Node Fails Syncing From Genesis (holesky) – "abi: attempting to unmarshall an empty string while arguments are expected"

[jeancarl3]

Root Cause (Suspected)
The node application fails during initialization when syncing from genesis. The error consistently points to the ABI unmarshal logic:
abi: attempting to unmarshall an empty string while arguments are expected.

Preliminary investigation suggests the executor module is attempting to retrieve the sequencer set from the connected geth instance, but receives an empty string where valid ABI-encoded data is expected. This likely results in a failed ABI decode and prevents further initialization.

Reproduce Steps
Precondition:
Morph node container is started from genesis on holesky network (empty data directory, no existing chain data).

Steps:
Start the morph node container.

Observe logs during initial sync.

Observed Log Output (Repeats each initialization attempt):

Application failed, message:  abi: attempting to unmarshall an empty string while arguments are expected
I[2025-08-19|06:40:41.039] obtained next L1Message index when initilize executor module=executor index=0
E[2025-08-19|06:40:41.042] failed to get sequencer set from geth        module=executor err="abi: attempting to unmarshall an empty string while arguments are expected"

The node fails, restarts, and the above logs repeat indefinitely.

Actual Behavior
Morph node fails to initialize/main loop due to ABI unmarshal error.

The executor module is unable to fetch the sequencer set from L1 (geth).

The container restarts repeatedly.

Expected Behavior
Morph node should handle empty/invalid return values gracefully, either by retrying with fallback logic or by emitting a clear initialization failure message.

Initialization should not enter a restart loop solely due to this ABI decoding error.

If the error is due to the L1 sequencing contract returning zero-value/empty data at genesis, the node should wait or provide an actionable error.

Environment:
Morph node Version: ghcr.io/morph-l2/node:0.4.4

Geth endpoint: ghcr.io/morph-l2/go-ethereum:2.0.5

Launched from genesis (no existing chain state).