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[Whitelisted Caller] Referendum #622

inWhitelisted Caller

22 days ago

Executed

The Incident

On 25 November, the Robonomics parachain on Kusama stopped producing blocks following a major runtime and node upgrade to v4.0.
This upgrade was intended to transition the parachain consensus from OpenCollator to AURA.
During the upgrade, temporary AURA authorities were expected to be set in the OnRuntimeMigration block.

The Issue

Although the runtime upgrade executed, collators running OpenConsensus were no longer able to author blocks, while the new AURA authority set was not yet fully established. As a result, the chain halted mid-migration, before the new authorities could take over.

All runtime testing was previously performed using Chopsticks, where this issue did not appear due to differences in the execution environment.

Impact

The block production halt affects several Robonomics services:

Sensors.social currently operates in off-chain mode only
CEX integrations (e.g., Kraken) temporarily suspended withdrawals
Democracy and TechComm motions are frozen
General degradation of parachain functionality

Proposed Solution

While this proposal is being voted on, the Robonomics team will prepare an updated runtime WASM that resolves the underlying issue (see: https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/10428).

Unlocking the parachain will allow the manager account to perform a schedule_code_upgrade, enabling:

The relay chain to apply the corrected runtime code, and
Collators to temporarily use codeSubstitute in their chainspec to align with the updated runtime.

This will restore block production and return the parachain to normal operation.

Request

We respectfully ask Kusama Governance and the Polkadot Fellowship to approve unlocking the Robonomics parachain so that full functionality can be restored.

After resolution, we will publish a public postmortem and implement improved migration testing procedures (including Zombienet) to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Comments (3)

18 days ago

Dear Proposer,

Thank you for your proposal. Our first vote on this proposal is AYE. Below is the evaluation of our voting policy v0.3 on this referendum:

WHITELISTED CALLER
------------------
8 available members
🟢 4 • 🔴 0 • ⚪️ 0
✓ ≥50.0% required participation met
▶ Ayes ≥60.0% of all votes
🟢 AYE

Below is a summary of our members' comments:

The votes unanimously supported unlocking the parachain to resolve the block production halt after a problematic update. Voters noted their inherent support for whitelisted caller proposals and affirmed that the measure was necessary to restore normal operations and critical services disrupted by the upgrade failure. They recognized the importance of the Robonomics team’s efforts to implement a corrective runtime upgrade that would reestablish block production and service continuity across platforms such as sensors and exchanges. The decision also reflected a broader enthusiasm for technological progress in IoT, underscoring a commitment to proactive measures to prevent future disruptions.

The full discussion can be found in our internal voting.

Please feel free to contact us through the links below for further discussion.

Kind regards,
Permanence DAO
Decentralized Voices Cohort V Delegate

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🗳️ Delegate

7 days ago

Aye from the Polkadot Poland DAO

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Proposal Passed