Trying to sync a new node and keep getting hashMerkleRoot mismatch
This error means that you have a corrupted block. The only surefire way to fix this is to redownload the entire blockchain. You can do that by going to the Bitcoin Core datadir (get the path by going to Help &gt; Debug Window in Core and there will be a field labeled datadir) and deleting the blocks folder, after first shutting down Core. Then start Core and let it sync from scratch.