Nonce calculation is broken for private networks

[iwooden]

Currently, nonce calculation is broken for private networks. The main problem is that transaction history is retained for an account even after switching the RPC endpoint to a new network. This can cause the nonce on a new network to be too high, resulting in Metamask transactions never going through.

To reproduce:

1. Get access to two different private network RPC endpoints.
2. Create a new account/address in Metamask, with no previous transaction history.
3. Connect Metamask to the first private endpoint (select "Custom RPC" from the network selection dropdown, enter the RPC URL).
4. Submit and sign an Ethereum transaction. Note the transaction entry in the transaction history section.
5. Connect Metamask to the second private endpoint. Note that the transaction entry is still in the transaction history section.
6. Submit and sign an Ethereum transaction. Note that the transaction hangs in a "pending" state in the Metamask UI.
7. If you have access to the geth console for one of the nodes servicing the second RPC endpoint, check the txpool. Note that the transaction submitted was submitted with a nonce of 0x1, when the transaction count for the address in question is 0. The transaction will never go through.

I can see in app/scripts/lib/nonce-tracker.js that you're taking the max value between the locally calculated nonce and the transaction count for the address in question. This works for public/test networks where the expected nonce for an account can never go down, but that assumption doesn't hold for private networks when you can switch from a chain where an account's transaction count is 8 to one where the transaction count is 0.

One possible fix is clearing the "Private Network" transaction history when switching RPC endpoints. This isn't totally ideal, but does result in the correct nonce being calculated, and doesn't require you to redo any of the current nonce calculation functions.

• Expected Behavior: Transactions go through on a new private network
• Actual Behavior: Transactions are submitted with nonces that are too high
• Browser Used: Chrome, Metamask version 3.9.11
• Operating System Used: Windows 10

[szerintedmi]

I'm struggling with the same issue while testing.
Have you found a workaround? Even restarting the browser doesn't help sometimes.

[danfinlay]

Sorry for neglecting this over the long weekend, I'll be working to fix this soon.

[iwooden]

No problem Dan, thanks for taking the time. I investigated a little further, and it looks like this issue has to do with network ID specification for private networks.

Account history is tied to network ID. So, when you switch to a private network with a different network ID, you will get a fresh account with the correct nonce. However, if you switch to a private network with the same network ID, the account history is the same and the nonce mismatch will occur.

So one workaround for right now is to ensure that the various private networks you interact with have different network IDs. However, it would still be really nice to have the option to delete the account's history from the UI, forcing the correct nonce calculation.

[danfinlay]

Oh, I may have misunderstood the nature of this problem. I think private networks should be responsible that they have unique IDs, and we shouldn't work too hard to ensure identically-identified networks both work with MetaMask.

[szerintedmi]

My guess in my case that the problem is not with the network id but the fact that I use the same accounts for different networks while testing.

1. I execute a tx with account 0x1.. on privatechain with networkid 999 - works fine
2. I stop private chain and launch testrpc with networkid 888
3. execution of tx with same account 0x1.. fails on testrpc: invalid nounce. Usual metamask vodoo (change network back and forth) doesn't help, neither browser restart.

[danfinlay]

My guess in my case that the problem is not with the network id but the fact that I use the same accounts for different networks while testing.

Lots of people do that, so it seems unlikely that if this were the bug, it would affect so few people.

I followed your reproduction steps (albeit with testrpc on both instances), and has no problem.

To clarify: You need to specify a distinct networkId and distinct chainId for MetaMask to identify a distinct network. Could you try that and let me know if it works, @szerintedmi?

[szerintedmi]

I retried and I still had the issue with one of my accounts. All other accs work.
(on MetaMask v3.9.13)

I played a bit and I have a workaround.

That's what I receive:

popup.js:83532 [ethjs-rpc] rpc error with payload {"id":9271578721185,"jsonrpc":"2.0","params":["0xf893198504a817c800831e848094f99564a5786fedef72ad45a7c85c3e7c9394522a880b1eb7ea25a00000a41509c8cf00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000008207f2a0666e7d3e499ee4a7cec79b1d112bcb6ded924a2dc2b35d246275f50030b3c9cda0445ebcf4e72e1f37280d3521cc4b22c1c93dcdcb9562afdcbde6bc38b8a45b57"],"method":"eth_sendRawTransaction"} Error: Error: the tx doesn't have the correct nonce. account has nonce of: 24 tx has nonce of: 25
    at runCall (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:69351:10)
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:11327:24
    at replenish (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:8420:17)
    at iterateeCallback (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:8405:17)
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:8380:16
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:11332:13
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:64434:16
    at replenish (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:64381:25)
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:64390:9
    at eachLimit (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/ethereumjs-testrpc/build/cli.node.js:64314:36)
(anonymous) @ popup.js:83532

When I send a tx without MetaMask it works.

It seems the nonce increases with every tx I send from the non MetaMask window:

Error: the tx doesn't have the correct nonce. account has nonce of: 24 tx has nonce of: 29
Error: the tx doesn't have the correct nonce. account has nonce of: 26 tx has nonce of: 29

Once the nonce reaches the MetaMask nonce I can send tx again through MetaMask.

[danfinlay]

I'm very tempted to think that the one affected account is having problems because it specifically had transactions sent on a private chain with identical IDs, just because that's the simplest explanation I can think of.

If that's not it, I'd love to cook up an edge case for our nonce-tracker that it's failing. You may have guessed that when we compose a transaction, we try to account for locally pending transactions, and so it's possible that on a new private chain with the same ID as another, we respect the highest nonce between the network-provided one and the locally-pending-tx derived one, and increment from there.

Let me know if you come up with any theories on this, I'm chipping away on another issue that I understand at the moment, but would be happy to fix any incorrect behavior here if we could identify it.

[atomical]

This is happening to me too. What's the alternative for using Truffle?