Can't access to my wallet anymore

[numero41]

Hello,

I transferred all my tokens yesterday on mew. I have a Ledger Nano S and I am quite 100% sure that I was using it while opening the wallet, but I can't see my public address anymore in the list when I reconnect the device.

I had several tabs opened in my browser, and on one of them I have created a new wallet (for test) directly from MEW CX extension. I did not store the private key and I deleted the wallet. I only have the password. Even if there is a small red banner on the top with a warning, there is no reminder to to store the json file/private key right after creating the wallet (via the chrome extension - directly via mew, there is a BIG prompt to save the json file).

I think one possibility is I might have transferred my funds (VEN/NAS/QASH) from the exchanges to this temporary wallet adress, and not the one secured with my Ledger. But I can't figure out if I did this mistake, or if it's a bug related to Ledger that doesn't allow me anymore to select my initial public address in the list. I can remember that I did several tests transferring small amounts to the wallet, and using the Ledger to access it.

There is $20k on it, I can't find a way to access it anymore and I feel very scared to have lost everything...

Here are my questions :

• is there a way for you to know if this public adress was created with the Ledger or directly via the mew cx extension?

• if it's a Ledger related issue, have you heard about initial adress missing from the list after a reconnection?

• if it's my mistake to have used the temporary wallet and not to have stored my secured key, is there a way to re-link this adress to a new wallet? I made a full image of my dump memory a few hours after realising the problem (I did not restart my computer since), is there any chance that I could find my private key somewhere in that dump?

Thanks a lot for your help, all my savings are here, please tell me there is a solution...

David

[EDIT] As I mentionned in one of my comments below :

I managed to find my wallet operations using Mew in my backuped cache files. I can see there the 3 test wallets I created (one before using my Ledger, and two after realising the issue, just in order to remember the process and see if it was rising something in my mind), and to find for all of them the key file string (the dictionnary) that should have been stored in the json file. I was able to re-create the keystore files with the dictionnaries, and to re-open those wallets in Mew (I didn't forget my passwords).

But as I mentionned, NONE of them has the address with my funds.

For the adress where are my funds (0xbBeC195bA2AD7197e280A682c185af1a3e9c9D29), all the manipulations I did is create a "watch only" walllet via the CX extension. The other occurences in the cache/dump files are only accesses to the website EtherScan.io where I was going to see the various txid status.

So I'm 100% sure now that I did not create this account from scratch in Mew, but rightly used my Ledger. The question remains : why does this adress is not in the list anymore, and how to re-link it to my Ledger device?

[wparad]

If you did any testing with this other address we would be able to tell. What we are going to do is inspect the ethereum addresses and see if we can understand what happened. Can I ask, what addresses do you have knowledge of? We need some reference points to start with.

[numero41]

Here is the public adress where are my funds : https://etherscan.io/address/0xbBeC195bA2AD7197e280A682c185af1a3e9c9D29 You can see my Nas/Ven/Qash tokens there

Here is the first adress in the list when I connect my Ledger since then on mew : 0xB5AbE315621adF14A4450D5160f1d969d53900AD This is the same address that is returned when using the Ledger eth chrome app.

[numero41]

I can prove that it comes from me as I have sent them from Binance/Huobi using my accounts

[numero41]

[wparad]

And what is the address on your ledger? see here

As far as searching the dump, look for the address string without the starting 0x

[numero41]

Here is the first adress in the list when I connect my Ledger on Mew (since it has changed) : 0xB5AbE315621adF14A4450D5160f1d969d53900AD

[numero41]

Did you manage to understand what happened?

[numero41]

Hello, I managed to find my wallet operations using Mew in my backuped cache files. I can see there all the wallets I created, and some of them have the key file string (the dictionnary) that should have been stored in the json file. But for the adress where are my funds (0xbBeC195bA2AD7197e280A682c185af1a3e9c9D29), all the manipulations I did are mentionned as "watch only". The string stored in the cache are in this format 0xbBeC195bA2AD7197e280A682c185af1a3e9c9D29 -"{\"nick\":\"myEtherWallet\",\"type\":\"watchOnly\"}"

So I'm 100% sure now that I did not create this account from scratch in Mew, but rightly used my Ledger. The question remains : why does this adress is not in the list anymore, and how to re-link it to my Ledger device?

[numero41]

Please help...

[tayvano]

Are you still.on the eth network?

Have you tried switching the paths at the top on the ledger pop up?

[numero41]

Yes I am on Ethereum network, and I tried switching the paths, I can see a change in the address list below, but I never see mine.

[numero41]

When you say ethereum network, you mean the option on the top right corner of mew page? I bookmarked the website, and never clicked there 🙁

[numero41]

I tried to switch to other networks, but it seems to me that it doesn't change the address list, am I correct?

[numero41]

Hello,

I have some new informations, I don't know if it's useful but here they are :

I reconnected the Ledger tonight, I wanted to make a test to send a very little amount of tokens to my current public address (which is not he one I sent my funds on - just to remind you). So I open the wallet, using the Ledger, select, the first address in the list, and check the "Ledger eth derived path". Then, I tried to add a custom token (NAS) on the custom token field. It was not listed so I manually added it with the contract adress/decimals/name, as it was not on the list. Right after clicking it, it says that "Not a valid ERC-20 token NAS" I didn't have the issue with the previous address, so I doubled checked everything on the page, and I saw mentionned : Account balance : ETC. I assumed I made a mistake in the derived path, and did everything from the start, checking again "Ledger eth derived path". But still, its continues to show etc, even checking/unchecking the path.

You can see the steps on the screenshots.

What I am wondering : is it possible that the is a bug, either in mew or with the Ledger, which could explain this current bug, and also the fact that I can't find anymore my standard eth address??

Please have a carefull look, thanks again...

[andrewathalye]

Go to the top-right corner and select the currency you want. It looks like you have it on epool.io for etc right now. If your ledger got corrupted, I can only wish you the best :(. My advice would have been to print out as many copies of the wallet file as possible - if you can't recover the private key, you may very well be stuck. However, try digging deeper into your browser cache and see if you can get any keys, or, for that matter, anything.

[numero41]

I don't understand your answer... The wallet was created through the Ledger. That's exactly the purpose of it not to need to use a private key, right? Anyway, the initial problem is with the wrong public address, and so far no one gave me any information about this public key...

[andrewathalye]

If the ledger or derivation path were corrupted or not recognised by MEW, you likely won't be able to get a private key for that address. As for why it is in ETC, just change the node in the top-right to an ETH node.

[numero41]

Ok... But I am sure to have done all my transactions in a correct way, via the ledger, with the correct derivation path, etc etc

In your first answer you told me : "What we are going to do is inspect the ethereum addresses and see if we can understand what happened." Did you manage to get any information ? Do you know when the address was created for instance?

Are you telling me that I just lost $20k and nobody can't do nothing??

2018-01-17 13:03 GMT+01:00 Andrew Athalye notifications@github.com:

If the ledger or derivation path were corrupted or not recognised by MEW, you likely won't be able to get a private key for that address. As for why it is in ETC, just change the node in the top-right to an ETH node.

— You are receiving this because you authored the thread. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/kvhnuke/etherwallet/issues/1528#issuecomment-358284377, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AY4aiBkOxlTioVxRq2J1nWYh-z1BPQMJks5tLeF6gaJpZM4ReaU_ .

[wparad]

To put it simply, the Ledger stores the private keys inside the device. If it no longer has the private key for an address, you can't get the tokens out. This is why you back up the Ledger. Rather than trying to figure out why connecting the Ledger is giving you issues (which is a separate problem), let's start with getting you access to your coins. As part of the setup for the Ledger you wrote down some keywords/paper wallet, etc... correct?

Using that information we can make sure you still have access to your tokens.

[numero41]

Ok, I listen to you!

And yes, I understand how works the Ledger (I am not an expert, but I am a software programmer for 20 years, so not to noob I hope...). And I used the ledger with stellar wallet several times and never had any issue.

So yes I wrote down the passphrase, and what I did at some point is reset the Ledger, reinit it with my passphrase, and reinstall the ETH app. The public address is still the wrong one. What to do next?

[numero41]

Sorry if I seem upset, but it's a lot of money for me, I am really panicking for 4 days. I spent all my nights trying to figure out a solution in addition to my job with no success 😓😓

[numero41]

With my analysis of the image of the hard-drive + ram dump (3 hours after the transfert), I managed to see the 3 test wallets I created with MyEtherWallet cx, and to rebuild the private key Jason files. But these were just tests with different addresses, and I didn't use them to store/send anything. I also made this day a test with metamask, and was also able to rebuild the Jason file too with the passphrase, but it's not this address either.

I also managed to see that I created a watch only one on the good address, but apart this, all the occurrences of the address in the cache files are access to view the transactions on etherscan.io.

For all these reasons I have no doubt anymore about the fact I uses the Ledger properly to get the address which I used to send the funds to.

That's all the informations I can give you for now, but if you point me something to search in the backups I can dig further too.

[OrEagle97327]

This is a new development, that is welcome.

My contact with Ledger is disappointing.

This connection may help get to a solution.

How do we consolidate notes?

[numero41]

I'm new to github, I don't know how to do this...

[OrEagle97327]

With this new development maybe Ledger will be more active. I have an open email with Alexandre (Ledger); ...expecting response soon will flag my last email with your thread, and the one I received regarding Ripple

This helps the community(s) find a common solution. Your post scares me - I have a substantial holding using MEW and Ledger Nano S

I am new to gethub as well Everything we post is public and emailed to those commenting in the thread (as far as I can tell, until settings are changed)

[numero41]

Ok great.... I hope I'll lead to a solution, as you can see for me it's a lot of money involved :(

But I also guess that it must be a problem related to various API synchronisations between all the wallets teams and Ledger, so it's good to have advices here on Github also (but as you can see, unfortunately not so many answers too... Each time I get a message, I answer in a few minutes, and I get the next message 24 hours later...).

Do you know if Alexandre is french? Is he the only guy in the support team?? That seems such a cheap support for a society that sells millions of devices... I feel like my funds would have been safer left on the exchanges. As I told them we're not dealing with facebook or instagram accounts issues here, it's really serious money involved everywhere, how can this be so unsafe and so un-user friendly?

I am french and live in Paris, I am so upset that I was considering go to their office direcly lol...

But in a way it could be useful as I could talk or even bring my device to the technical team, maybe it would be easier to get a diagnosis...

[OrEagle97327]

This 24 hour response is what we get from when dealing around the world. I am 50k to Oregon, US Pacific coast talking to you

I just received this to my email from ledger - standard immediate reply

---

Thank you for contacting Ledger.

Important Due do recent high volume of orders, current 1st reply time is between 1 to 10 business days. We will do our best to reply as fast and as efficiently as possible. Our support office located in France (CEST time zone) and our team works from Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm - often staying much later than that to help our community :) ! Please note that updating your request or creating a new request would sort it in the most recent and therefore increase our reply time.

Please check our FAQ In the meantime we recommend that you have a look at our FAQ. We are updating daily the most frequent questions so that you can get fast answers: https://ledger.zendesk.com/hc/

Cryptocurrencies are a quickly expanding and a fast moving market. Every day more & more new users are looking for information, solutions, and asking questions,… We are trying to give the best answers to everyone but please be patient!

Here is your ticket ID: #125050 Here is your ticket subject: Re: [Ledger] Re: Neon Wallet - Received 108 NEO - Reopened wallet - New public key -, no NEO

Sincerely yours,

The Ledger Customer Support team Julie, Aurore, Kate, Rémi, Alexandre, Romain, Adrien, Vanessa

---

[numero41]

ok, well I'll try to offer them to bring my device directly to the office then, maybe it would be easier... 8 people in the support team for millions of users is almost a joke, they are not a young startup anymore...

[numero41]

Since we are on the etherwallet github support, I don't want them to think it's a 100% Ledger issue, nobody knows for now... So guys here, feel free to try to help us also, we don't know where the issue comes from, so any advices/help would be much appreciated! Thanks a lot again.

[numero41]

Another thread : https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/7r0qxf/xrp_zero_balance_and_wrong_receive_address_on/

[numero41]

I made a united post on Reddit to raise attention : https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/7rd798/should_we_be_concerned_about_the_ledger/

[numero41]

Hello, I don't have any news here, nor from the Ledger support... Could my issue be related to this issue from last year?? https://github.com/bitpay/bitcore-lib/pull/97 https://github.com/iancoleman/bip39/issues/58

[wparad]

@numero41, I like that reddit post you made. I'm sorry I'm really sure what else to do to help, I'm also not a Ledger expert. Perhaps the question should be, is there something that MEW could do better to help avoid this problem in the future for other users, or is this something that needs to be handled outside of our help?

[numero41]

@wparad I don't know either! I'm not a Ledger expert NOR a mew expert. From my point of view, mew interface is a disaster lol. And with cx extention, there is not a big prompt to save your json file after created the wallet like via the standard mew. But for my personnal issue, I don't have any clue about what you could do! Can't you get in touch with Ledger team?? In your first reply you told me you would inspect my public address, but you never told me anything about it, what informations could you get from there?

[numero41]

@wparad

These two scenarios might have happen when I used Mew :

• potentially forgot to enable "contract data" on the Ledger
• potentially had left the Ledger chrome app runnig background.

As I was able to withdraw my tokens, I didn't think this could be relevant, but if one or both options above, could that explain anything?

Thanks a lot, I'm waiting for your answer, didn't sleep for 5 days now...

[numero41]

@OrEagle97327 Ledger CTO just answered in my thread on reddit that they are not aware of our issues. I mentionned our both tickets Ids, but if you are aware of others, feel free to answer here : https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/7rd798/should_we_be_concerned_about_the_ledger/dsxls5e/

[numero41]

I think the opened app in the background could be the best lead :

I saw on several forums and Ledger public forum that when their app didn't show any balance, they were asked to clear their app cache, or even uninstall/reinstall it.

Alexandre's only answer from the support to my ticket was to do so -because they had errors in their API-, and I just answered him that my issue was not related to the chrome app.

BUT that seems to mean that their bug was related to an issue with the address, right?

So my idea is : IF I plugged my Ledger with a defective version of the app, maybe this one was "initialized" with a defective address. And then when went to connect to the online wallet, this address was referenced in the Ledger as the default one. After unplugging the Ledger / closing the app / re-plugging the Ledger, the "good" address (which is not the good one for us unfortunately) could have pop up again, in a definitive way...

What do you think?

[numero41]

I posted the idea here on reddit : https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/7rd798/should_we_be_concerned_about_the_ledger/dsxragt/

[numero41]

@wparad

Let me re-explain the steps in a more clear way :

1/ I opened the ledger's eth / bitcoin apps on chrome, and had a look at the uis. Saw on Ledger website that for custom erc20 tokens I had to go thru mew. I opened a new tab in chrome. (I am not sure I closed the eth app in the background.)

2/ I created / deleted a wallet with mew cx extension (to avoid confusion, I was able to recover it the day after, and it was not the address involved).

3/ I connected my Ledger via the Mew interface, selected the Ledger eth derivation path, checked the first address on the list

4/ I added my custom tokens at the bottom-right with contract addresses/decimals/name

5/ I test-sent a very little amount of each coin to see if it was working fine. - I didn't tried to send them back. - I was able to see them after about 30-45 minutes

6/ I sent all the remaining amount of the coins as for me everything was working fine.

7/ I was able to see the transactions were successful and to see all my tokens in the custom tokens section at the bottom-right.

8/ I unplugged the Ledger and had lunch

9/ By the end of the day, I re-plugged the Ledger, and I wasn't able to see my tokens again. By having a deeper look, I was able to see that the first address in the list was not the same anymore.

10/ I used the bip39 recovery tool and it's still the wrong "new" address that shows at the first entry. I exported a csv of the 2000 first addresses but didn't find mine in it.

I can't give up on this issue because I know it's not a user mistake. I spent 50 hours on this issue already, I am software programmer, I couldn't figure out anything wrong from my side.

I am 99,999999% sure I couldn't have copy/paste the address 6 times (2 times for each token) from a different source without checking each time it was the same that I was using with the Ledger. Also, I kept all my chrome tabs opened for 4 days, and I could confirm all the steps of what I did from my dump files.

My guess is there have been something wrong when I switched from the ledger chrome apps to mew. But it's only a user guess lol

From your side, what information can you get from the public account?

Thanks again for your help.

[gouegd]

Hi mate. I have a ledger and use MEW with it sometimes. No issues so far, but this thread made me curious.

As for:

So my idea is : IF I plugged my Ledger with a defective version of the app, maybe this one was "initialized" with a defective address. And then when went to connect to the online wallet, this address was referenced in the Ledger as the default one. After unplugging the Ledger / closing the app / re-plugging the Ledger, the "good" address (which is not the good one for us unfortunately) could have pop up again, in a definitive way...

What do you think?

I don't think that's a valid scenario. No app can modify the state of the ledger as far as I understand. OK, there's the exception of adding/removing apps and updating the firmware... But I really don't think using the Ethereum ledger app could reinitialize the ledger anyhow.

Other than that, get some sleep buddy. It's 20k. It's not worth your health. And who knows, maybe you'll even remember something more while sleeping.

[numero41]

I was more thinking of a bug regarding the derivation path, which would lead to a different address list. I try to sleep. 20k, I could accept, if I had a valid explanation. And I won't give up until I have a valid one from mew and/or Ledger.

[gouegd]

I think I'd try to get the source code for the ledger app you used where the address seems to have changed... and see whatever changes may have happened recently in those files. I don't know if the sources are open though.

[numero41]

@wparad @tayvano:

Can all this be related to THIS???

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/47nkoi/psa_check_your_ethaddressorg_wallets_and_any/ https://github.com/ethereumjs/ethereumjs-util/commit/8aafe005ea86c2e5bcba94813ea98d8e3ec0522f

Please help me, give me at least some feedback, I am not alone.

[tayvano]

There is a lot of info here so I'm going to keep this conversation here over Reddit or email as perhaps it'll help someone in the future.

It is highly unlikely your Ledger went poof and generated weird keys. It's not impossible, but it's unlikely. We've never encountered it before and it would surprise me.

It's far more likely that you are unable to reproduce the path and are therefore getting different addresses. This is why I asked if you had changed the network.

I am assuming that you never clicked on the more addresses link. I'm assuming you were using MyEtherWallet and not the Ledger Chrome App when you obtained this address. I am assuming that this was an address from your ledger. I am assuming that you haven't re-initialized your Ledger since you got this address. Any of these three assumptions could be wrong, in which case my advice here won't help.

Connect your ledger to MEW. A pop up appears. Click through each of the radio buttons that have a path name next to it. Every single on, including custom. Confirm that your address does not appear on any of these (there are like 6 now or more).

As you are doing this, think back to when you were copying this address. You weren't using our chrome extension with your Ledger, so where did this address come from? Did you copy it from a pop up like this? Did you click "more addresses" at the bottom at any time?

[numero41]

1/ never clicked on the more addresses link > yes 2/ using MyEtherWallet > yes 3/ haven't re-initialized my Ledger > yes 4/ tried all the derivation paths already, even used the bip39 tool offline and searched over the 20 000 first addresses. 5/ I copied/pasted the address 6 times (I did 3 small transactions, then withdrew all my funds as I was able to see them coming), so I'm 100% sure it didn't come from elsewhere than the wallet opened with the Ledger.

[tayvano]

The way the paths work is its basically the derivation path. The path is part of the math that does the conversation from seed to address. How it gets derived depends on the path, with the final number representing the index on that path. For this reason, trying the first address for all derivation paths is likely going to yield more fruitful results than trying 20k addresses on a single path (as you didn't click more addresses 4000 times)

I would start by clicking the radio buttons (each represents a different path) over doing literally every single path though.

[numero41]

First, I'd like to thank you for answering me, this has been a tough time for me lately..

I understand the derivation path concept, I'm software/mechanical engineer, and already spent 60 hours on this issue. I am also quite convinced it's way more likely a derivation path issue and that my address will pop at the top with a correct derivation path than an order issue. I understand that a math formula will always lead to the same results if the input vars are the same, ok.

Still, I already checked the provided paths many times with no success, and I don't know how I could have done the mistake to check a different path than the one labeled Ledger-ETH... And even more to have specified my own custom path with data I wasn't aware of at that time...

I have an image of my hard drive and a ram dump that I made this day. What could I search for in this that could lead to a wrong derivation path specification? I already found some sequences with label|checkState, but there are so many occurrences I can't pull reliable info from that...

[numero41]

I came to a Ledger-related issue because many people have the same issue with the ripple wallet and the neo wallet. But then I found out about the mew issues from last year, and now I don't know what to do anymore from my side...

[numero41]

here is the neon post on github : https://github.com/CityOfZion/neon-wallet/issues/524

[numero41]

When you say " trying the first address for all derivation paths", do you mean "check if this first address is the same as the one where I can see my funds", or that I should open the wallet and do some further checks in mew after having opened it?