Matters is currently using "Decentralized Technology" in the "Centralized Storage" article

What happened last night?

Last night, the article published a function failure, and it is one of the few functions directly related to IPFS nodes. In addition, the files of recent articles cannot be obtained through the IPFS network during the same period, so it is speculated that the cause of the failure is that the IPFS node of Matters is abnormal, which caused the above two problems at the same time.

After confirming with the station staff, I got the following reply:

The guess is correct

The ipfs node crashed last night, which blocked article publishing. It is speculated that the reason may be that the gc is unstable when there is a large amount of data.

Isn't it decentralized storage? Why is it impossible to obtain article files through the IPFS network when the Matters node is down?

IPFS is indeed a decentralized file storage and distribution technology, but Matters' articles are currently only kept by nodes maintained by Matters themselves, without purchasing related services or cooperating with other units. At most, only a small number of volunteers spontaneously PIN the living part material.

Therefore, when the nodes maintained by Matters fail, the nodes that store these files on the IPFS network are almost gone, and of course, the files cannot be obtained in a "decentralized" way.

Simply put, Matters uses "decentralized technology" to "centrally store" article files, not to mention "permanent storage" in the IPFS network.

Advice for Matters

• Maintain more node backups by yourself
• Use a service like pinata
• Use filecoin to find miners to deposit
• Remove the words permanent storage and decentralization

Advice for users

In the article, IPFS is indeed helpful for wall penetration (decentralized distribution), but the current Matters cannot be called "decentralized storage".

So if your purpose is to store/back up articles in a decentralized way, it is not suitable to use Matters at present. Simply putting one copy of the file on google drive and one on mega may be more "distributed". Of course, it would be best if you could build IPFS nodes yourself (with people).