DIAGNOSTICS

Separate sync problems from production problems.

A node can be healthy and synchronized while block production is disabled. Diagnose chain identity, peers, storage, operator binding and producer authorization as separate layers.

Node stays at height 0

Confirm at least one configured seed/peer is reachable.
Confirm the peer reports protocol 1.0, network ID 1, PBE-MAINNET and the expected frozen genesis identity.
Check that public peer filtering is not rejecting the endpoint you intended to use.
Check database initialization errors before changing peer configuration.

Synchronized but not producing blocks

Confirm an operator wallet has been bound.
Confirm the machine producer key is loaded.
Confirm the bound wallet authorized that exact producer key.
Remember that participation is slot/ticket based; being authorized does not guarantee this node wins every slot.

Database rejected on startup

Verify the selected driver matches the configured fields.
For MySQL, do not leave the password blank or at an unchanged placeholder value.
Use the 0.0.1 release schema; incompatible legacy shapes are intentionally rejected.
Do not point the node at merchant demo tables and expect them to be a PBE chain database.

RPC works locally but not publicly

Standalone defaults are intentionally conservative: local UI/RPC is bound to 127.0.0.1:8024 while P2P listens separately on 8025. Do not open local RPC to the internet merely to make peer synchronization work.