Base Restores Stability After January Network Congestion

Base, the Ethereum Layer-2 solution supported by Coinbase, has successfully restored network stability following a series of transaction delays and drops that occurred in late January. The issues were caused by a misconfigured change in transaction propagation, and a month-long fix plan is underway.

Key Takeaways

Base has restored network stability after addressing issues caused by misconfigured transaction propagation.
Congestion and transaction delays affected users starting on January 31.
The team rolled back the problematic configuration, leading to improved transaction processing.
Future preventative measures include optimizing the transaction pipeline and enhancing monitoring systems.
Users are encouraged to follow updates through Base’s official channels.

Base restores network after transaction congestion incident

Incident Overview: Base's January Congestion

The disruptions began on January 31, when Base faced periods of significant congestion. During these times, users experienced delays and dropped transactions. Although blocks continued to be created, the network reported that transaction confirmations had longer-than-normal latency for users.

Base confirmed that the problem originated from a change in its infrastructure configuration that affected transaction propagation. Specifically, this change caused the block builder to repeatedly attempt to fetch transactions that couldn’t be processed due to surging base fees. This inefficient handling of transactions resulted in increased drops and delays, especially during busy periods. The changes created a feedback loop in the transaction pipeline, worsening the situation under fluctuating fee conditions.

To address the issue, Base rolled back the configuration change, which helped restore normal transaction processing. The team confirmed that this rollback successfully brought back overall network stability, although occasional delays due to intermittent congestion may still happen. A thorough root cause analysis and public report are planned to provide more clarity on the incident.

Steps to Prevent Future Disruptions

To avoid similar issues in the future, Base is implementing enhancements to its transaction pipeline. This includes eliminating peer-to-peer overhead and fine-tuning mempool queue behavior to ensure transactions are included more effectively during high-stress periods. The optimization process is expected to take around one month.

In addition to these technical improvements, Base is upgrading its alerting systems and modifying monitoring processes to better identify transaction propagation issues sooner and react more swiftly.

Base encourages users and developers to keep an eye on updates through its official status page for the latest information.