What is a stale share?
What a stale share is, why a small number is normal on every pool, and the region, connection and tuning checks that bring the rate down.
What is a stale share?
A stale share is valid work that arrived too late to count. Your rig submitted it for a job that was already out of date.
When the pool finds or receives a new block, it sends your miner fresh work. Any result your rig then submits for the previous work is stale. It was valid effort, but it cannot be counted toward a block.
What causes stale shares?
The main cause is latency, the time data takes to travel between your rig and the pool. The longer that round trip, the more of your work is still in flight when the job changes.
Two other things add more:
- Connection drops.
- An unstable overclock that makes the miner stutter.
A few stale shares are normal. A rising rate is a signal.
How do I keep stale shares low?
- Pick the closest server region. New jobs reach you sooner, and your results get back faster.
- Keep your connection stable.
- Back off an aggressive overclock or undervolt if your stale count climbs.
- Prefer a wired link over Wi-Fi. For staleness, jitter (uneven delay) matters more than raw speed.
Why are a few stale shares fine?
No connection is instant. So a small, steady trickle of stale shares is unavoidable and harmless.
It only matters when the rate keeps rising. Then it pulls your effective hashrate noticeably below your card's real speed. That is your cue to check your region, connection and tuning.