`
{"@timestamp":"2024-04-04T09:06:31,874","level":"INFO","thread":"nioEventLoopGroup-3-1","class":"SnapWorldStateDownloader","message":"Downloading world state from peers for pivot block 1278496 (0x4f5ee30c1f0c142a0760d0db9ca663ff4a3fc3a2ae8b66ea4b4398080ec28104). State root 0x4ffc56dc9bd37bad19bde9c85b5829bbe620116edf44544bac51dc53e97629a6 pending requests 0","throwable":""}

{"@timestamp":"2024-04-04T10:03:32,795","level":"INFO","thread":"EthScheduler-Services-42 (importBlock)","class":"SyncTargetManager","message":"Best peer 0xac906289e4b7f12d... has chain height 1278535 below pivotBlock height 1278691. Waiting for better peers. Current 1 of max 25","throwable":""}
{"@timestamp":"2024-04-04T10:03:37,801","level":"INFO","thread":"EthScheduler-Timer-0","class":"SyncTargetManager","message":"Unable to find sync target. Currently checking 0 peers for usefulness.","throwable":""}
{"@timestamp":"2024-04-04T10:05:37,815","level":"INFO","thread":"EthScheduler-Timer-0","class":"SyncTargetManager","message":"Unable to find sync target. Currently checking 0 peers for usefulness.","throwable":""}
{"@timestamp":"2024-04-04T10:07:37,821","level":"INFO","thread":"EthScheduler-Timer-0","class":"SyncTargetManager","message":"Unable to find sync target. Currently checking 0 peers for usefulness.","throwable":""}
{"@timestamp":"2024-04-04T10:09:37,827","level":"INFO","thread":"EthScheduler-Timer-0","class":"SyncTargetManager","message":"Unable to find sync target. Currently checking 0 peers for usefulness.","throwable":""}
`

and with some extra debug logging - it seems bootnodes CAN be initialized with chain height of zero -

sallymacfarlane@dev-elc-besu-teku-holesky-dev-sally-peer-compar-3:~$ grep "chain height" /var/log/besu/besu.log {"timeMillis":1712292067240,"thread":"nioEventLoopGroup-3-1","level":"INFO","loggerName":"org.hyperledger.besu.ethereum.eth.sync.fastsync.SyncTargetManager","message":"Best peer 0xac906289e4b7f12d... has chain height 0 below pivotBlock height 1283699 even with tolerance 700. Waiting for better peers. Current 1 of max 25","endOfBatch":false,"loggerFqcn":"org.apache.logging.slf4j.Log4jLogger","contextMap":{},"threadId":86,"threadPriority":10} {"timeMillis":1712292067274,"thread":"nioEventLoopGroup-3-2","level":"INFO","loggerName":"org.hyperledger.besu.ethereum.eth.sync.fastsync.SyncTargetManager","message":"Best peer 0xa3435a0155a3e837... has chain height 0 below pivotBlock height 1283699 even with tolerance 700. Waiting for better peers. Current 2 of max 25","endOfBatch":false,"loggerFqcn":"org.apache.logging.slf4j.Log4jLogger","contextMap":{},"threadId":88,"threadPriority":10} {"timeMillis":1712292767306,"thread":"EthScheduler-Services-16 (checkNewPivotBlock-Code)","level":"DEBUG","loggerName":"org.hyperledger.besu.ethereum.eth.sync.snapsync.DynamicPivotBlockSelector","message":"Searching for a new pivot: current pivot 1283876 best chain height 1283970 distance next pivot 63 last pivot block found 1283907 (0xc6f25411221fe0d187dce61ca72e74290267d938ff50eb42d2dedd542fa1f72a)","endOfBatch":false,"loggerFqcn":"org.apache.logging.slf4j.Log4jEventBuilder","contextMap":{},"threadId":63,"threadPriorit

exploratory branch main...macfarla:besu:chain-height-estimate-tolerance

This is a good point for mainnet, since the merge, there is no more block broadcasting, and so the peer estimate height is no more updated on regular basis and can be stale, but for PoW and PoA networks this could create issues, so I think we should go a step forward and rethink the whole sync target strategy and the pivot block for PoS networks, as I try to explain below.

On PoS network, the chain head is sent by the CL, so we should just use it as pivot block, try to download that block from any peer and use it as sync target, and ignore the current ways of finding the sync target based on the estimated height.