Two Ethereum clients, Nethermind and Go Ethereum have discovered bugs in the main network merge updates.
Ethereum developer Péter Szilágyi first noticed the bugs and announced via Twitter that Geth 1.10.22 – Promavess contains a regression.
Aaand our latest release is borked. 😕 Geth 1.10.22 contains a regression that causes the trie/state to go bad. Most probably it's one of the PRs we've merged towards the new storage model / online pruner. Trying to find and fix the issue.
— Péter Szilágyi (karalabe.eth) (@peter_szilagyi) August 23, 2022
He added that it is likely to be one of the PR (pull requests) merged under the new storage model/online cutting tool. The issue remains unresolved as of the time of writing, but the developers are actively looking for ways to fix it.
The update later confirmed that the issue could cause anyone running the release to lose data and crash their database. But data loss only occurs during the shutdown.
Hmmm. We might have found the issue, which if true, unfortuantely means there's a high probability that anyone running the release will have their db fried :/
The "fun" part about the issue is that data loss happens only on shutdown so none of our tests/benchmarks caught it. https://t.co/sYMap2If3u
— Péter Szilágyi (karalabe.eth) (@peter_szilagyi) August 23, 2022
Nethermind Core Developer DanielC also confirmed that a similar bug has been detected in the customer’s mainnet consolidation update v1.14.0. But in this case, they were able to fix it.
Recently we've had similar regressions in @nethermindeth so we've decided to switch to a strict stabilization phase before #TheMerge. We merge only fixes to the master branch currently. https://t.co/erzgN1Z0wV
— DanielC (@_D4nie1_) August 23, 2022
However, the bugs are unlikely to prevent consolidation or delay it occurring on September 15 because there are several other executable applications on Ethereum. However, it will require validators to use Geth to switch to other clients.
— Micah Zoltu (@MicahZoltu) August 23, 2022
So far, many customers, such as Teku, Lighthouse, Besu, Erigon, and Prysm, have released new updates in preparation for the Merger.
