[Passed] Final proposal for continuing developments on Android wallet (v3.0 released)

Posted to /r/NuBits and tweeted it. Will save big announcements on /r/Cryptocurrency and nubits.com for after the one week period for feedback is completed, and everything is found to be running smoothly.

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Update

This morning I received an overnight update from Matthew which fixed the behaviour Creon and I reported on some devices. Well, at least it sorted it on my device (HP Touchpad 3g with Cyanogen 11 Kitkat). Please let me know whether you still have issues or any other remaining issues. Iā€™ve also updated the link in the post above

Download link here. Iā€™ve called it v2.01 but it still reports as 2.0 in the wallet. The previous version doesnā€™t need to be uninstalled.

Edit: Also just re-loaded the blockchain which now goes at least 10 times faster than before! On wifi/broadband I managed to synchronise it from 0 to 267000+ blocks within 20 minutes. Your speed may vary depending on your broadband/internet connection speed.

Edit2: For the Peercoiners amongst us. Matthew posted also an update (v2.5) for the Peercoin client which suffered from the same issue, which have been fixed on my device at least. You will get an automatic update from Google Play.

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Android 4.2.1, Asus Transformer, runs perfectly. Still not sure if several restarts would have fixed it too, but this update surely worked. Thanks!

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We took this pull request from the Bitcoin client which also doesnā€™t have this feature. You can argue about it. Some people do just copy and paste their passwords anyway. But it is worth noting that people need to be careful and use the ā€˜Show passwordā€™ function. Best to try with a small amount first and testing your password before transferring a lot of NBT to it for now.

FYI Just sent the initial payment for release 2 (v3.0) to the Developer, so he can get started to an even more exciting release 2 while we are testing release 1.

Zero problems on Xperia Z1 compact. (Android 4.4.4)

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Iā€™ve hit a slight snag.
It seems that a block containing a custodial grant payable to a wallet address causes the blockchain to stall. Iā€™m assuming the added coinbase value is casuing an issue.
The 320 NBT from the passed Bittylicious grant was credited in block 279,145 but my Android wallet stalls at block 279,144.
I have re-installed the original version of the app and restored a backup which contains the address and am currently re-syncing the blockchain to see if that is any different. Failing that there are ways of exporting coins from a backup using this method. Unfortunately Iā€™m having some trouble building the wallet-tools jar from NubitsJ.
Iā€™ll post updates on the old wallet version but may need some assistance from @MatthewLM in building wallet-tools to try and get the Custodial Grant to a useable address.

Not sure if I understand the problem and relation to what you say is the root cause. The blockchain stopped synchronising at a block. With doing some testing today I noticed that too, but at random times. Stopping and starting the wallet (kill in Android task manager and start) seems to fix that, when inpatient. It sounds like it is a coincidence that it stopped at block 279,144. Iā€™ve re-synched the blockchain (under Settings) and it passed that block without a problem after 20 minutes of loading.

Not sure why you need the wallet-tools jar (but hope Matthew can help you with that), you can just resync the blockchain. When you deleted the app, you can still restore the wallet assuming you made a backup. But maybe you are trying to do something else. Please explain.

Thanks for the reply @cybnate.
Iā€™ve resynced the blockchain a few times now as well as uninstalling and reinstalling the wallet app (both old and new versions) and stopping/restarting the app. Each and every time the blockchain stalls at block 279144.
I think that will only affect me as block 279145 contains the payout for the Bittylicious custodial grant, paid to an address which exists in the Android wallet.
Custodial grants are paid from the coinbase instead of as a traditional transaction and I think it is that which is causing the app to stall.

The wallet-tools application would allow me to use a NuBits app wallet backup as a full wallet on my laptop. I could then sign a raw transaction from the offending address to an address in my main wallet. That would allow me to access the coins.
I could then wipe my android wallet and start again with new addresses. Iā€™m sure then that the blockchain would sync normally, it is just this custodial grant payment that is causing the issue.

Thanks for the explanation on what you are trying to do. I now get it and it makes sense to me :smile:
It appears that you hit a very rare and unique occasion which will be hard to reproduce. Hope you can keep you wallet in this state temporary while Matthew tries to fix this and release an update. Will give Matthew a nudge to look at it, if he hasnā€™t seen it already.

Thanks for finding and reporting this.

Youā€™re welcome. Can I pretend it was done deliberately? :blush:

(The android wallet will be statying as it is for the foreseeable future. Iā€™ve already sent some reports to Matthew but am happy to help debugging)

Some good news. I have the 320 NuBits in my main wallet now.
I built a python tool using Google ProtoBuf to decode the android wallet export and recover the private keys.
Iā€™ll look at open sourcing that code if thereā€™s an interest as it could be a useful tool if anyone else finds themselves in a similar situation.

Iā€™m happy to leave the android wallet in its current state for as long as neccessary now.

Was the key encrypted?

the wallet export was encrypted with a passphrase but I knew that as it was mine.
Once the wallet file is decrypted, the keys are held in the Protobuf format. That mesans you can;t just open the file and read them, they need extracting in a certian way and then converting from bytes to base58check encoded WiF keys.

Luckily the offending address was generated using the old android wallet. If it had been generated using the ne HD wallet method, it would have been a bit more work.

Does this version have shapeshift? I thought was going to be in the 2.0 version? Or was that 3.0?

@woolly_sammoth. Good to hear that you managed to get your funds back. With that you proofed it can be done, and it is not just a statement, although it is not a simple exercise. I suspect I wouldnā€™t have been able to do alone what you did. Thanks for your time and showing the way to us all.

Anyway, I understand that Matthew has been in contact with you for more logs in an attempt to obtain more information.

Update to 2.02

He left me with another update which fixes a bug he found while tracing things down. Iā€™ve uploaded this version as v2.02 here. Iā€™ve also updated the link in the first release post.

Version 3.0 (release 2 of the grant) will have shapeshift. The development of that has just started. The target date for this release, which will be brand new code, is before 15 June. The Shapeshift part that is. I bet we are all looking forward to that.

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I have been in contact with Matthew who has been very helpful. Unfortunately, none of the updates so far have fixed the stalled blockchain.
It would be good for the wallet to handle Custodial Grants but I donā€™t want too much effort to be put into this bug if it slows down development on the Shapeshift integration. I think itā€™s enough of an edge case, and we now have a work around should it happen again.

No issues so far on Android 4.4.4 with ver 2.01 and 2.02

After playing a bit with the app I have noticed that every time I tap on Settings -> Data usage i get a message ā€œUnfortunately, Settings has stoppedā€ and I canā€™t access Data usage.
Is anyone else experiencing the same?

It works for me. It takes me through to the standard android data usage page where I can set data limits, turn mobile data on / off and see which apps have been using the most data.
I wonder if your data usage page is in an unexpected place?