I'm sorry, I mistook your post as a "stopped synchronizing" post.

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I did a quick research and I think it has something to do with SegWit (August 24, 2017).
Also, I have checked the blocks included in blk00971.dat & I've noticed that the timestamps range from last week of August to Mid September 2017.
And blk00975.dat's blocks are from September 2017, one month after SegWit (BIP144) activation.

SegWit input/output scripts structure is a lot different than the regular transaction's.

That "parser" doesn't support and cannot read SegWit Txs.
Disclaimer: I could be wrong.