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Ryan Ghods edited this page Jun 12, 2018 · 38 revisions

Common issues

Please read first!

Wallet or Mist?

Mist is an electron application, means it's a desktop hybrid application with a web interface. This allows faster development and changes of the Mist interface and helps with the browser part of Mist. Therefore some problems can come from electron itself.

Ethereum Wallet is just a Mist implementation that can only access a single Dapp – the wallet dapp, this is due to missing features in Mist itself and so that we are able to release earlier.

Please note that Mist is still in beta and problems can be expected. This guide will help you troubleshoot some of the most common problems. Some steps require the use of the command line or the developer console that Mist offers. If you need assistance you can ask for help on https://gitter.im/ethereum/mist.

The first step is to make sure you have the latest version of Mist. Mist is under active development and new versions contain bugfixes. You can download the latest version here: https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases.

If it's not a common problem you can look at log files to see if there are errors. It is important to know that the wallet consists of two applications. Mist, which runs the wallet and an ethereum node which connects to the network. Communication between the two is done over IPC. A quick scan can be done to determine if the problem is within the Wallet or within the node.

The last part of the node log file can be viewed from Mist through the top menu bar -> develop -> Show log file. If it contains an error try to search for it on https://github.com/ethereum/mist/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=is%3Aissue to see if its already been report and if someone offered a solution.

If there are no errors the next step is to see if there are problems within Mist. Open the console via the top menu -> develop -> Toggle developer tools -> Wallet UI and look for errors (ignore the "Failed to load resource: net::ERR_FILE_NOT_FOUND" error) and look on the GitHub issue list for simular problems.

If there are none type web3.eth.blockNumber on the console and see if you get the latest block number. If you cannot find the problem create an issue on GitHub and describe as good as possible what you have done and which error you got, preferable with a screenshot and log files included.

Start the node manually

Sometimes its useful to start the node manually to see what its doing:

Stop Mist and any other ethereum client, if they are still running. You can start the node manually and see its output on the command line.

Windows

  • Open cmd.exe
  • Navigate to geth directory by running cd %APPDATA%\Mist\binaries\geth and look for geth.exe
  • Execute the following command: geth.exe --fast --cache 1024

Linux

  • Open your terminal of choice
  • Go to .config/Mist/binaries/geth
  • Run ./geth syncmode "fast" --cache 1024

Mac

  • Open Terminal.app
  • Run cd ~/Library/Application\ Support/Mist/binaries/Geth/unpacked
  • Run ./geth syncmode "fast" --cache 1024

You can optionally increase the log level by adding --verbosity 5.

Ether is not shown in the wallet

Mist and Ethereum Wallet displays downloaded data from the blockchain. If your wallet is not displaying information that you believe it would, it might be out of sync, thus, looking to data into the past.

Make sure you are synced with the network. As an instant relief, you can check your balance at an online service like Etherscan.

"Your computers time is out of sync!" error

If the time of your computers is deviated the wallet isn't able to connect with the network. The wallet is able to detect if time synchronisation is turned off. Please enable time synchronisation:

Unable to find peers

There are several reasons why the Mist is not able to connect to the network.

  • Time synchronization problems, please update to the latest version of the wallet.
  • A firewall is preventing access, check the logs of your firewall. Instructions
  • A Router doesn't allow NAT or the necessary UDP port 30303, or block other connections made by the ethereum node.

In some cases, users have had success by starting Geth manually and add the --nat=none flag.

Stuck in splash window

There was a report of a conflict with Plex media server.

Mist is synchronized but is stuck during the last part

Each time the Wallet is started it needs to sync the chain with the network. The first time it needs to download and verify the entire chain which can take a long time. Therefore a smarter and faster solution is used the first time the Wallet is started. It will not download and verify the entire chain but will only download specific parts up to a specific block (latest block - 1024 blocks). After that it will download and process the state of the contracts which can take quite some time. So please wait an let it finish downloading the state, otherwise it would start from scratch again. You can find more details here: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/pull/1889.

My transaction is not confirmed

There are multiple causes:

  • You lowered the transaction fee. Miners have the option to ignore transaction with a too low fee. It can take a long time before your transaction is included in the block chain. Currently Mist doesn't provide a solution to resend the transaction with a higher transaction fee.
  • Mist is not fully synchronized with the network. Make sure you have peers (see the top bar) and the block number in Mist matches the one that is shown on http://etherscan.io. Also check if the block number increases over time. If not, the node is not able to connect to the network. See the section "Unable to find peers".
  • If you have peers and your block number matches or differs only a couple of blocks to the one reported on http://etherscan.io click on the unconfirmed transaction. A popup will open which shows the transaction details and the transaction hash. The transaction hash is actually a link to etherscan. Click on this link. If etherscan shows the transaction details this means the transaction is processed and part of the blockchain, just wait before the wallet receives the block it is included. Otherwise the transaction has not been processed (yet). It is a bit harder to determine where your transaction actually is. It might have never been send onto the network.
  • In some cases Mist can lose the connection the underlying node and therefore won't show the transaction s confirmed, please restart Mist and see if it fixes it.

Account can't be unlocked

Please have a look at these recommendations. In some cases, Mist loses the connection the underlying node and therefore can't unlock the account. To make sure your password is correct, you can start geth manually using geth --unlock "0x123456543234565432345.." and type the password, should it unlock successfully, then you know its Mist which lost the connection while unlocking.

Unable to import presale wallet

Due to a bug importing a presale wallet can fail. It is possible to import the presale wallet manually following these instructions: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/wiki/Managing-your-accounts#importing-your-presale-wallet

I send ether to the wallet contract but it doesn't show up

If you send ether to a wallet contract, it consumes more than the minimum of 21,000 gas for a normal value transfer, as the contract will also fire logs when receiving the transaction. Make sure you send at least 50,000 gas along with your transaction.

The transaction will otherwise be reverted and the ether stay at its origin address.

Bind address already in use

You probably have another instance of an ethereum node running. Firstly you may want to close it. If you don't know what is running, there are some options:

Windows

  1. Open Resources Monitor Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Resource Monitor
  2. head to Network tab, Listening ports section.
  3. Search for the program running at the 30303 port, and terminate it, possibly with help from the Task Manager.

Mac

Open Terminal app and run:

lsof -i tcp:30303

lsof -i udp:30303

Identify the PID (process ID) that's making the port 30303 busy and kill the process:

kill <NUMBER FOUND IN PREVIOUS COMMAND>. eg: kill 2121

Linux

Open your preferred console and run

netstat -vanp tcp | grep 30303

Identify the PID related to the port number and kill the process:

kill <NUMBER FOUND IN PREVIOUS COMMAND>

Verifying SHA-256 Checksums

Windows

certUtil -hashfile Mist-installer-0.9.0.exe SHA256

Mac

shasum -a 256 Mist-macosx-0.9.0.dmg

Linux

sha256sum Mist-linux-0.9.0.deb

Connecting Mist to a local test development network from the command line

Assuming you've started geth with the --dev flag: geth --dev

Take note of the IPC path at the end of the initialization of geth:

IPC endpoint opened: /var/folders/y1/jynwfrwj411bxck8whqgcbr00000gq/T/ethereum_dev_mode/geth.ipc

Then start Mist with:

macOS

open -a /Applications/Mist.app --args --rpc /var/folders/y1/jynwfrwj411bxck8whqgcbr00000gq/T/ethereum_dev_mode/geth.ipc

Windows mist.exe --rpc ipc:\\.\pipe\geth.ipc

For more detailed instructions, see: Set up an Ethereum development network in two minutes

I was robbed :((( please refer … PLEASE HELP ME !

https://www.ethereum.org/ I was using your wallet

PLEASE HELP ME

https://etherscan.io/address/0x195229d13249C12d2643085D4907c191742c5eb0 eth= 43.3

https://etherscan.io/address/0xBF3198787a839ac3C49a3c5F6A837c0a41B3E7c0 eth= 2.55

PLEASE HELP ME

this is all my presence☹ I have no other assets ☹

pleasee

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