find-empty.py

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# show heights and timestamps of empty blocks, most recent first (so if using a pruned node,
# this will stop when we reach the start of the prune window)
from bitcoinrpc.authproxy import AuthServiceProxy
import json
from datetime import datetime
api = AuthServiceProxy("http://lmr:lmr@127.0.0.1:8332")
latest_height = api.getblockcount()
for i in range(latest_height, 1, -1):
    bhash = api.getblockhash(i)
    try:
        block = api.getblock("{}".format(bhash))
    except: break
    if block['nTx'] == 1:
        print(i, datetime.utcfromtimestamp(block['time']).strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'))

""" current output, as of 12/21/2022:

768274 2022-12-20 23:17:43
768024 2022-12-19 02:57:05
767948 2022-12-18 15:23:06
767807 2022-12-17 15:25:34
766983 2022-12-11 21:58:08
766751 2022-12-10 10:29:37
766411 2022-12-08 04:30:01
"""

Hi, how long did the script take to run?

The script's runtime depends on your node's prune limit. With the default of 550 MB, the script didn't find any empty blocks at all. So I increased the prune setting to 5000 (5 GB), and then the script generated those results in 3.5 minutes. This is on a midrange laptop.