Polygon Restores Consensus After RPC Node Bug, Network Back to Normal
Polygon, the popular Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution, has swiftly resolved a software bug that caused disruptions among some remote procedure call (RPC) nodes this week, restoring consensus and finality across the network. Despite the incident, core onchain block production continued uninterrupted, assuring users and developers that their transactions remained secure.
The Incident: Bug Disrupts Node Synchronization
On Wednesday, the Polygon Foundation announced that a bug impacted a subset of RPC nodes, which are critical for relaying information between blockchain applications and the network’s core infrastructure. The glitch was traced to a faulty proposal from a validator which pushed parts of the Bor node network (responsible for ordering transactions and producing blocks) onto divergent forks.
Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal stated:
“We rolled out fixes on both Heimdall v0.3.1 a new version with a hard fork to delete the identified milestone and Bor 2.2.11 beta2, purging the milestone from the database. With these fixes now live, nodes are not stuck, checkpoints and milestones are finalizing normally.”
What Was Affected?
- No halt in block production: The Polygon blockchain itself kept producing new blocks, so onchain activity was not interrupted.
- RPC and validator out-of-sync: The key issue involved node communication affected RPC providers and validators had to roll back to the last finalized block and resynchronize.
- 15-minute finality delay: The finality for some transactions was delayed up to 10–15 minutes, and apps relying on RPC services reported connectivity and data issues until nodes were restarted.
Immediate Hard Fork and Network Recovery
Polygon’s engineering team responded by deploying a hard fork and urgent updates to both their Heimdall and Bor node clients, removing the faulty milestone and ensuring milestone checkpoints would finalize properly going forward. Many RPC providers and validators quickly restored operations by rebooting their nodes.
“Checkpoints are going through, and consensus finalization has been fully restored on Polygon PoS,” the Polygon Foundation confirmed.
A Pattern of Resilience Amid Growing Complexity
This marks Polygon’s second notable software bug since July, when a separate issue briefly halted the Hemidall mainnet (the consensus client handling node-to-node communication) for about an hour. As in this latest event, block production was not stopped, but a number of network participants had to resynchronize to maintain consensus.
Software Bugs: The New Normal With Blockchain Innovation
As blockchain ecosystems like Polygon add advanced features ranging from smart contract capabilities to cross-chain interoperability and file storage the software stack grows more complex, making rare bugs and temporary outages more likely. Polygon’s rapid response and failsafe design ensured the chain’s core operation never stopped, a testament to the platform’s maturity and resilience.
Key Takeaways
- Polygon restored consensus and milestone finality after a validator-triggered bug disrupted RPC node synchronization.
- Block production continued throughout the incident, preventing onchain disruption.
- A swift hard fork and node upgrades to Heimdall and Bor resolved the issue and restored normalcy.
- As blockchain networks become more advanced, fast incident response and robust node management are essential for security and user confidence.
Polygon’s latest fix reaffirms its position as a robust, developer-friendly scaling solution for the Ethereum ecosystem ready to tackle both technical challenges and the relentless pace of blockchain innovation.
