geth never stop syncing on rinkeby testnet - ethereum

Question

when the currentBlock becomes close to the highestBlock, it stop growing, and the highestBlock begin to grow. A while later, the currentBlock begin growing again.
I run geth with command geth --rinkeby --fast.
the highestBlock on my geth is very close to the actual number on https://www.rinkeby.io/#faucet.
> eth.syncing
{
currentBlock: 2401750,
highestBlock: 2401826,
knownStates: 14219701,
pulledStates: 14205841,
startingBlock: 2401554
}
> eth.blockNumber
0
logs below, seems normal:
INFO [06-04|15:34:52] Imported new state entries count=621 elapsed=4.093ms processed=14288823 pending=12362 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:34:56] Imported new block headers count=1 elapsed=713.868µs number=2401841 hash=db818c…70c969 ignored=0
INFO [06-04|15:34:57] Imported new state entries count=1388 elapsed=9.091ms processed=14290211 pending=12354 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:00] Imported new state entries count=768 elapsed=9.649ms processed=14290979 pending=11944 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:02] Imported new state entries count=607 elapsed=4.707ms processed=14291586 pending=11757 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:05] Imported new state entries count=768 elapsed=5.867ms processed=14292354 pending=11629 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:07] Imported new state entries count=601 elapsed=4.242ms processed=14292955 pending=11759 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:09] Imported new state entries count=601 elapsed=4.924ms processed=14293556 pending=11479 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:09] Imported new block headers count=1 elapsed=711.566µs number=2401842 hash=39a2d8…5318ec ignored=0
INFO [06-04|15:35:10] Imported new state entries count=384 elapsed=3.093ms processed=14293940 pending=11375 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:11] Imported new state entries count=384 elapsed=2.660ms processed=14294324 pending=11365 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:13] Imported new state entries count=601 elapsed=5.337ms processed=14294925 pending=11094 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:17] Imported new state entries count=985 elapsed=6.948ms processed=14295910 pending=11024 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:20] Imported new state entries count=602 elapsed=4.317ms processed=14296512 pending=10940 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:25] Imported new state entries count=602 elapsed=4.380ms processed=14297114 pending=10973 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:25] Imported new block headers count=1 elapsed=469.834µs number=2401843 hash=e8d3a7…152487 ignored=0
INFO [06-04|15:35:25] Imported new state entries count=384 elapsed=2.758ms processed=14297498 pending=11062 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:28] Imported new state entries count=592 elapsed=5.524ms processed=14298090 pending=11015 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:31] Imported new state entries count=1210 elapsed=203.329ms processed=14299300 pending=10477 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
INFO [06-04|15:35:37] Imported new state entries count=1033 elapsed=1.656ms processed=14300333 pending=10590 retry=0 duplicate=6543 unexpected=9538
I think I've waited long enough, but the currentBlock just can't reach the highestBlock, even they are very close.
Is this common?
syncing finished. Theses numbers do not mean everything, just wait.

Answer 1

There could still be a lot of states to process, even after the block synchronization was completed (i.e. when currentBlock almost reached highestBlock).
There is no clear way to know the total number of states:
pulledStates is the number of state trie entries already downloaded, and
knownStates is the total number of state trie entries known about.
Synchronization is considered complete when a node has downloaded (pulled) all the states (known and unknown), until then it returns 0 to eth.blockNumber and eth.getBalance.

Answer 2

Geth needs to sync state and blocks.
There are around 81M state entries atm.
The folder size is 28GB after full sync.

Answer 3

You will have to be patient to sync a node.
It took me 60 hours to sync Rinkeby in fast mode. There were 125M state entries and the folder size was 38GB after synchronization. With time, both these numbers will grow.
You can type eth.syncing in Geth console. If you get 'False' as output, it means that syncing is finished. Otherwise you'll get various details about the blocks and the states.
By typing eth.blockNumber you will get the current block number. If the output is 0 then the syncing is not yet complete.
Here is the image when syncing was complete(all the states were pulled) and I started downloading the chain segments.
Synchronized Rinkeby

Answer 4

I wrote a tiny python script to overview the process. It's here https://github.com/hayorov/ethereum-sync-mertics
My output:
2019-05-06 01:00:32 avg: 1827 max: 1938 min: 1378 states/s remain: 136604075 states 4 peers eta# 20:46:28.165828
2019-05-06 01:00:37 avg: 1864 max: 1938 min: 1378 states/s remain: 136595500 states 3 peers eta# 20:21:14.951050
2019-05-06 01:00:42 avg: 1791 max: 1938 min: 1378 states/s remain: 136583359 states 3 peers eta# 21:11:16.481006
2019-05-06 01:00:48 avg: 1742 max: 1938 min: 1378 states/s remain: 136580287 states 3 peers eta# 21:46:35.797305
2019-05-06 01:00:53 avg: 1721 max: 1938 min: 1378 states/s remain: 136575694 states 3 peers eta# 22:03:01.154434
2019-05-06 01:00:58 avg: 1682 max: 1938 min: 1378 states/s remain: 136569043 states 4 peers eta# 22:33:15.402442
2019-05-06 01:01:03 avg: 1698 max: 1938 min: 1378 states/s remain: 136564293 states 3 peers eta# 22:20:27.458747