Error: Key does not exist. on pass account id to name.publish

[MicrowaveDev]

• Version: 0.35.0
• Platform: Darwin mac.local 17.7.0 Darwin Kernel Version 17.7.0: Thu Jun 21 22:53:14 PDT 2018; root:xnu-4570.71.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64

Type: Bug

Severity: Medium

Description: Error on trying to pass account Peer ID instead of name to ipfs.name.publish

(node:20297) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: Key 'QmUctS4HYzuFrqNQmjnRoRn6kBnMecBZobBQfsPzo46nbA' does not exist. ENOENT: no such file or directory, open '/root/.jsipfs/keys/pkcs8/QmUctS4HYzuFrqNQmjnRoRn6kBnMecBZobBQfsPzo46nbA.data'
    at _error (/root/my-app/node_modules/libp2p-keychain/src/keychain.js:53:38)
    at store.get (/root/my-app/node_modules/libp2p-keychain/src/keychain.js:386:16)
    at ReadFileContext.fs.readFile (/root/my-app/node_modules/datastore-fs/src/index.js:216:16)
    at ReadFileContext.callback (/root/my-app/node_modules/graceful-fs/graceful-fs.js:90:16)
    at FSReqWrap.readFileAfterOpen [as oncomplete] (fs.js:237:13)
(node:20297) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). (rejection id: 1)
(node:20297) [DEP0018] DeprecationWarning: Unhandled promise rejections are deprecated. In the future, promise rejections that are not handled will terminate the Node.js process with a non-zero exit code.

Steps to reproduce the error:

const IPFS = require('ipfs');
const node = new IPFS({
  pass: 'traffic enough crater wear tissue term town have switch exhibit onion asset'
});

const keys = await = node.key.list();
const peerId = keys[0].id;

node.name.publish('QmdFuxvDj27kW3j3DbosoicC828jm7ZtJNbVubFQ8aTbNV', {
  key: peerId
});

[alanshaw]

@vasco-santos do you have a sec to look into this one please?

[vasco-santos]

Hello @Jonybang , thanks for reaching out

Currently, you cannot access the keychain without starting a node with a pass (how to start with a pass)

In the current code example, I cannot reproduce your error because I cannot get node.key.list(). However, you should use the key name instead of the id in the publish. Take this as an example and the following untested code:

const IPFS = require('ipfs');
const node = new IPFS({});

const keys = await = node.key.list();
const keyName = keys[0].name;

node.name.publish('QmdFuxvDj27kW3j3DbosoicC828jm7ZtJNbVubFQ8aTbNV', {
  key: keyName
});

Let me know if you were able to get this solved.

[MicrowaveDev]

@vasco-santos sorry, i forgot about pass, i've fixed issue reproducing code.
However, documentation says:

key:      // string - Name of the key to be used or Peer ID. Default: 'self'

but Peer ID actually not working.

[MicrowaveDev]

I have no problems with passing name instead of peer id, but it makes my code more complicated, i have only peer id on input, so i made hotfix like this:

if(_.startsWith(account, 'Qm')) {
  account =_.find(await node.key.list(), {name: account}) || {}).id;
}
node.name.publish(`${storageId}`, {
  key: account
});

But it would be great if js-ipfs code will follows the documentation, so i could remove this hotfix in the future 😊

[alanshaw]

However, you should use the key name instead of the id in the publish

What's the reason for this @vasco-santos? Is it a bug?

[vasco-santos]

@vasco-santos sorry, i forgot about pass, i've fixed issue reproducing code.
However, documentation says:

key:      // string - Name of the key to be used or Peer ID. Default: 'self'

but Peer ID actually not working.

In fact, we do not support the key as a peer-id, just the name, which in the majority of the cases is the user-friendly approach.

That is a misleading doc and should be modified. However, @Jonybang are you willing to give it a try in adding support for supporting a peer id?

However, you should use the key name instead of the id in the publish

What's the reason for this @vasco-santos? Is it a bug?

Documentation bug yes! We only support the name of the key

[alanshaw]

@vasco-santos would you mind opening a PR to fix the docs for now? 🙏

@Jonybang does this answer your question? Did you get things working now?

[vasco-santos]

Done!

[MicrowaveDev]

@alanshaw now docs is match to code, yes 😅
But i think its not right - to restrict implementation in that way, because in fact we bind hash to peer id, not to name, and name may changing. Anyway this is a discussion question and not a bug anymore, so i will close this issue. Maybe i should to create new issue for discussion? if so, in what repo?