What causes "block not found" in canopy-network/canopy?

Verify the requested block hash or height actually exists on this chain (e.g. via a block explorer or a lower, known-good height)

canopy-network/canopy · error · ErrStoreGet

ErrStoreGet

ErrStoreGet

Error message

block not found

What it means

The indexer's getBlock looked up a block by its key (hash or height) in the store DB and found an empty value. The library throws this because the requested block does not exist in the indexer's database. It surfaces from the public getters GetBlockByHash, GetBlockByHeight, GetBlockHeaderByHeight, and getBlockForPage.

Source

Thrown at store/indexer.go:886

	if len(bz) == 0 {
		return nil, ErrStoreGet(errors.New("quorum certificate not found"))
	}
	// convert to QC object
	ptr := new(lib.QuorumCertificate)
	if err = lib.Unmarshal(bz, ptr); err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	return ptr, nil
}

// getBlock() gets the block bytes from the DB and converts it into a filled BlockResult object including the transactions
func (t *Indexer) getBlock(hashKey []byte, transactions bool) (*lib.BlockResult, lib.ErrorI) {
	bz, err := t.db.Get(hashKey)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	if len(bz) == 0 {
		return nil, ErrStoreGet(errors.New("block not found"))
	}
	ptr := new(lib.BlockHeader)
	if err = lib.Unmarshal(bz, ptr); err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	if !transactions {
		result := &lib.BlockResult{
			BlockHeader: ptr,
		}
		resultBz, err := lib.Marshal(result)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, err
		}
		result.Meta = &lib.BlockResultMeta{Size: uint64(len(resultBz))}
		return result, nil
	}
	txs, err := t.GetTxsByHeightNonPaginated(ptr.Height, false)
	if err != nil {

View on GitHub (pinned to ee8197d91d)

Solutions

Verify the requested block hash or height actually exists on this chain (e.g. via a block explorer or a lower, known-good height)
Check that the node is fully synced; query a height <= current tip
If looking up by hash, confirm the exact indexed byte/hash form is used
Re-sync or rebuild the indexer DB if blocks were pruned or the data directory is stale

Example fix

// before
blk, err := indexer.GetBlockByHeight(ctx, 999999999) // tip is 10500
// after
tip, _ := indexer.GetHeight(ctx)
if height > tip { return fmt.Errorf("height %d not yet indexed (tip=%d)", height, tip) }
blk, err := indexer.GetBlockByHeight(ctx, height)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// check height bounds before querying
tip := indexerTip()
if height > tip || height < 1 {
    return fmt.Errorf("height %d out of indexed range (1..%d)", height, tip)
}

Type guard

func hasBlock(bz []byte) bool { return len(bz) > 0 }

Try / catch

blk, err := indexer.GetBlockByHeight(ctx, h)
if err != nil {
    if strings.Contains(err.Error(), "block not found") {
        return nil, ErrUnknownBlock{Height: h}
    }
    return err
}

Prevention

Track the indexed tip and clamp queries to it
Normalize block hashes to the exact indexed byte form
Monitor sync status before serving reads

When it happens

Trigger: Calling GetBlockByHash with a hash of a block never indexed, GetBlockByHeight/GetBlockHeaderByHeight with a height above the chain tip or before genesis, or getBlockForPage for a page past the end of stored blocks.

Common situations: Querying a node that has not synced to the requested height, querying a different chain than the one that produced the block, typos in a hex block hash, or pruning/indexing settings that removed the block.

Understand the failure class

Background: Record Not Found Errors: "not found", RecordNotFound, and "was not found" — what they mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of canopy-network/canopy@ee8197d91d (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/85663b8e0337c60b. Report an issue: GitHub.