Rococo polkadot-launch parachain doesn't create blocks

Question

I tested rococo parachains launched thanks polkadot-launch. However I don't see any blocks created from the parachain so I'm wondering if this is normal and if I need to do extra steps to see blocks creation on the parachain.

Version double checks :

• I'm using parity polkadot node version : 0.9.17-de0ecd4760-x86_64-linux-gnu
• I'm using cumulus polkadot-collator node version : 5.2.0-76479e7f-x86_64-linux-gnu (the 76479e7f is the commit id for cumulus tag polkadot-v0.9.17)

Polkadot-launch input configuration :

{
    "relaychain": {
        "bin": "./bin/polkadot",
        "chain": "rococo-local",
        "nodes": [
            {
                "name": "alice",
                "wsPort": 9944,
                "port": 30444
            },
            {
                "name": "bob",
                "wsPort": 9955,
                "port": 30555
            },
            {
                "name": "charlie",
                "wsPort": 9966,
                "port": 30666
            },
            {
                "name": "dave",
                "wsPort": 9977,
                "port": 30777
            }
        ],
        "genesis": {
            "runtime": {
                "runtime_genesis_config": {
                    "configuration": {
                        "config": {
                            "validation_upgrade_frequency": 10,
                            "validation_upgrade_delay": 10
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "parachains": [
        {
            "bin": "./bin/polkadot-collator",
            "id": "200",
            "balance": "1000000000000000000000",
            "nodes": [
                {
                    "wsPort": 9988,
                    "port": 31200,
                    "name": "alice",
                    "flags": ["--", "--execution=wasm"]
                }
            ]
        },
        {
            "bin": "./bin/polkadot-collator",
            "id": "300",
            "balance": "1000000000000000000000",
            "nodes": [
                {
                    "wsPort": 9999,
                    "port": 31300,
                    "name": "alice",
                    "flags": ["--", "--execution=wasm"]
                }
            ]
        }
    ],
    "hrmpChannels": [
        {
            "sender": 200,
            "recipient": 300,
            "maxCapacity": 8,
            "maxMessageSize": 512
        }
    ],
    "types": {},
    "finalization": false
}

First log analyses :

The first collator node connect to the parachain and synchronize its first relay chain with blocks 31 on epoch 3 :

2022-03-14 00:13:05 [Relaychain] 👴 Applying authority set change scheduled at block #31
2022-03-14 00:13:05 [Relaychain] 👴 Applying GRANDPA set change to new set [(Public(88dc3417d5058ec4b4503e0c12ea1a0a89be200fe98922423d4334014fa6b0ee (5FA9nQDV...)), 1), (Public(d17c2d7823ebf260fd138f2d7e27d114c0145d968b5ff5006125f2414fadae69 (5GoNkf6W...)), 1), (P
ublic(439660b36c6c03afafca027b910b4fecf99801834c62a5e6006f27d978de234f (5DbKjhNL...)), 1), (Public(5e639b43e0052c47447dac87d6fd2b6ec50bdd4d0f614e4299c665249bbd09d9 (5ECTwv6c...)), 1)]
...
2022-03-14 00:13:48 [Relaychain] 👶 New epoch 4 launching at block 0x1f0c…efdd (block slot 274536138 >= start slot 274536138).

However I never see [Parachain] Starting collation. in my logs. I waited till block 152 and epoch 15 with no success...

2022-03-14 00:24:48 [Relaychain] 👶 New epoch 15 launching at block 0x0898…5404 (block slot 274536248 >= start slot 274536248).
2022-03-14 00:24:48 [Relaychain] 👶 Next epoch starts at slot 274536258
2022-03-14 00:24:48 [Relaychain] ✨ Imported #151 (0x0898…5404)
2022-03-14 00:24:48 [Relaychain] Advanced session window for approvals update=Advanced { prev_window_start: 9, prev_window_end: 14, new_window_start: 10, new_window_end: 15 }
2022-03-14 00:24:51 [Relaychain] 💤 Idle (5 peers), best: #151 (0x0898…5404), finalized #148 (0x8570…2a6e), ⬇ 4.2kiB/s ⬆ 2.9kiB/s
2022-03-14 00:24:51 [Parachain] 💤 Idle (1 peers), best: #0 (0x0a8a…28c5), finalized #0 (0x0a8a…28c5), ⬇ 49 B/s ⬆ 49 B/s
2022-03-14 00:24:54 [Relaychain] ✨ Imported #152 (0xce66…efb4)

The block count on the parachain remains to 0 :(. Is there something I missed ?

Thank you for your coming help :)

Answer 1

Obtain the "raw" chain definition that you originally used to launch polkadot-launch after copying the latest binary of your parachain to the polkadot-launch bin/ directory. Ensure you are using substrate-parachain-template branch 'polkadot-v0.9.17'.

In substrate-parachain-template chain_spec.rs, change the parachain id values from 1000 to 2000 (i.e. find/replace "1000.into()," with "2000.into(),", find/replace "para_id: 1000," with "para_id: 2000,"). Also change "" | "local" to "" | "local" | "rococo-local"

./polkadot-launch/bin/parachain-collator build-spec --chain "rococo-local" --disable-default-bootnode > rococo-local-parachain-2000-plain.json
./polkadot-launch/bin/parachain-collator build-spec --chain rococo-local-parachain-2000-plain.json --raw --disable-default-bootnode > rococo-local-parachain-2000-raw.json
cp rococo-local-parachain-2000-raw.json ../

Obtain Alice's secret seed 0xe5be9a5092b81bca64be81d212e7f2f9eba183bb7a90954f7b76361f6edb5c0a by running the following

subkey inspect //Alice

Add the KeySubcommand to the CLI of your substrate-parachain-template so you can run parachain-collator key insert in the next step, as shown in this example.

Insert Alice's session key

./polkadot-launch/bin/parachain-collator key insert \
--base-path /tmp/parachain/alice \
--chain ./polkadot-launch/rococo-local-parachain-2000-raw.json \
--scheme Sr25519 \
--suri 0xe5be9a5092b81bca64be81d212e7f2f9eba183bb7a90954f7b76361f6edb5c0a \
--key-type aura

Restart polkadot-launch.

Add another collator node manually. Use an existing bootnode below that you obtain from the logs when you run polkadot-launch. Use the correct Rococo relay chain "raw" chain definition for rococo-local-raw.json below for Polkadot branch 'v0.9.17' and the correct ports.

./polkadot-launch/bin/parachain-collator \
    --collator \
    --alice \
    --chain ./polkadot-launch/rococo-local-parachain-2000-raw.json \
    --base-path /tmp/parachain/alice \
    --bootnodes /ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/30336/p2p/<INSERT_BOOTNODE_ID> \
    --name "DataHighway-Collator-Alice" \
    --force-authoring \
    --port 31400 \
    --rpc-port 9933 \
    --ws-port 9977 \
    --unsafe-ws-external \
    --unsafe-rpc-external \
    --rpc-cors=all \
    --rpc-methods=Unsafe \
    -- \
    --execution wasm \
    --chain ./polkadot-launch/rococo-local-raw.json \
    --port 30444 \
    --rpc-port 9944 \
    --ws-port 9955

Check that the parachain generates and finalizes blocks.

Answer 2

Are you customizing your RunCommand struct in cli.rs? I've faced this issue where blocked are not being finalized while customizing the RunCommand struct. (In my case, I was not providing the correct path of sc_cli::RunCommand in my runner).

If yes, then you need to provide the correct path of the sc_cli::RunCommand where you are creating the runner in the command.rs.