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Low 34 Cryptographic libraries

Prevent inaccurate missing spans when adding a block

Public commit record

What the developer wrote

Authored by j-berman

50/100 · Thin
Prevent inaccurate missing spans when adding a block
✓ Specific, descriptive subject✓ Names a concrete action or component! No meaningful explanatory body
The short version

What changed, and why it matters

This commit fixes a race condition in Monero's block synchronization code. When multiple threads check which blocks are missing and write newly received blocks to the database at the same time, one thread can read an outdated database height and wrongly conclude that a block is missing. The patch adds a new mutex to synchronize these checks, reducing false 'missing span' reports that could slow or disrupt syncing. The commit message and comments do not frame this as a security vulnerability, but as a correctness/robustness fix.

Recommended action

Treat as a robustness/correctness improvement rather than an urgent security patch. Reviewers should verify that the new `m_check_span_queue_mutex` does not introduce deadlocks with `m_transactions_lock` or `m_incoming_tx_lock`, as noted in the comments, and consider the larger refactor the developer says is needed.

Security signals we found

01

Race condition in synchronization state (missing span detection)

02

New mutex added to serialize span-queue checks with block ingestion

03

Use of unlocked blockchain query inside synchronization loop

04

Developer comments warn of remaining races and deadlock risk

Risk score

Why this scored 34/100

Our methodology →
Potential impact 8/30
Exploitability 4/25
Stealth signal 6/15
Affected reach 7/15
Confidence 6/10
Evidence quality 3/5
Human-validated context

Community notes

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