node-info, WebSocket-start, and WebSocket-stop endpoints diverge from the documented example output, parameter typing, and success semantics

1. admin_nodeInfo: admin_nodeInfo no longer populates protocols.eth.difficulty, leaving the documented fixed difficulty example unproducible

• Statement: admin_nodeInfo no longer populates protocols.eth.difficulty, leaving the documented fixed difficulty example unproducible.
• URL: https://geth.ethereum.org/docs/interacting-with-geth/rpc/ns-admin
• Code location:
  • node/api.go:312-318 — https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/81ab8b594ebe0f672450779d4b308f3f33191828/node/api.go#L312-L318
  • p2p/server.go:1046-1063 — https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/81ab8b594ebe0f672450779d4b308f3f33191828/p2p/server.go#L1046-L1063
• Description: Root cause — adminAPI.NodeInfo simply forwards to Server.NodeInfo(), which builds info.Protocols generically by calling each registered protocol's NodeInfo() callback (proto.NodeInfo()) and storing whatever value that callback returns, or the literal string "unknown" if the protocol registered no callback. Whether an eth protocol handler still reports a difficulty field is entirely up to that handler's own NodeInfo implementation; post-merge chains have no meaningful proof-of-work difficulty to report, so the field is no longer populated, making the documentation's fixed example value (17179869184) unreproducible on current networks.
• Method: admin_nodeInfo

2. admin_startWS: admin_startWS uses a *int port decoded from a JSON number, not the documented *rpc.HexNumber quantity

• Statement: admin_startWS uses a *int port decoded from a JSON number, not the documented *rpc.HexNumber quantity.
• URL: https://geth.ethereum.org/docs/interacting-with-geth/rpc/ns-admin
• Code location:
  • node/api.go:238-255 — https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/81ab8b594ebe0f672450779d4b308f3f33191828/node/api.go#L238-L255
  • node/node.go:507-516 — https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/81ab8b594ebe0f672450779d4b308f3f33191828/node/node.go#L507-L516
• Description: Root cause — adminAPI.StartWS(host *string, port *int, allowedOrigins *string, apis *string) declares port as a plain *int, which the standard JSON-RPC codec decodes from an ordinary JSON number (and defaults to api.node.config.WSPort when omitted); no *rpc.HexNumber type — a hex-string-decoding wrapper used elsewhere in the legacy RPC layer — appears anywhere in this handler's signature or in the wsServerForPort lookup that consumes the resolved port. The documented hex-quantity type therefore describes a decoding rule this parameter does not follow.
• Method: admin_startWS

3. admin_stopWS: admin_stopWS returns true after invoking stop routines even when no WebSocket endpoint was actually closed

• Statement: admin_stopWS returns true after invoking stop routines even when no WebSocket endpoint was actually closed.
• URL: https://geth.ethereum.org/docs/interacting-with-geth/rpc/ns-admin
• Code location:
  • node/api.go:294-298 — https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/81ab8b594ebe0f672450779d4b308f3f33191828/node/api.go#L294-L298
  • node/rpcstack.go:633-645 — https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/81ab8b594ebe0f672450779d4b308f3f33191828/node/rpcstack.go#L633-L645
• Description: Root cause — adminAPI.StopWS unconditionally calls api.node.http.stopWS() and api.node.ws.stop() and then return true, nil, without inspecting either call's return value or otherwise checking whether a WebSocket listener was actually running and got closed; the underlying stop() implementations themselves treat "not running" as a no-op success (if is.listener == nil { return nil }), so there is no signal anywhere in the chain that would make StopWS report anything other than unconditional success, even when there was nothing to stop.
• Method: admin_stopWS