debug_getBadBlocks

debug_getBadBlocks asks a Polygon PoS node for every block its Bor client has seen on the wire but refused to accept as part of the canonical chain. Because Polygon settles MATIC-denominated transactions roughly every 2 seconds and finalizes through Heimdall validators and periodic L1 checkpoints, a block that fails Bor's validation is dropped rather than imported — this method surfaces that rejection log. Send the request to https://polygon.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY (chain ID 137, 0x89). It returns the list of invalid blocks the node has observed and rejected since it last started, each with its hash, decoded header, and raw RLP.

Use cases

• Detect consensus violations or malformed blocks gossiped by misbehaving Bor peers on the Polygon PoS network.
• Investigate fork or reorg events near a Heimdall checkpoint by examining the rejected alternative block the node discarded.
• Audit Bor's validation logic by comparing each rejected block's header against Polygon protocol rules.

Parameters

Diese Methode erwartet keine Parameter. Übergib ein leeres Array [].

Response

Example request

1curl https://polygon.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
4  -d '{
5    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
6    "method": "debug_getBadBlocks",
7    "params": [],
8    "id": 1
9  }'

Try it live in the Polygon playground.

Errors & troubleshooting

Common pitfalls

• The bad-block list lives only in the Bor node's memory and is wiped on every restart, so it reflects this session only.
• A healthy Polygon node usually never accumulates bad blocks, so an empty array is the normal, expected response.
• This is a Bor/Geth-specific debug method; not every EVM-compatible client exposes it, so a -32601 means the namespace is off, not that the chain is broken.

Supported networks

• Mainnet — Chain ID: 137
• Amoy — Chain ID: 80002

See also

• debug_traceBlock
• debug_traceBlockByHash
• debug_traceBlockByNumber

1curl https://polygon.therpc.io/YOUR_API_KEY \
2  -X POST \
3  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
4  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"debug_getBadBlocks","params":[]}'