ago

Hi James,

I’d like to second the comments thanking you for the best guide on resolving the related status issue!

I received my Bobcat300 last week, and set it up three days ago. My ISP is Verizon, and I have an “Internet Gateway” 4G LTE router, which does not have any option in the admin settings specifically called port forwarding. However, I have been able to set a static IP for the Bobcat, enable UPnP, put it in the router’s DMZ, and set up a “Virtual Server” which seems to allow me has the following options that seem to forward ports to the Bobcat:

Helium
External Port: 20-44158
Internal IP: 192.168.0.216
Internal Port: 44158-44158
Protocol: All

I also called Verizon and asked about opening ports and if they had anything they could do to unblock ports, and they told me that they do not block any ports on their end. I did receive some rewards in this setup, but I am seeing conflicting information between the Bobber app, the Bobcat Diagnoser, and Hotspotty, so I’m not sure if my setup is fully working.

Hotspotty: When I do the “Real Time Status Check”, it shows that I am Online, Not Relayed, and passes all the Ping Tests. I have also done a port check through hotspotty, and it passes when I point it to my public IP and port 44158.

Bobber app: In the top menu, it shows that I am online, but relayed. Below the menu, it shows:
Light: Green
Gap: 3
Sync Status: Sycned
Network Status: Good
Miner State: Running

In the Bobber Diagnostic Report, it shows a green check by my outbound and inbound Peer to Peer connections, and that I am 100% synced.

In the diagnoser, it shows:
"p2p_status": [
"+---------+-------+",
"| name |result |",
"+---------+-------+",
"|connected| yes |",
"|dialable | yes |",
"|nat_type | none |",
"| height |1386575|",
"+---------+-------+",
],
"miner_height": "1386575",
"epoch": "37295",
"ports_desc": "only need to port forward 44158. For 22, only when need remote support. public port open/close isn't accurate here, if your listen_addr is IP address, it should be OK",
"ports": {
"192.168.0.216:22": "open",
"192.168.0.216:44158": "open",
"75.216.XXX.XX:22": "closed/timeout",
"75.216.XXX.XX:44158": "closed/timeout"
},
"private_ip": "192.168.0.216",
"public_ip": "75.216.XXX.XX",

"+----------------------------+",
"| listen_addrs (prioritized) |",
"+----------------------------+",
"|/ip4/75.216.XXX.XX/tcp/44158|",
"+----------------------------+",

I’m mainly confused why the diagnoser would show that my public IP ports are closed, but Hotspotty is able to make a connection and I pass the port check. Any idea what is going on here and how I can fix it? I’m wondering if I just need to wait a while for all of this to clear and to sync with the network for a while. Thanks!

JamesS
JamesS
1 year ago

Thanks so much for the quick reply!

I made the changes to the virtual server settings you recommended…a couple hours after I set that up this morning, I started getting errors from the app saying my miner was offline, so I realized the mistake. Just fixed it.

The networking configuration has been showing correct in the last 24 hours. I was playing around with having the miner in the DMZ, turning UPnP off and on, and using the virtual server. This morning I turned all three on which was when HotSpotty started showing that my miner was online and not relayed.

I just went to the port checker that you linked, and my public IP with port 44158 is Open! So that should be all good. I guess now I just need to wait and let the miner do it’s thing. You’re right, that’s definitely the hardest part. After waiting 26 weeks from the time I ordered, I’m ready to mine! I’ll check back in later to let you (and everyone else) know if time fixed things.

JamesS
JamesS
1 year ago

Hey James,

Update! Bobber app has started showing that I am out of relayed status, and I had a Broadcast beacon reward last night. Hotspotty is also showing that I am online, not related, but still Syncing. When I do a diagnose within bobber, it’s showing that I am 100% synced though, so probably just need to wait for a Helium status update.

I did notice when I just checked the diagnoser though, that my NAT is now showing as Symmetric, and the listener address is garbled. Looking closer, my public IP address has changed. I just checked the portchecker tool and I can still ping port 44158 at the new IP. Is that going to be an issue if my IP keeps changing?

JamesS
JamesS
1 year ago

Checked again and NAT is back to None. I’ll just keep an eye on it and try a reboot if I see it’s anything else. Thanks again so much for this resource and for your help in getting my miner online!

Jack
Jack
1 year ago

Hi James, I’m so glad i’ve found your site you really are providing value here by genuinely helping people šŸ™‚

I’m wondering if there’s something i’ve done wrong or missed…

Firstly I’m in the UK, my bobcat was initially relayed so i set a static ip for the bobcat and port forwarded my router to 44158. I’ve confirmed the ports are actually open using portchecker etc. and the relayed status disappeared (hooray) in a day or so. A few days passed in none relayed status however it’s still not actually mining, I’ve received 0.15 HNT over the last 14/15 days and now there is an orange ‘Needs attention’ banner and when i click on it it says hotspot is offline and not synching and i keep getting notifications says hotspot has not done anything in the last few thousand blocks…. Ports are still open, green light is on, synch status synched, network status good, outbound/inbound green tick, last challenged 2 days ago, NAT type none.

I feel like i’ve done something wrong here as i said 0.15 hnt over 15 days doesn’t seem like the hotspot is actually active…

Any help would be very much appreciated šŸ™‚

Jack
Jack
1 year ago
Reply to  Jack

forgot to say aswell, i’ve done the speed test in the diagnose thing.
Downloadspeed: 5 Mbit/s
Uploadspeed: 0 Mbit/s
Latency: 43.915651ms

Jack
Jack
1 year ago

Hi thanks for the response, yes it is indeed a Bobcat and it was on a WiFi connection. I did the Reset Miner as suggested and gave it a day. The orange banner has gone back to online, however the miner is still just dormant. I tried a speed test again and was the same; 5Mbits Download, 0Mbits upload. Ive just tried switching to ethernet and ran a speed test and it’s exactly the same but latency has gone down a bit. Transmit scale is still 0.34 and it’s just not doing anything šŸ™

Jack
Jack
1 year ago

Hey james,

Yes there are a few miners in my hex (4 including mine) but everyone else’s earnings are orders of magnitude higher than my own, hence my annoyance haha. I may be forced to try relocate to my parents house possibly…

Chris
Chris
1 year ago

Hi James and hi to everyone.

Can anyone please help me with my Bobcat 300? I live in London and I got an antenna of 8.5 dbi. It’s a good one and I placed it on the roof. It’s like 15 meters high. From what I can see, everything is running fine and the miner does mine once a day or once every two days. the mining is like 0.017 or so. I have not witnessed more than two other miners. On the app it says it’s online and Transmit scale is 0.25. I did hear that 8.5dbi in city is not good so I ordered a 6.5 dbi. Is 6.5 dbi best? I have some TV antennas around the helium antenna and two dishes. When I am on roof, I can see almost 300 m on many sides but there are small buildings covering some space. Is this mining normal?

Adi
Adi
1 year ago

Hey James! Thank you for brief description for everything, but I have similar issue like Ashley did.

My bobcat miner 300 gives me this message: ports_desc”: “only need to port forward 44158. For 22, only when need remote support. public port open/close isn’t accurate here, if your listen_addr is IP address, it should be OK”

Both inbound and outbound are showing it’s ok, green light is on, connection on, but it’s in a relayed status.

I’m having 2 routers, one is for main ISP (DSL) and I’ve connected miner with ethernet cable with this one. The other router is TP-LINK I’m using for wireless connection only. Now, the first ISP router (DSL) is Cisco epc3928s, and when I fix IP address and do port forwarding (disabled uPNP as well), I’m still not able to fix it. On http://www.portchecker.co it says my port 44158 is closed :/

I’m not sure what to do, can you help?
Thanks in advance

Adi
Adi
1 year ago

Hey James, thank you for your detailed explanation and answer. In the meantime, it happened that I saw within miner diagnostic (via web) miner.json file, that my listen_addrs was my public address, which means that I’ve successfully opened that port 44158, even though under the ports object on the report file it says my public address is “closed/timeout”.

I have been following this message, exactly second part of the sentence: “only need to port forward 44158. For 22, only when need remote support. Public port open/close isn’t accurate here, if your listen_addr is IP address, it should be OK” so I’ve concluded that it’s working fine, I saw there is some kind of small earnings on my account. But this morning I woke up and opened diagnoser and again saw that my router is Relayed :/

I’ll call my ISP to see how it goes with them.

Thanks again!
Adi

Adi
Adi
1 year ago

Hey James, this is how it looks on my side:

},
"p2p_status": [
"+---------+-------+",
"| name |result |",
"+---------+-------+",
"|connected| yes |",
"|dialable | yes |",
"|nat_type | none |",
"| height |1375155|",
"+---------+-------+",
"",
""
],
"miner_height": "1375155",
"epoch": "36950",
"ports_desc": "only need to port forward 44158. For 22, only when need remote support. public port open/close isn't accurate here, if your listen_addr is IP address, it should be OK",
"ports": {
"192.168.0.11:22": "open",
"192.168.0.11:44158": "open",
"77.77.222.XX:22": "closed/timeout",
"77.77.222.XX:44158": "closed/timeout"
},
"private_ip": "192.168.0.11",
"public_ip": "77.77.222.XX",

And again now, my listen_addrs is looking like this:

listen_addrs (prioritized)|",
"+--------------------------+",
"|/ip4/77.77.222.XX/tcp/2560|

Adi
Adi
1 year ago

Hey James, definitely it was due to the ISP. They’ve just changed my public IP address and opened port 44158 aaaand VOILA! It works!

Poppy
Poppy
1 year ago

Hi Craig, help. My transmission scale is green 1.00, status green and active. 4 days making no money, why ?

Active and doing nothing