Really slow solana rpc?

Question

So I'm working with the "wormhole-ts-sdk", Wormhole's portal SDK, to bridge tokens between Solana and EVM chains, and my app needs this to work well. However, lately, I've been trying different configurations in my RPC, and so far I haven't been able to make it work efficiently. This is what happens:

When the SDK tries to send or receive a token from Solana, it sends the transactions, but it takes around 20 to 30 seconds to confirm them, sometimes even more. I know other people are getting much faster times than me, and I can't figure out where the delay is coming from.

I've tried increasing priority fees to about $0.1 per transaction, played around with preflight and commitment settings, but I keep seeing the same confirmation times. I've also optimized parts of the SDK code.

I'm not an expert, so I need some advice. Could this be an RPC issue? I've tried multiple providers like QuickNode ($10 package), Helius (free), Chainstack, Ankr, etc., but I haven't noticed much difference. I have noticed that some RPCs often give me rate limit errors. Do you think upgrading to a better RPC package could solve my problem?

I'm running this app on my VPS located in Canada, so maybe there's also a ping factor involved?

Answer 1

20 to 30 seconds

That's definitely too much. From the write-up, it's difficult to tell where the issue is, but you can try a couple of quick tests to eliminate latency at least.

Since your app is in Canada, you can try out two things with Chainstack. (Disclosure, I'm with Chainstack).

• Deploy a node endpoint in New York — On Chainstack, click Join Network > Solana > Solana Mainnet > Next > Advanced > New York (Full node).

See how that works.

Then you can also do a Trader node, which is focused on landing your transaction fast. To get a trader node, do the same thing as above, but select Trader node.

• Deploy a node endpoint in New York — On Chainstack, click Join Network > Solana > Solana Mainnet > Next > Advanced > New York (Trader node).

See how that works. Let me know, I'd be interested to see what your results are. Normally with this setup you'd have your transactions land in less than a second. Check the write-up here as well in docs.

Also note that Trader nodes start at a paid plan (Growth) and cost per transaction, but there's always some 99% discount promotion going on the pricing page, so check it out for a coupon — that should be more than enough to run your tests virtually for free.