v0.15.7 — OP_RETURN spend wedge fix (recommended upgrade)

[oskarszoon]

v0.15.7 — OP_RETURN spend wedge fix (recommended upgrade for testnet, safe on mainnet)

Released: 2026-07-25
GitHub: https://github.com/bsv-blockchain/teranode/releases/tag/v0.15.7
Container: ghcr.io/bsv-blockchain/teranode:v0.15.7

Upgrade priority

Recommended for all v0.15.x testnet / teratestnet operators — a mined block spending a bare OP_RETURN output wedges the node's validation pipeline on v0.15.6 and earlier. Mainnet is not currently affected (no such spends observed on chain), but the fix is safe to deploy there too as a hardening step.

Symptom to watch for

Node stops advancing on a specific block. Subtree/block validation cannot resolve one of the inputs because the parent's bare OP_RETURN output is missing from the UTXO set. The node retries the block indefinitely.

Root cause

ShouldStoreOutputAsUTXO was applying pre-Genesis unspendable rules to every output regardless of era. Bare OP_RETURN was dropped from the UTXO set at store time — but post-Genesis, bare OP_RETURN is spendable and MUST be retained. Any later block spending such an output cannot resolve the outpoint and the node stalls.

What changed

The rule now mirrors SV Node's era-aware CScript::IsUnspendable, keyed to the output's creation (mining) height:

• Post-Genesis (blockHeight >= genesisActivationHeight): only OP_FALSE OP_RETURN is provably unspendable. Bare OP_RETURN is retained.
• Pre-Genesis: bare OP_RETURN, OP_FALSE OP_RETURN, and locking scripts longer than 10000 bytes are provably unspendable.

The rule is value-agnostic — an output's satoshi value plays no role, matching SV Node exactly. A value-bearing but provably-unspendable output (e.g. an OP_FALSE OP_RETURN carrying satoshis) is burned and excluded from the set.

External-outpoint reconstruction applies the same filter, keyed to the parent transaction's creation-height era, so reconstructed sets match what create stored.

Backport of #1116 to release/v0.15 (aerospike + utxopersister paths only; v0.15's SQL store has no store-time OP_RETURN filter so no SQL change is required).

Note on already-stuck nodes

Upgrading to v0.15.7 prevents the wedge on new occurrences, but does not automatically heal a node that is already stuck on a block that triggered this bug — the missing UTXO row is not re-created retroactively. A follow-up v0.15.8 will ship the recovery path for existing stuck testnet nodes. If your node is currently wedged, hold off on any manual intervention and wait for v0.15.8.

Known issues

None new.

Full changelog