Peer rejected while connecting to testnet - core v9.1.0

Question

I recently compiled the source code for stellar-core (v9.1.0-31-g1380e88) and I'm trying to run it in the testnet, but it doesn't connect to any of the KNOWN_PEERS, constantly giving me the warning [Overlay WARNING] Received error (ERR_LOAD): peer rejected and then [Overlay INFO] Dropping peer. This causes the core to never leave the Joining SCP state.

Here is part of my configuration file, based on the example config and the docker's config.

NETWORK_PASSPHRASE="Test SDF Network ; September 2015"
PEER_PORT=11625
TARGET_PEER_CONNECTIONS=8
MAX_PEER_CONNECTIONS=12
KNOWN_PEERS=[
"core-testnet1.stellar.org",
"core-testnet2.stellar.org",
"core-testnet3.stellar.org"
]
NODE_IS_VALIDATOR=false
FAILURE_SAFETY=1
UNSAFE_QUORUM=false

I've already seen some questions about peer problems while connecting to the livenet, and this comment is very interesting, saying:

For fresh nodes, that do not have peers tables filled out, if all of their KNOWN_PEERS have all connection slots taken, it is impossible to connect. I think that sending list of peers with ERR_LOAD message would help with that issue.

However, I couldn't find any other list of testnet peers, and would like to know what can I do to try connecting in this situation.

Answer 1

That’s because testnet is highly centralized with the 3 sdf nodes being the only ones that are up all the time. So we end up with all test nodes in the world being connected to them until people decide that they don’t want to run a node anymore. It’s a transient state though so it should resolve by itself given some time.