I’ve been having major outages in staking for weeks due to validator cryptocalibur. Is it possible to change the validator while staking is in progress?
First, that validator should be kicked off the network because it’s terrible for security and decentralization. I wouldn’t ever use them. Those are probably the worst validator on the network right now.
Second, what do you mean “staking is in progress”? You can go to your wallet, remove that trash, and pick other validators. Then, come election for the next era, you’ll get new nominees.
You can see the process here:
https://learn.xx.network/tools/webWallet/staking/nominate
(Also see https://learn.xx.network/tools/webWallet/staking/nominateRight while there).
So, you can’t change your nominees before the end of an era that’s in progress. But you can change them between eras, as long as you make these changes as described above, and before on-chain election for the next era (which is couple of hours before the start of an era (7:03am UTC), so change your nominees before 3-4 am UTC and by 7:04am you should have new nominees (if they get elected).
When yo pick new nominees (validators to nominate), look in the Wallet, but also copy each prospective validator’s wallet address, paste it in Explorer (https://explorer.xx.network/) and check their validator statistics.
For example, 6XhUDsu2kU7cZgvw3TPydeUPbMNy3Y6aKsg9WkU62GUMWHJU (link: Blockchain Explorer) seems OK (Validator > Metrics):
That pool now blocks nominations so you’re unlikely to be nominating them, but maybe your wallet (as one of their nominator) got slashed for their offenses resulting from their beginner-level incompetence.
The Polkadot Wiki has more details on offenses and slashing, so you can reference it.
xx Network uses the same SDS and offenses and slashing work largely the same, but their Wiki has more detailed info.
Regardless of this, your optimal course of action is the same as already mentioned - simply go to your wallet and make changes and stay away from those losers.