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(beginner question)

I have installed Ethereum Wallet 0.7.6 on Windows. It shows 5-6 peers and 1,230,865 (growing every ~1 minute). Two days ago I clicked on "Start Mining" and the wallet has been running continuously for over 48 hours now. I have 0 ether balance, but according to this answer, however, I should have some Testnet ethers within 20 minutes, mining using the CPU only.

Update: I found an external configuration reason for the lack of results and indeed the client wasn't mining, but still my question is valid:

How can I track my mining activities on Testnet (shall I use the same tools as for Main Network)?

What can I do when my balance is stuck at zero? Shall I check some website (explorer)? Look at the logs? Check something in the wallet interface?

Advised to check the Etherscan explorer I would like to stress I am talking about a situation where I have not mined any block for 48 hours and it shows like this:

Etherscan results

From the screen above (or subsequent links) I cannot see a way to tell if my Mist is actually mining something or not.

As a contrary, if I ran geth on Main Network in CLI, I could see things being processed even if I didn't get any results (blocks).

Community
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techraf
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2 Answers2

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Ethereum Wallet keeps a log of your mining activity and it is more or less real time. In my case, I have the Mac Ethereum Wallet app and if I click on Develop > Show Log File, the app takes me to the location of the log-files. On Mac, you can open the most recent log-file with Console and then you see your progress. If you are mining actively, you should see something like:

I0208 10:27:55.933072 core/blockchain.go:1070] imported 1 blocks, 0 txs (0.000 Mg) in 10.527ms (0.000 Mg/s). #495315 [94c82d0c…]
I0208 10:27:55.942106 miner/worker.go:514] commit new work on block 495316 with 4 txs & 0 uncles. Took 8.921554ms

Since I also haven't gotten any Ether for mining yet, I cannot tell you how a successful block commit and Ether transaction would look like. But at least you can see whether you are actually mining or not.

Peter
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You can track block mined by your account on any testnet explorer. E.g. http://testnet.etherscan.io/address/0x8d80fe3a57f2f48bff06db68f3d2c94ea23c88c7#mine.

Testnet is the same technology, but different configuration (e.g. different network number from main network). So the explorer are able to track testnet and main network side-by-side with minimal additional cost.

Paweł Bylica
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  • (1) So there is no difference between Testnet and Main Network? I should use the same tools, the same ...scope? By coincidence 10 minutes ago I mined 5.0378258 ether and one block lists, but (2) Where in the explorer could I see the progress during those 48 hours when I indeed had zero balance? -- And this (2) was my real question, I did not want to see mined blocks because I had none. I wanted to confirm that I am on a right path to getting one. – techraf Jul 01 '16 at 13:18
  • Ad. (1) I see, it's the subdomain that determines the scope. – techraf Jul 01 '16 at 13:36
  • And that was my question, so you should add it to answer, please. But I can't see how it allows me to see actual progress towards the first mined block. – techraf Jul 01 '16 at 13:41
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    You cannot track because there is no progress. Mining is pure probability and luck. – Paweł Bylica Jul 01 '16 at 20:03
  • "You cannot track because..." - I don't know that, hence my question (i.e. your remark again should be a part of the answer). However, if I ran geth on Main Network in CLI, I could see things being processed even if I didn't have any results, with Ethereum Wallet I see nothing. – techraf Jul 01 '16 at 21:38