Handling of non-existant blocks for indexers

[Dinonard]

Question

A quick question about handling non-existant Ethereum blocks.
In case that the Ethereum/EVM support was added to the chain after the genesis block, it would mean that some Ethereum blocks will simply be non-existant. If an e.g. indexer tries to fetch them, even on archive node, it will return None.

We've had a dirty fix for Shiden network for some 3 years now (LINK), which provides a "dummy" block and I'd like to check whether a better existing solution exists already?
Has any other project encountered such an issue?

[boundless-forest]

I believe this is an inevitable issue for the chain that integrated with Frontier after its genesis. A simpler solution to the problem is to set the start block for the indexer; most indexers are capable of doing this. In addition to the dummy block solution, another approach I can think of is to keep state and migrate your chain to a new one and begin supporting Frontier from genesis.

[Dinonard]

A simpler solution to the problem is to set the start block for the indexer; most indexers are capable of doing this.

Thanks, I guess this is something we can look into.
However, we'd preferably be able to just let anyone index without any real issues.

another approach I can think of is to keep state and migrate your chain to a new one and begin supporting Frontier from genesis.

I don't think that's a real option since we're dealing with a live parachain. Loosing para Id, "migrating" liquiduty, etc. are all huge issues, and this minor issue doesn't warrant such a drastic solution.

Do you know perhaps how other chains are dealing with this situation?