Blockchain//Besu//Race Condition

Non-deterministic startup: launching nodes in rapid succession without pauses can leave some nodes isolated.

Non-deterministic startup: launching nodes in rapid succession without pauses can leave some nodes isolated.

Root cause: the bootnode's P2P module may not be fully initialized when later nodes try to connect.

Self-referencing bootnode makes this worse — P2P enters flaky retry loops.

sleep doesn't fix a state problem — the bootnode may accept connections intermittently regardless of wait time.

Symptoms: some nodes connect, others report 0 peers — inconsistent across runs.