From address for some transactions is 0x0 address (0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000)

[kurushdubash]

System information

Geth version: geth-v1.10.8
OS & Version: Linux - 32GiB Mem (~11 GiB used), Disk: 10TB (8.4TB used)

Expected behaviour

When fetching a block with full transaction payloads, we are noticing transactions with from address coming from the Eth burn address (0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000) which should never be possible.

As an example, for block 0x24e19 (151065)

curl localhost:8545 \
-X POST \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"eth_getBlockByNumber","params":["0x24e19", true],"id":0}'

We'd expect the response:

{
   "jsonrpc": "2.0",
   "id": 0,
   "result": {
      "difficulty": "0x5686a15b4b6",
      "extraData": "0xd783010100844765746887676f312e342e32856c696e7578",
      "gasLimit": "0x2fefd8",
      "gasUsed": "0x5208",
      "hash": "0x8f87aa9f058871b41c869b4d34cdab7bcf55c9f9460aee29ac06cb9b375b14a0",
      "logsBloom": "0x00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
      "miner": "0x1dcb8d1f0fcc8cbc8c2d76528e877f915e299fbe",
      "mixHash": "0x0da6d0912a0197563eb988aeb8a50167cda45cf6a82330827f6bbd0024599c96",
      "nonce": "0xae581272f072055f",
      "number": "0x24e19",
      "parentHash": "0x38db622002b4fa6da639cb65434a1b38cc2490ff1dac23e3c01bea6769884f52",
      "receiptsRoot": "0xcdbded79fb91c04ed5a202acc7ebc7631c3b268f1c334165943054f8c3cca8f4",
      "sha3Uncles": "0x1dcc4de8dec75d7aab85b567b6ccd41ad312451b948a7413f0a142fd40d49347",
      "size": "0x28f",
      "stateRoot": "0xcf5d4bdc0e4c7fb1df45f16555fe170eb7e72b8c1b6720353217d7cd630e14ef",
      "timestamp": "0x55df0ff5",
      "totalDifficulty": "0x5c82ab7dc297110",
      "transactions": [
         {
            "blockHash": "0x8f87aa9f058871b41c869b4d34cdab7bcf55c9f9460aee29ac06cb9b375b14a0",
            "blockNumber": "0x24e19",
            "from": "0x6d6d02e83c4ced98204e20126acf27e9d87b8af2",
            "gas": "0x5267",
            "gasPrice": "0xba43b7400",
            "hash": "0x7c98efa6641aae7b19e321edf55d183400628597140ecae41c8e2e111d130769",
            "input": "0x",
            "nonce": "0x1",
            "to": "0xca77ccf23a2d4ddf77121a4f66859f744cfe0257",
            "transactionIndex": "0x0",
            "value": "0x56bc75e2d63100000",
            "type": "0x0",
            "v": "0x1c",
            "r": "0xe8dc8200b64abfbec22aeb61215ac9cbe9533bc1daeb7cdea6ac0db27e55919b",
            "s": "0xd20b9383ab859d9d6ef5dbd9a39ed7c95ecaff17649c5bb6fbb6414b06716d93"
         }
      ],
      "transactionsRoot": "0xedb1babda89376288300c98ad70035a60853e66d307d253ce1a6a9155e789c28",
      "uncles": []
   }
}

but

Actual response

{
   "jsonrpc": "2.0",
   "id": 0,
   "result": {
      "difficulty": "0x5686a15b4b6",
      "extraData": "0xd783010100844765746887676f312e342e32856c696e7578",
      "gasLimit": "0x2fefd8",
      "gasUsed": "0x5208",
      "hash": "0x8f87aa9f058871b41c869b4d34cdab7bcf55c9f9460aee29ac06cb9b375b14a0",
      "logsBloom": "0x00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
      "miner": "0x1dcb8d1f0fcc8cbc8c2d76528e877f915e299fbe",
      "mixHash": "0x0da6d0912a0197563eb988aeb8a50167cda45cf6a82330827f6bbd0024599c96",
      "nonce": "0xae581272f072055f",
      "number": "0x24e19",
      "parentHash": "0x38db622002b4fa6da639cb65434a1b38cc2490ff1dac23e3c01bea6769884f52",
      "receiptsRoot": "0xcdbded79fb91c04ed5a202acc7ebc7631c3b268f1c334165943054f8c3cca8f4",
      "sha3Uncles": "0x1dcc4de8dec75d7aab85b567b6ccd41ad312451b948a7413f0a142fd40d49347",
      "size": "0x28f",
      "stateRoot": "0xcf5d4bdc0e4c7fb1df45f16555fe170eb7e72b8c1b6720353217d7cd630e14ef",
      "timestamp": "0x55df0ff5",
      "totalDifficulty": "0x5c82ab7dc297110",
      "transactions": [
         {
            "blockHash": "0x8f87aa9f058871b41c869b4d34cdab7bcf55c9f9460aee29ac06cb9b375b14a0",
            "blockNumber": "0x24e19",
            "from": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
            "gas": "0x5267",
            "gasPrice": "0xba43b7400",
            "hash": "0x7c98efa6641aae7b19e321edf55d183400628597140ecae41c8e2e111d130769",
            "input": "0x",
            "nonce": "0x1",
            "to": "0xca77ccf23a2d4ddf77121a4f66859f744cfe0257",
            "transactionIndex": "0x0",
            "value": "0x56bc75e2d63100000",
            "type": "0x0",
            "v": "0x1c",
            "r": "0xe8dc8200b64abfbec22aeb61215ac9cbe9533bc1daeb7cdea6ac0db27e55919b",
            "s": "0xd20b9383ab859d9d6ef5dbd9a39ed7c95ecaff17649c5bb6fbb6414b06716d93"
         }
      ],
      "transactionsRoot": "0xedb1babda89376288300c98ad70035a60853e66d307d253ce1a6a9155e789c28",
      "uncles": []
   }
}

Noticeable, the from address of the only transaction is invalid.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

Call getBlockByNumber with concerning blocks with full transactions. Likewise, calling getTransactionByHash with the appropriate transaction hash will also output same issue with the transaction where the from field is 0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

We've noticed this on multiple blocks ranging from 81914 to 207680 and potentially more. Our hunch is that there is some issue with the RLP decoder that is defaulting the from field to the 0x0 address after a Geth upgrade.

All transactions of issue that we've noticed are contained in blocks prior to the Homestead fork so far.

[s1na]

The issue is we default to the HomesteadSigner instead of FrontierSigner here:

go-ethereum/internal/ethapi/api.go

Line 1297 in 307156c

signer = types.HomesteadSigner{}

. Will work on a fix