For reasons still unknown at the time of this writing, the OpenEthereum client got stuck on block 12,244,294, just 294 blocks after the execution of the Berlin hard fork, according to reports from some users on GitHub. Ethereum Berlin Upgrade Includes Fixes to Tackle Gas Price Problem
The error message appears to indicate that the client is rejecting new locks, thinking that its Merkle root status is invalid. There seems to be problems only with OpenEthereum nodes. Problems with the OpenEthereum client resulted in an outage on Etherscan, even though other explorers are updating successfully. After the forks Istanbul and Muir Glacier, the developers announced Hard Fork Berlin earlier this year, named after the city where Devcon 0 took place. It incorporates four EIPs.
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitstamp followed an update that said all withdrawals and deposits of ETH and ERC20 tokens have been suspended due to a glitch on the Ethereum blockchain.
