Hi, I got a mature starter from a friend almost 2 months ago and I have been very consistent in feeding it once or twice a week. I'm a newbie at baking with sourdough starter, and have so far tried/baked loaves and crusty buns with it with medium-good results. I obviously need to improve some of my techniques but bread tasted fine and my starter was quite consistently performing well. However, yesterday, I prepared my dough for an overnight proofing at room temperature, and it failed to rise completely after 12h at 22C. I'm quite puzzled as I just used the starter 2 days ago to make pizza and a sourdough loaf. I used the starter 8h from the time I fed it and it passed the float test.

What could be the reason for this sudden inactivity? I took out the starter from the fridge this morning and fed it. It seemed much less active than before (it was bubbly and doubling at around 4h after feeding). It's been 7h now and it hasn't doubled yet. I always use a fresh jar each time I feed the starter and cover it with parchment paper (as I find I get consistent measurements by weight with it). The only thing I did differently this time was not feeding it again after 8h, and just put it back in the fridge. I only fed it again 1 day later just before I started with my new dough. (I used to always feed my starter, leave it at room temperature for 2-3 h and only then put it back in the fridge. I would then feed the stored starter again on the day I'd need it for baking.)

I'm trying to revive the starter now and hopefully I could get it going again. I was just wondering if this is a common thing happening to a mature starter and if there's something I did wrong or could improve on. Looking forward to your response and thanks a lot in advance.

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