yes, logDB should be local_timestamp -> hash(msg)

What happens if you just dump logDB on it's own? does it also output keys correctly and then objects? or does it always output objects (if so, check the point where they get written)

Okay, I think what is happening: secure-scuttlebutt depends on level-sublevel, and log db is actually part of the main ssb db, https://github.com/ssbc/secure-scuttlebutt/blob/6dde1c5e1d32a7427848bfad8a4641577bd0d1ab/index.js#L91-L109
since you disabled ranges, it's breaking this and you've just read past the range that logDB is located in, into the rest of the database - where the keys are hashes and the values are objects.