bug: can't deploy to JSON-RPC network, where equivalent deployment via Remix and Truffle works

[bguiz]

Expected behaviour

• .getContractFactory() succeeds
• .deploy() succeeds
• .deployed() succeeds

Actual Behaviour

• .getContractFactory() succeeds
• .deploy() succeeds
• .deployed() fails

The error thrown comes from within ethers.js: https://github.com/ethers-io/ethers.js/blob/88c7eae/packages/providers/src.ts/formatter.ts#L237-L244
... however, tracing up the stack trace, it appears to originate from the provider in some way.

Note that this smart contract deploys successfully on the same network, using both Remix (with web3 provider from MetaMask). It also deploys successfully using Truffle. Here's the Truffle network config and deployment script, for reference:

  networks: {
    regtest: {
      host: '127.0.0.1',
      port: 4444,
      network_id: 33,
      networkCheckTimeout: 1e3,
    },
  },

const Cars = artifacts.require("Cars");

module.exports = function(deployer) {
  deployer.deploy(Cars);
};

Details

Network configuration:

  networks: {
    regtest: {
      url: 'http://127.0.0.1:4444/',
      chainId: 33,
      timeout: 1e3,
    },
  },

Deployment script:

import { ethers } from '@nomiclabs/buidler';

async function main() {
  const carsFactory = await ethers.getContractFactory('Cars');
  console.log('carsFactory', carsFactory);
  const instance = await carsFactory.deploy();
  console.log('instance', instance);
  const result = await instance.deployed(); /// throws here
  console.log('result', result);
}

main()
  .then(() => {
    console.log('deployed');
  })
  .catch((ex) => {
    console.error(ex);
    process.exit(-1);
  });

Error:

Error: invalid hash (argument="value", value="0x01", code=INVALID_ARGUMENT, version=providers/5.0.4)
    at Logger.makeError (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/logger/lib/index.js:179:21)
    at Logger.throwError (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/logger/lib/index.js:188:20)
    at Logger.throwArgumentError (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/logger/lib/index.js:191:21)
    at Formatter.hash (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/lib/formatter.js:196:27)
    at Object.root (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/lib/formatter.js:361:20)
    at Function.Formatter.check (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/lib/formatter.js:342:40)
    at Formatter.receipt (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/lib/formatter.js:316:32)
    at EthersProviderWrapper.<anonymous> (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/lib/base-provider.js:1214:70)
    at step (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/lib/base-provider.js:46:23)
    at Object.next (/home/bguiz/code/bguiz/buidler-trial/node_modules/@ethersproject/providers/lib/base-provider.js:27:53) {
  reason: 'invalid hash',
  code: 'INVALID_ARGUMENT',
  argument: 'value',
  value: '0x01',
  checkKey: 'root',
  checkValue: '0x01'
}
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 255
npm ERR! buidler-trial@0.0.0 deploy-regtest: `buidler run --network regtest scripts/deploy.ts`
npm ERR! Exit status 255
npm ERR! 
npm ERR! Failed at the buidler-trial@0.0.0 deploy-regtest script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

Version

    "@nomiclabs/buidler": "1.3.8",
    "@nomiclabs/buidler-ethers": "2.0.0",

[bguiz]

Did a bit more digging, and got a bit closer to the error, appears to be happening while validating the transaction receipt.

https://github.com/ethers-io/ethers.js/blob/88c7eae/packages/providers/src.ts/formatter.ts#L382-L390 :

    receipt(value: any): TransactionReceipt {
        const result: TransactionReceipt = Formatter.check(this.formats.receipt, value);

        if (value.status != null) {
            result.byzantium = true;
        }

        return result;
    }

... which then goes on to throw here:
https://github.com/ethers-io/ethers.js/blob/88c7eae/packages/providers/src.ts/formatter.ts#L411-L424 :

... in particular at root: Formatter.allowNull(hash),

https://github.com/ethers-io/ethers.js/blob/88c7eae/packages/providers/src.ts/formatter.ts#L99-L114 :

        formats.receipt = {
            to: Formatter.allowNull(this.address, null),
            from: Formatter.allowNull(this.address, null),
            contractAddress: Formatter.allowNull(address, null),
            transactionIndex: number,
            root: Formatter.allowNull(hash),
            gasUsed: bigNumber,
            logsBloom: Formatter.allowNull(data),// @TODO: should this be data?
            blockHash: hash,
            transactionHash: hash,
            logs: Formatter.arrayOf(this.receiptLog.bind(this)),
            blockNumber: number,
            confirmations: Formatter.allowNull(number, null),
            cumulativeGasUsed: bigNumber,
            status: Formatter.allowNull(number)
        };

which fails validation when the hash does not have a length of 32.

Below is the actual transaction receipt contains root: '0x01', - which is just 1 byte - and this is what causes it to throw.

{
  transactionHash: '0x207443dca7009383371745242e4a9cd4bf83f2ff70ddf0c827d27c8f02c5b28c',
  transactionIndex: '0x0',
  blockHash: '0x64f3a04bb67aea8684e1aea3f7673a5d6422cc018f592903490d61f6e456c507',
  blockNumber: '0xb4c',
  cumulativeGasUsed: '0xd93c0',
  gasUsed: '0xd93c0',
  contractAddress: '0xda7ce79725418f4f6e13bf5f520c89cec5f6a974',
  logs: [],
  from: '0xcd2a3d9f938e13cd947ec05abc7fe734df8dd826',
  to: null,
  root: '0x01',
  status: '0x1',
  logsBloom: '0x00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000'
}

I should probably mention that this network I'm connecting to is not Ethereum, but does have EVM compatibility and JSON-RPC compatibility, and that I can deploy this contract using other Ethereum tools (Remix+MetaMask, and Truffle).

[bguiz]

Further digging within the geth source yields that the definition of root in the JSON-RPC response maps to PostState - https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/ce9a289/core/types/receipt.go#L49-L52 :

// Receipt represents the results of a transaction.
type Receipt struct {
	// Consensus fields: These fields are defined by the Yellow Paper
	PostState         []byte `json:"root"`

So, unless I've misread something, it appears that the validation logic for transaction receipts appears to be too strict in this case.

[fvictorio]

Hi, I'm checking old issues to see if they are still valid. My guess is that this one isn't and, if it is, it seems to be something related to ethers.js itself and not Hardhat?

So I'm going to tentatively close this. Please let us know if you disagree.