I am running geth to sync to ropsten testnet. I verified that block 0 are identical. However, seems like the local geth doesnt sync as high as the ropsten.etherscan.io site claims and checking individual blocks showing different transaction. I am a bit confused on what is going on here. Any insights would be appreciated.
Chris
[Ethereum] Why Ropsten etherscan and local Ropsten are not showing the same data
ropstentestnets
Best Answer
I would recommend to clarify your topic as to whether or not you are talking about the ropsten testnet and just that, or the ropsten testnet and a local testnet that only exists on your node. I'll touch on both though
1) Geth node doesn't match block count on https://ropsten.etherscan.io
Give your node time to download the entire blockchain, ropsten has millions of blocks to download, and even more millions of state entries to download. To watch your progress when attached to a geth console you can use the eth.Syncing command.
2) roptsen testnet and local testnet not the same
Block 0 is the genesis block, and is the only block generated by a human, and sets the initial settings for the blockchain. You can use the same genesis file in different networks, but it doesn't mean that the two networks will be the same. For both your local testnet and the ropsten testnet to match you would basically have to redo every single transaction from ropsten, to your local testnet.