Brauer's problem 21 for principal blocks

Problem 21 of Brauer’s list of problems from 1963 asks whether for any positive integer k there are finitely many isomorphism classes of groups that occur as the defect group of a block with k irreducible characters. We solve this problem for principal blocks. Another long-standing open problem (from 1982) in this area asks whether the defect group of a block with 3 irreducible characters is necessarily the cyclic group of order 3. In most cases we reduce this problem to a question on simple groups that is closely related to the recent solution of Brauer’s height zero conjecture.