I'll start by saying I'm no expert and very new at this, but I've already learned my lesson the hard way once and want to share my tip with you!
Also I'd be happy to hear any additional advice from the real experts out their, maybe preempt me before I make my next rookie mistake!
Don't trust your wallet node status!
Double check and triple check the status, before restarting your node
This is my super tip and my screw up! I'll admit I flinched and reset my node! Embarrassing eh?
I came home from a trip and restarted my computed and wallet and my node said MISSING, so I mumbled to myself and restated it thinking not much of it. I did know they need to run for 20 days before being eligible for payments, so I was a bit annoyed.
So just the other day when I checked my node status it said NEW_START_REQUIRED. This time I was pissed and annoyed. It was running fine for another week, now I needed to reset it again and restart my countdown. So I started looking around more this time and learned that I can't trust the wallet.
If you read my other posts about my wallet troubles and shitty computer and internet connection maybe you saw this coming, but my node was running fine on it's VPS server, but my wallet didn't seam to know that.
This is when I learned to set up the SmartNodeMonitor Bot on discord. This tool is a lifesaver! I can quickly check the status of my nodes and it also sends me DM when it detects any status change.
Thanks to the amazing people at the Smart Cash Discord for getting me fixed up with this. Also if your shy or impatient, you can search the smartnodes or support sub channels on their Discord and find some advice super quick.
Anyways once you join the discord channel above, just DM @SmartNodeMonitor#5083 help, and it will explain the rest of the process to sign up your nodes.
I now check there or log into my VPS to check the node status before trusting my wallet. I hope this word of advice helps keep a few of you from flinching and restarting your nodes for no reason.
Once again huge shout-out to the Smart Cash community for helping me get this figured out, besides of course steemit, I've never found such a supportive and helpful community in crypto land
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