All blocks starting from 13199981 return null on difficult field

[wmitsuda]

Ethers 5.4.6:

On mainnet, starting from block 13199981, the difficult field always comes with null.

{
  hash: '0x7558a1559758e3dfa1074188285adff74d1f1833a6363f891d6eccebdfd825ed',
  parentHash: '0xecab8888f9fc828d9ae07775de4db8b5104fc120349159835bd5d252dcda1834',
  number: 13199981,
  timestamp: 1631302838,
  nonce: '0x2a59d15c02876925',
  difficulty: null,
  gasLimit: BigNumber { _hex: '0x01c9c380', _isBigNumber: true },

I do confirm that this info comes in the raw response:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 83,
  "result": {
    "baseFeePerGas": "0xed21e880a",
    "difficulty": "0x2003f36c614e37",
    "extraData": "0x486976656f6e2063612d6865617679204c586c67",
    "gasLimit": "0x1c9c380",
    "gasUsed": "0x1c99d15",
    "hash": "0x7558a1559758e3dfa1074188285adff74d1f1833a6363f891d6eccebdfd825ed",
    "logsBloom": "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",
    "miner": "0x1ad91ee08f21be3de0ba2ba6918e714da6b45836",
    "mixHash": "0x8b936572649397d24923f64b94b1865ae57901cdfaf2ce8fe75d59913326632a",
    "nonce": "0x2a59d15c02876925",
    "number": "0xc96a6d",
    "parentHash": "0xecab8888f9fc828d9ae07775de4db8b5104fc120349159835bd5d252dcda1834",

I display this info on Otterscan block page.

[ricmoo]

The difficulty likely reached the limit of ieee754 numbers, in which case ethers uses null rather than crashing. :)

There isn’t really a backwards compatible way to resolve this in v5. It will be addressed in v6.

Is this a field you need? In a minor bump, I could add a new field which will store the difficulty as a BigNumber, like block._difficulty.

[wmitsuda]

Yep, I think it is better than crashing :)

Well, my app is a block explorer, so for the sake of completeness I need it. But I agree that it is not something must-have.

I would code a workaround anyway, block._difficulty is fine, if you have a not-so-intrusive workaround from caller side it would be helpful too.

[ricmoo]

As an immediate solution until the next minor-bump, you could use one of the JSON-RPC backed providers (like Alchemy or INFURA) and use the raw .send(method, paeans).

A minor bump is likely a week or two away.

[ricmoo]

Also see #2001.

[ricmoo]

The _difficulty property has been added to 5.5.0 for those that needs this.

In v6, the difficulty property is a BigNumber, so the _difficulty property will go away, but for v5 compatibility, difficulty is preserved as a null | number.

Thanks! :)