Base explained why the network stopped producing blocks twice last week. In a technical analysis, the team wrote that the cause was an error in the sequencer’s operation.
The problem appeared in the block assembly logic. One of the transactions failed validation, as it should have. But after that, the system did not clear the state log and left data about accounts and storage cells that had already been accessed.
Because of this, the sequencer began to work incorrectly. For Base this is critical because the network currently uses only one sequencer. If a serious error occurs in it, block production can stop completely.
The sequencer is responsible for the order of transactions in blocks. Such components have already caused outages in other layer 2 networks, including Arbitrum, OP Mainnet, and zkSync Era.
Last week, Base stopped twice: on Thursday and Friday. The first outage lasted 116 minutes, the second about 20 minutes. During this time, the network did not produce new blocks, and the sequencer and validators could not move past the erroneous block.
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The team fixed the issue with a patch. It should properly update and clear the state log in case of errors during transaction execution.
But recovery took longer than developers expected. In Base they explained that part of the delay was no longer due to the bug itself, but to infrastructure conditions.
After the restart, another problem arose, race condition. Because of it, sequencers could not quickly catch up with the network, which led to the second outage.
Now the Base team plans to strengthen fuzz testing of the protocol. This is a test where the system is loaded with a large number of random, incorrect, and unexpected data to find hidden errors. Developers also want to add softer recovery after outages so validators do not have to manually restart nodes.
This Is Not the First Such Outage in the Base Network
Problems with the sequencer have already stopped Base before. In September 2024, the network did not produce blocks for 17 minutes, and in August 2025 for about 30 minutes.
According to L2Beat, Base now ranks second among layer 2 networks by the volume of secured assets. The network holds just under $11 billion.
