Geth suddenly lost account information from Ledger Nano S

[op9]

Hi there,

I was about to transfer my out mined ETH-s to a Ledger Nano S (FW: 1.3.1).
Geth was able to see the accounts on the Ledger, so I used it.
Because this was my very first transaction, I started with a small amount of 0.05ETH.

eth.sendTransaction({from:eth.coinbase, to:eth.accounts[1], value: web3.toWei(0.05, "ether")})

It worked as I expected.
So I wanted to send all my ETHs:

eth.sendTransaction({from:eth.coinbase, to:eth.accounts[1], value: web3.toWei(12.95, "ether")})
Error: insufficient funds for gas * price + value
at web3.js:3143:20
at web3.js:6347:15
at web3.js:5081:36
at :1:1

So I have reduced the amount:

eth.sendTransaction({from:eth.coinbase, to:eth.accounts[1], value: web3.toWei(12.92, "ether")})
"0x0d0c739f63274585282640f69fc1167fbb2acf229e9e54caff3433e52fe00131"

Then I checked on etherscan:
https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0d0c739f63274585282640f69fc1167fbb2acf229e9e54caff3433e52fe00131

And I could see, that something bad is happening, because at the "to" field wasn't my address, instead it was about to create a contract.

Between these 2 transactions was 12 minutes, but I pressed buttons on Ledger to not go into "sleep" mode (vires in numeris) and I stayed inside the Ethereum app (1.0.21), as you can see also on the log I attached.
I even tried now to wait till this message, and geth was able to see the adresses.

Bonus question: how can I get my ETHs back?

System information

Geth version: 1.7.3-stable-4bb3c89d
OS & Version: Windows 10

Expected behaviour

able to see the connected ledger as 12 minutes earlier and get a valid address from "eth.accounts[1]"

Actual behaviour

without any warning it couldn't read the address from Ledger, that lead to an "undefined" value, and that created a contract

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

I tried to make a new transaction again with a higher value to cause this error message:
"Error: insufficient funds for gas * price + value"
But the accounts was still there, so I don't know how to reproduce again.

Backtrace

geth-attach.txt
geth-cmd.txt

[holiman]

First of all, the ether is lost. I'm sorry for your loss.

Secondly, judging from the logs, it looks strange that the eth.accounts[1] suddenly disappeared, since there's no mention of the USB getting dropped. When the first tx is made, the wallet 'discovered' two new accounts (which are ledger accounts 1 and 2). Could there be a bug there, @karalabe? I'll assign this to you to look into.

For anyone else reading this; it would have been avoidable if the to-address had been saved in a variable, instead of relying on eth.accounts[1]. This would also have been avoided if we have 'sign-what-you-see', instead of 'submit-then-sign'.

[op9]

Thank you for your comment!

I also thought, that maybe the new discovered accounts, or the change at the balance field caused something.

I noticed another interesting line.
Please look at the geth-attach.txt line: 17.
It does not return anything. I still have the console open, and checked again, and there is no return value.

I don't get this yet:

This would also have been avoided if we have 'sign-what-you-see', instead of 'submit-then-sign'.

First: the last quote is not 'sign-then-submit'? Because we unlock the account (sign) and make the sendTransaction (submit).
Second: geth is able to 'sign-what-you-see', and I should have been using it? Or geth can only 'sign-then-submit', and it would be good to change to 'sign-what-you-see'.

FYI: there is a chance to get the ETHs back, if they will implement the EIP 156, I just got an answer for my question on another forum (https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/32815/transaction-sent-to-null)
FYI2: I'm Hungarian too as karalabe :)

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[op9]

Any update on this one?
Or I was the only one who faced this issue?

[holiman]

We added a check for the underlying error: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/master/internal/ethapi/api.go#L1390
Fixed two years ago: #16108

[karalabe]

Sorry again for this loss, but unfortunately there's nothing else we can do. There are no known issues with accounts disappearing temporarily that might explain what happened to you.