Failed to decode private key (.env) lesson 18

[Ptsdawd]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently working on lesson 18, "Private Key Safety Pt.2." I’ve created a .env file in the root directory with two variables: PRIVATE_KEY and RPC_URL. After that, I ran the following commands:

source .env
forge script script/DeploySimpleStorage.s.sol --rpc-url $RPC_URL --broadcast --private-key $PRIVATE_KEY

However, when I execute the forge script command, I encounter an error that says: "Failed to decode private key."

Here’s what I’ve done so far to troubleshoot after asking chatgpt:

1. Double-checked that both the PRIVATE_KEY and RPC_URL are correctly typed in the .env file.
2. Verified that the environment variables are set correctly by running echo $PRIVATE_KEY and echo $RPC_URL.
3. Ensured that the .env file is saved with UTF-8 encoding.

Despite these efforts, the issue persists. Could anyone provide guidance on how to resolve this?

[BAHUBALI2550]

got the same error working through the course today, but still didn't find the solution.

[EngrPips]

Hello @Ptsdawd, Did you ensure that there is no space at all between the PRIVATE_KEY variable, the = sign, and the value? Also, did you prepend the private key with 0x?

[Ptsdawd]

Hi, I have checked all of that and the result is the same. As you can see below:

[EngrPips]

Maybe try with another private key.

[Ptsdawd]

Unfortunately, this didn't work either. Could it be that the issue is related to me using WSL on PowerShell?

[EngrPips]

Honestly, I don't have WSL knowledge, so it can be tough for me to say. Please run forge clean, then foundryup, and then retry this deployment process. Let's see how that plays out.

[sangwon1000]

deleting prefix "0x" of private key in .env, echo $PRIVATE_KEY to make sure you see the correct private key and re-running source .env fixed the issue for me

Per GPT,

• Verify that the length of the private key is exactly 64 characters. If it is shorter or longer, it will not be valid.
• Ensure that the private key is in the correct hexadecimal format. It should be a 64-character string (representing 32 bytes) without any prefixes like 0x.

[EngrPips]

Hey @Ptsdawd please try @sangwon1000 suggestion and let's see if it helps you resolve your issue.

[Ptsdawd]

Unfortunately, this didn't help solve the problem either.
I have deleted prefix "0x", echo $PRIVATE_KEY and re-runned source .env file. Checked for 64 characters. The result is the same.

[EngrPips]

Get into the habit of not showing your private key publicly like this, have you updated foundry with foundryup?

[Ptsdawd]

I resolved the issue with the "Failed to decode private key" error by following these steps suggested by ChatGPT:

1. Checked the $PRIVATE_KEY variable:
   I used the command echo $PRIVATE_KEY | xxd to inspect the contents of the private key.

2. Identified the issue:
   The output showed that the private key had extra characters: the 0d0a sequence at the end, which indicated the presence of line feed characters (\r\n).

3. Executed the suggested commands:
   To remove these characters, ChatGPT recommended running the following commands:

   PRIVATE_KEY=$(echo $PRIVATE_KEY | tr -d '\r\n')
   dos2unix .env

These commands cleaned up the private key and converted the .env file to Unix format, resolving the issue.

4. Fixing potential errors with dos2unix:
   If you encounter an "Unable to locate package dos2unix" error when running dos2unix .env, you can fix it by updating your package list and installing dos2unix with the following commands:

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install dos2unix

This solved the problem for me.

[EngrPips]

Awesome, Thanks for the heads-up and you should mark this discussion as answered by you.

[josh4aye]

great help, thanks

[EngrPips]

Indeed

[xterious]

Thanks a lot! Wasted 30mins in this finally working now