Error with `import_outputs` : `"Failed to decrypt outputs: Failed to authenticate ciphertext"`

Question

We are creating our hot and cold wallets from json files.

The cold wallet-json file looks something like this:

{ "version": 1, "address": "5AS4EbTaHoQ35Qyg3FEg9X25inJDsKCCzBWxDbL2ohGg8DHfhpG47mWQT1T6iA9jKMBGLLRgkPJBhR4Q6SDmWZjSEv7btZT", "spendkey": "4abc4c0b853444013c1b3ab5a6ba9220976f685305800acbf6c931dfa897bb0c", "password": "0b74713a7080027a0247ff811d42530ed7c9401479c73c0f5711a00fc609c51e", "scan_from_height": 0, "filename": "/var/Cold/XMR.5AS4EbTaHoQ35Qyg3FEg9X25inJDsKCCzBWxDbL2ohGg8DHfhpG47mWQT1T6iA9jKMBGLLRgkPJBhR4Q6SDmWZjSEv7btZT" }

And the hot wallet file looks something like this:

{ "version": 1, "viewkey": "f10b92787b01648bd5cab14500f36d5db1fb2391f4a5127a94e99dbdacc91c02", "address": "5AS4EbTaHoQ35Qyg3FEg9X25inJDsKCCzBWxDbL2ohGg8DHfhpG47mWQT1T6iA9jKMBGLLRgkPJBhR4Q6SDmWZjSEv7btZT", "watchonly": true, "password": "123", "scan_from_height": 165540, "filename": "/home/ksingh/Monero/hot/wallets/XMR.5AS4EbTaHoQ35Qyg3FEg9X25inJDsKCCzBWxDbL2ohGg8DHfhpG47mWQT1T6iA9jKMBGLLRgkPJBhR4Q6SDmWZjSEv7btZT" }

When we export outputs from the hot wallet, and try to import them into the cold wallet with a curl command like so:

curl -u user:password --digest -X POST http://127.0.0.1:18082/json_rpc -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":"0","method":"import_outputs","params":{"outputs_data_hex":"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"}}' -H 'Content-Type: application/json'

Note: the above curl command may not necessarily be for the same wallet files. Just showing this is an example of what is happening

It returns a response :

{ "error": { "code": -1, "message": "Failed to decrypt outputs: Failed to authenticate ciphertext" }, "id": "0", "jsonrpc": "2.0" }

Not sure if what I'm missing.

Another thing to note then I try the import_outputs command using the json_rpc, the response back is a 401 Unauthorized Access.

Answer 1

Your JSON data claims the wrong view secret key for the hot wallet. When you restore the cold wallet using your data, the viewkey command outputs:

secret: a0b8891884d22bd6e5ac514e79e87011964838c98c8ac468e51194ed2c7c560c
public: 3dba4b6f70744a631aba965544ab3a8e04b952775dfb4149003937b7155eceb6

However, your hot wallet JSON uses f10b92787b01648bd5cab14500f36d5db1fb2391f4a5127a94e99dbdacc91c02 as view secret key.

Note how this causes the hot and cold wallets to display different addresses on load.

Answer 2

So, I figured out what was going on. The json used to create the cold-wallet also needs the private view key.

We were only providing the private spend key to it.

BTW, we are using the monero-wallet-rpc --generate-from-json to create the wallet.

I've been told by another team member, that you can also use the monero-wallet-cli --generate-from-json and in that case the json does not have to have the private view key.