wallet.SignMessage failing without catchable error

[RyRy79261]

Description

When attempting to sign a message in Coinbase, Status & Cipher, wallet.signMessage throws without error crashing the parent function.

All EIP 1102 set up, providers, web3 & wallet all available and meta functions executing as expected, all user interaction based functions crash without throwing an error to investigate

[mrwillis]

I had this exact issue. wallet.signMessage actually uses eth_sign under the hood and personal_sign for MetaMask. So it actually silently works for MM :)

However, it doesn't handle other wallets. Likely the case is that those wallets do not support proper eth_sign behaviour, causing the issue. Recommendation is to do

signer.provider.send("personal_sign", [param, param]) instead for those wallets

That should fix the issue, however if you are signing a UTF-8 string, keep in mind you will have to do the decoding yourself to hex since you're calling the raw method.

ethers.js/src.ts/providers/json-rpc-provider.ts

Line 168 in 0564817

signMessage(message: Arrayish | string): Promise<string> {

@ricmoo maybe there is a better solution for handling these other wallets? It is bizarre that these wallets do not support proper eth_sign behaviour as it is in the spec.

[RyRy79261]

Thanks @mrwillis I tried your example however I still did not get any results.

I am signing message that was signed by another wallet.

Attempt 1: No error fail

      signer.provider.send("personal_sign", [message])

Attempt 2: no error fail

      signer.provider.send("personal_sign", [message, signerAddress])

Attempt 3 : e.toLowerCase is not a function

      await signer.provider.send("personal_sign", [message, signerAddress])

Attempt 4: directly sending the tx

 let final = await new Promise((resolve,reject)=>{
      let result = web3.currentProvider.sendAsync({
        jsonrpc: '2.0',
        id: 1,
        method: 'personal_sign',
        params: [
          message, // message
          signerAddress // address
        ]
        }, (err, res) => {
          console.log(err, res)
          resolve(res)
        })
    })
    debugger;
    return final

[mrwillis]

I believe the order is incorrect here. You need to put the address first in the params aray.

[mrwillis]

Also try address.toLowerCase().

Code for personal_sign for MM in signMessage. You basically need to replicate this.

ethers.js/src.ts/providers/web3-provider.ts

Line 61 in 0564817

if (method == 'eth_sign' && this._web3Provider.isMetaMask) {

[RyRy79261]

Thanks @mrwillis I got it working after recasting some variables however oddly enough now when using verify message it returns the incorrect account.

I've tried changing the network id, using ethers.utils.hashMessage on the message, the address in lower case and normal case.

I'm trying out all the signing functions in the web3, wallet, web3.personal, web3.eth objects but its not lining up.

Essentially I'm signing the message then verifying from the same device, immediately so theres nothing happening inbetween the signing and verification in the my code.

[BigMurry]

In ethers.js signing message you can always use: (tested in coinbase wallet, imToken, opera, metamask, status wallet)

const data = ethers.utils.toUtf8Bytes('some txt message');
const signer = provider.getSigner();
const addr = await signer.getAddress();
const sig = await provider.send('personal_sign', [ethers.utils.hexlify(data), addr.toLowerCase()]);

[RyRy79261]

@BigMurry That solved it on all my browsers, thank you! :D

[ricmoo]

The order for eth_sign vs personal_signMessage are flipped, and in MetaMask, the order can be either (with some incredibly weird and ambiguous edge cases).

Does using eth_sign on nodes that prefer the personal_ variant throw anything? I can do what I do for eth_chainId, which is to fallback onto net_version if it returns an error.

[ricmoo]

I think this was resolved? I'm going to close this now, but if not, please feel free to re-open.

Thanks! :)

[EvilJordan]

@BigMurry You the man for this. Happy Holidays!

[luannv1203]

In ethers.js signing message you can always use: (tested in coinbase wallet, imToken, opera, metamask, status wallet)

const data = ethers.utils.toUtf8Bytes('some txt message');
const signer = provider.getSigner();
const addr = await signer.getAddress();
const sig = await provider.send('personal_sign', [ethers.utils.hexlify(data), addr.toLowerCase()]);

@BigMurry it not working with my browser