PR #2467 changed regtest to match Core's BIP34/65/66 activation rules, and
the merged stack carries that (commit cd4e5426 "regtest: align activations
with Bitcoin Core"). Height-1 regtest blocks now need a BIP34-compliant
coinbase height and a post-BIP66 block version.
The failing tests came from commits added after PR #2467 was opened on
December 25, 2025 but before it merged on April 30, 2026:
- c1a46122 ("blockchain: add ProcessBlockHeader")
- f9645f07 ("blockchain: reuse existing header node in maybeAcceptBlock")
- dc6e096c ("netsync: add TestSyncStateMachine for end-to-end IBD sync flow")
- ce094262 ("netsync: add TestStartSyncBlockFallback for block-only sync path")
- 2aae8a6d ("netsync: add TestStartSyncChainCurrent for chain-current noop path")
Because those tests landed later, they kept the old regtest assumptions even
though #2467 had already been authored and tested against the older tree.
Once #2467 finally merged, these newer tests started building invalid regtest
blocks and headers.
Fix them by setting the genesis tip height to 0 before generating descendants,
using Version 4 in the regtest block/header helpers, and encoding the test
coinbase height with a minimal BIP34 push plus padding for the generic coinbase
script-length rule.
ProcessBlockHeader performs chain selection and context-free &
contextual validation for the given block header. The function allows
a header-first downloading of blocks even without checkpoints.
