When checking balance/nonce, always query at latest block.

[danfinlay]

We're currently querying at last block number we're aware of, but when hitting infura, which is a load balanced cluster, when there is a slight de-synchronization, we can hit a node that hasn't heard about that block yet!

In this case, neither Parity nor Geth replies with much grace:

Geth:

Request

curl 'https://ropsten.infura.io/metamask' -H "Infura-Ethereum-Preferred-Client: geth" --data-binary '{"id":1482348034196178,"jsonrpc":"2.0","params":["0xf414ca28e61abc7ad7d9b09a2c10de6573cc41ee","0x60799"],"method":"eth_getBalance"}'

response:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1482348034196178,"result":"\u003cnil\u003e"}

Parity

Request

curl 'https://ropsten.infura.io/metamask' -H "Infura-Ethereum-Preferred-Client: parity" --data-binary '{"id":1482348034196178,"jsonrpc":"2.0","params":["0xf414ca28e61abc7ad7d9b09a2c10de6573cc41ee","0x60799"],"method":"eth_getBalance"}'

Response:

{"jsonrpc":"2.0","error":{"code":-32000,"message":"This request is not supported because your node is running with state pruning. Run with --pruning=archive.","data":null},"id":1482348034196178}

So geth returns a mis-formatted value, and Parity acts like you aren't in archive mode.

We should submit these bugs to those client providers, but also we should just be getting balance & nonce at latest.

[danfinlay]

This may not be happening anymore , so needs verification.

[danfinlay]

I've re-verified as was requested. While we request block at latest, we request both balance and transactionCount at the last-seen block's number.

Here are screenshots for non-believers:

[danfinlay]

Since balance & nonce are fetched on new block by eth-store, we're using whatever it does, and it always queries by block.

A further complication is that we're on the 1.1.x version, while the published npm package is at 2.2.0, which broke the API in a way we haven't migrated to from metamask-plugin.

The master branch has, on the other hand, retained the old API as old.js.

Our options for dealing with this problem, from easiest to most correct:

• Update the old.js file to query latest, and get on the latest master branch.
• Update the 1.1.x branch to query latest and publish it.
• Convert metamask to use the 2.2.x branch, and update it to query latest, and publish it.

In addition, I think we should:

• Add a README file describing basic usage.
• Add a repo link to the package.json, so the npm package can point to the github page & issues. (As easy as running the npm init command in the folder)

Thoughts or opinions, @kumavis?

[danfinlay]

Fun news: Parity now throws a descriptive error for this behavior, and geth is working on it.

[danfinlay]

We're going with a fourth option: Bring in the old eth-store as a local dependency for now, and monkey patch as needed.