Cardano 1.5.0: Daedalus 0.13.0 and Cardano SL 3.0.0 - Release Notes

Cardano 1.5.0

Mainnet Release Date: 20 March 2019

This main release provides new features and resolves some issues, including the following:

• Support for the Ouroboros BFT protocol (preparation for Shelley)
• New block consolidation status screen
• Japanese Installers
• Support ticket submission via the support portal.

See below full details.

Daedalus 0.13.0

New features

Operation with low disk space

Daedalus now checks if there is enough disk space for normal operation. If there is not enough disk space available, Daedalus will show a red warning screen, instructing users to free up some space to continue using Daedalus. When there is less than 2GB of free disk space, Daedalus will shut down Cardano node to stop blockchain synchronization and to prevent issues from data corruption.

This feature also eliminates crashes caused by operation with no available disk space and the generic error shown here.

Japanese installer and uninstaller

Daedalus installer/uninstaller for Windows now has multi-language support. Both English and Japanese are now fully supported in the installer/uninstaller. Language is detected automatically based on language settings in the Windows operating system.

Block storage consolidation screen

A new screen in Daedalus, accessed through the system menu, visualizes the block consolidation process. For more information about block storage consolidation, read this support article.

Support ticket submission moved to support portal

The form for submitting support tickets, accessed through the support page in settings, has been replaced with the form hosted on the support portal. Logs need to be downloaded from Daedalus and attached manually.

Notification for log download completion

Archive file with logs can be downloaded from the support page in Daedalus settings, which is useful when submitting support requests. Support requests should always be submitted with attached logs to help the support team investigate the issue. Daedalus now notifies users when the log download is complete.

Structured logging

Daedalus now records logs in a structured way, using the JSON format. This means the logs are machine-readable and easily parsable, making log analysis easier.

Removed antivirus notification

Notifications that were shown during wallet restoration, warning users that antivirus software might slow down the restoration process have been removed because this is no longer the case.

System specification logged to a file

System specification containing information about computer processor and amount of memory available is logged to a System-info.json file, which is used for diagnostic purposes and included in the archive file with logs.

Application menu translated to Japanese

Daedalus application menu now has Japanese translations. Based on language settings in Daedalus it will be shown in English or Japanese.

Electron platform upgraded to version 3

Electron platform, part of the software infrastructure Daedalus is based on, is upgraded to v3.0.14 from 1.7.16. This brings new versions of Chrome and Node JS to Daedalus with security and performance improvements.

Security improvements with Electron platform

Node JS integration is disabled in Electron rendering processes for improved security and code has been refactored to accommodate this change.

Improved handling of multiple running Daedalus instances

Instead of showing an error message when the second instance of Daedalus is launched, Daedalus now focuses the first running instance.

Fixed-width font for addresses and transaction IDs

Fixed-width font is now used for displaying addresses and transaction IDs for improved readability.

Resolved issues

Improved clock synchronization checks

For Daedalus to work and the Cardano node to process blocks and synchronize with the blockchain, the clock on a user's machine needs to be synchronized with global time. Checks for clock synchronization are now improved and a red screen warning that clock synchronization checks cannot be performed will not be shown unnecessarily.

Improper shutdowns on Windows

Cardano was sometimes not properly shut down on Windows, which would cause ‘Another instance is already running’ issue and possibly data corruption when Daedalus was launched again before shutting down the computer. This issue is now resolved.

Handling transactions which are too big

Daedalus will show ‘Transaction too big due to too many inputs’ error when a transaction is too big in terms of data so it will not be accepted by Cardano network. This will happen when funds in the wallet are spread across many unspent transaction outputs (UTxOs), which need to be selected as inputs for the transaction. Previously, such transactions were failing with a generic error message.
https://iohk.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017733353
https://iohk.zendesk.com/hc/ja/articles/360017733353

Rendering of lists with a large number of items

Daedalus is now much faster rendering lists with a large number of items, such as transactions in the transaction history and addresses on the Receive screen. There should be no drop in performance, even when a large number of items are listed. Daedalus can now display all transactions in the transaction history. Before, this was limited to the 500 most recent transactions. To reduce the number of user interface updates, the number of confirmations for a transaction stops updating after it exceeds 20. At that point, instead of the actual number of transactions, the user interface displays ‘20+’.

Context menu improvements

Context menu with copy and paste functions is disabled on user interface elements where there is no selectable text, such as images or empty areas of user interface.

Initial set-up improvements

Language set-up and accepting terms of use, which happens when Daedalus is installed for the first time, is now displayed immediately instead of after Daedalus is connected to the network. This improves the user experience because users can see the messages while Daedalus is connecting to the network in the language they have chosen during set-up.

Cardano SL 3.0.0

New features

Ouroboros BFT (OBFT)

Ouroboros BFT (Byzantine fault tolerance) is part of the Ouroboros family of consensus protocols. This release adds support for Ouroboros BFT protocol. It will be dormant at the time of deployment of Cardano 1.5. It will be activated at a later time through a protocol update. This activation is technically a hard fork. The switch to Ouroboros BFT is an important part of the preparation for the launch of Cardano Shelley. For technical reasons, using Ouroboros BFT as an intermediate step makes the transition to the Ouroboros Genesis protocol simpler by providing a common technical ‘meeting point’ for the two protocols in order to have a smooth handoff.

The Ouroboros BFT white paper is available: https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/1049.pdf

Batch import for addresses

New API endpoint /api/v1/wallets/{{walletId}}/addresses allows the importing of addresses to a specific wallet. This feature was developed to allow cryptocurrency exchanges to import unused addresses after restoring their wallets because unused addresses are not recorded on the blockchain and cannot be restored.

Updated node settings API endpoint

Node settings API endpoint /api/v1/node-settings was expanded with information about current epoch and slot, number of slots per epoch, maximum transaction size and fee policy.

Breaking API changes

Updated node info API endpoint

localTimeInformation response in the node info API endpoint /api/v1/node-info now includes new status information to indicate whether the response from NTP servers is available, pending or unavailable. In the past, it returned null if the response from the NTP servers was pending or unavailable.

Removal of v0 API and legacy data layer

The v0 API, which was already deprecated, is now removed together with the wallet legacy data layer. Users of v0 API should migrate to new, v1 API before upgrading to this version of Cardano.

Resolved issues

Reaching the limit of open files

The Cardano node was reaching the limit of open files when it was started without an internet connection because of improper handling of timeouts for DNS queries. This issue has been resolved.