Uncaught Error: KeyStore: Invalid mnemonic

Upgrading from eth-lightwallet 2.5.4 to 3.0.x I am having the issue that I am unable to catch the error whenever a wrong mnemonic is passed to lightwallet.keystore.createVault.

Example:

  lightwallet.keystore.createVault({
    password: password,
    seedPhrase: seed, // Optionally provide a 12-word seed phrase
    hdPathString: "m/44'/60'/0'/0" // Optional custom HD Path String
  }, (err, ks) => {
    // Any code here is NEVER executed when the mnemonic is invalid
    if (err) throw new Error("Wrong password"); // Not triggered on invalid mnemonic
    console.log('test'); // Not triggered on invalid mnemonic
  });

In this example, whenever the password is wrong, the callback does not retrieve an error keystore. It just displays an uncaught error in the console of the browser. I also tried placing a try - catch around it, but it still does not work.

This is the error shown in the browser:

Uncaught Error: KeyStore: Invalid mnemonic
    at KeyStore.init (keystore.js:75)
    at keystore.js:114
    at cb (keystore.js:352)
    at scrypt-async.js:518
    at scrypt-async.js:481
    at run (setImmediate.js:40)
    at runIfPresent (setImmediate.js:69)
    at onGlobalMessage (setImmediate.js:109)

[abhiram308]

Hi @DalderupMaurice , this is due to the fact that init function throws error if invalid mnemonic appears. But that error is not caught by it’s calling function viz. createVault function. I have created a pull request for this (https://github.com/ConsenSys/eth-lightwallet/pull/193).

For now, you can import “bitcore-mnemonic” library and prior to calling createVault, you can check if your mnemonic is correct using isValid function of this library.

[abhiram308]

@360disrupt Not any 12 random words make a correct mnemonic (not at least for Ethereum and Bitcoin chains). You can view the wordlist here. Again, you cannot arrange these words randomly yourself to make a valid mnemonic. This has steps to create one. You can visit https://iancoleman.io/bip39/ to generate mnemonic for yourself. Or include this in your codebase to create wallets. Here you can see that eth-lightwallet uses it as well 😉