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I first bought this in december and it worked fine at first then i wanted to check it last month and suddenly the google app wouldnt recognize the Ledger Nano S (stuck on “To begin, connect your Ledger Wallet."). I had bought another one at the same time to hold more cryptos and it has the same problem also. Ive set the browser support to “No”, uninstalled and reinstalled the ledger apps on google, took my ledgers to other computers at other locations, used the 24 word recovery, and yet still cant open the wallets. I bought a third Ledger Nano S just now to make sure it wasnt the hardware and used my 24 word recovery phrase and the nano itself will say its ready to go after setup, but once again its useless since the google app (both ledger manager and wallet) doesnt recognize the device. I have no idea what happened between the last time it worked and now but Im on my 3rd nano that wont open in google apps (and yes, one was bought direct from the manufacturer in france). This shouldnt be this difficult...
What am i missing here?

Make sure you don't have any other extensions blocking it (disable everything preferably) and If you're using a VPN or Tor, try to not use it (I had a similar problem but with Trezor). If that doesn't work, I suggest posting in /r/Ledgerwallet and email support (less responsive). Alternatively, If you're just the device for Bitcoin or Ethereum then you could use it with Electrum/myetherwallet.

no i made sure to do that

will my Ledger 24 word recovery work with electrum/myetherwallet?

Yes.

But you don't have to import your seed into electrum/myetherwallet. And you should not do so!
This would destroy the whole purpose of a hardware wallet. The reason for a hardware wallet is to not have the private keys leave a safe environment.

You can connect your ledger with electrum/myetherwallet without exposing the private keys to those applications.
You will basically just use electrum/myetherwallet as an interface to communicate with your nano s.


Regarding your chrome application:
Did you check if everything is up-to-date?

Bitcoin Chrome app should be 1.10.1
Bitcoin app (on your nano s) should be at least 1.1.18
Firmware of your nano should be 1.3.1

Just checked and its all up to date
Im just gonna try those other wallets and pray. I feel like im held hostage with this crap.

I installed the electrum wallet but dont i have to use the “restore” function and my 24 word seed to get all my coin??
Otherwise its just a new wallet with nothing in it?

No. The seed words never leave your Ledger.

You tell Electrum to create a "new wallet" of the type "hardware wallet". It is a new wallet because Electrum has to create a new wallet file where it will cache address information. However, the Ledger remains responsible for address creation, and the information to do so need not leave the Ledger. The Electrum software just provides the UI. It is as if Electrum is a drill, and the Ledger is a rechargable battery - the drill may have all sorts of features, but power storage remains in the battery.

You could even install Electrum on multiple computers (main desktop, travel laptop, workshop computer, etc.) with all of them relying on the same hardware key. All can observe the receipt of funds, but none can send without the hardware key. More with the battery analogy - the Ledger "battery" can operate a drill, or a saw, or a worklight.

(Revised to add more explanation.)

I chose windows installer (full install)
Opened desktop link and i get this screen: http://i67.tinypic.com/2mfauxk.jpg



From that screen:
File—>New/Restore—>Press Next to create this wallet—>
“What kind of wallet do you want to create?”
Standard, or wallet with 2factor ID, or multi-sig wallet, or import addresses or private keys

Dont see hardware wallet anywhere unless im missing something again

You're going to select the Standard wallet and must be from version 2.7.0 wallet but I hope you download the wallet from electrum official site. However, the problem concerning the ledger wallet not recgonize can be fix by try with another USB cable and if it still doesn't work try it on a Mac computer to verify if it
your Ledger Nano S is faulty.

Tried other usb cable, tried 3different computers at 3 different locations. Only thing i havent tried is a mac and i guess i will try that but i just dont think that will be the one thing that works after all this.
So i have 3 faulty ledgers now. How many do i have to buy... this is so ridiculous

I'm sorry for what you have gone through. Do you order the wallet direct from their site? However,  I'm advising you to try different usd cable or retry the usb cable that came with the wallet because ledger wallet usb cable sometimes result to the not recognize status.  

You can proceed with the electrum installation though.

Im using the cable that worked originally when i bought it as well as other cables. 1 nano bought from factory in France, 2 bought from amazon reseller with lots of reviews. The manufacturer in france can't ship until march 27 due to demand. I tried the electrum install see above. I dont think i have the right version or something because after install and then opening electrum there should be a hardware wallet option and i dont have that. How do i know if i have 2.7.0 wallet?
I heard ledgers coming out with their own app so guess i will try that since nothing else works and i hope the market doesnt move too much until then or i ill miss out on a ton of money i have held hostage on this damn thing.

Very strange and unusual situation,3 Ledger Nano S and you have problem with all of them.It is very unlikely that all three are corrupted/broken,although there is this possibility and you have a very bad luck.

So try to download Electrum from here : https://electrum.org/#download (latest version is 3.0.6) and after that follow these instruction https://support.ledgerwallet.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005161925-How-to-use-Electrum-with-your-Nano-S

It should be work if your Ledger/cable/USB port are functional and work properly,so try all 3 devices.

Also you can import Ledger seed in Electrum,to do that just use File - New/Restore - Standard Wallet - I already have a seed - If you use SegWit chain on Ledger change derivation path to /m/49'/0'/0' to see your balance in Electrum.

I would not suggest to do this!
This will destroy the whole purpose of a hardware wallet (keeping the private keys in a save environment).
Connecting the ledger with electrum (as a GUI) is the safer way.

Importing the seed of a hardware wallet into a desktop wallet should be the last (very last) step after nothing else worked to access your BTC's.
I'd rather first try out a different OS / PC before exposing the seed to theft.
Once the seed has been typed/entered into another wallet it should be considered as compromised.

I do not understand why you repeat what you wrote before?

hutchdavidson wrote :


So I give him instruction how to try step by step one more time with Electrum as just user interface,and last solution is to import seed in any other wallet since this is only way to gain access to his coins.If he use legit Electrum wallet on clean PC then his coins will be safe until he get some new hardware wallet of fix problem with Ledger.

I repeated that because it seemed like noone is taking this serious.
The chances of receiving 3 broken ledgers.. are like.. almost zero ?

I can't really believe he ordered 3 ledgers, tried them at 3 different computers at 3 different locations.. and nothing worked.

Either some firewall is blocking a connection to the ledger server (which i doubt, because it at least should get recognized by the application)
or he is on some broken OS or its simply his own fault because of wrong usage.

Another option of trying to access the nano s would be to pair it with MyCelium. Thats still by far better than importing the seed into a desktop wallet.




This is true.. but thats a big IF.
One shouldn't simply regard his PC as clean. Thats the mistake which leads to loss of funds in most cases.

Ok guys i dont know what happened but everything works fine now. I used a different cable and couldnt figure out the difference since i already used at least 3 different usb cables but there is a small symbol on one end of the cable that can easily be missed and its the exact same symbol on the ledger nano case so its the cable that came with it. So this explains why it all used to work in december but didnt now since i was using different cables. Man im sorry i wasted yalls time here but from my understanding all usb cables are the same and i figured since all the nanos are at least being turned on with power from all the cables i used the problem cant be the cables, but live and learn i guess. Im not the most tech savvy guy around but i do believe in the concept of cryptos and im doing my best with it. Im just grateful all my money isnt gone. Now i just need btc to go back up haha.

There are "power only" USB cables that only connect the "power" pins. Typically, these are cables that come with "cheap" mobile phones (or other devices) that use micro USB ports for charging, but don't allow for data transfer.

Good to see you finally got it sorted though, never a nice feeling to have your BTC stuck in limbo...

Did you manage to get the Ledger working properly with Electrum? (File -> New\Restore -> Standard Wallet -> Use a hardware device)? ???

Google app works but the electrum is giving me a “read error” right after choosing hardware wallet—>select a device—>an unnamed ledger [ledger, initialized]

It can be a bit fussy with the order your do things... I've run into similar issues with "read errors". It generally happens if I've had the ledger plugged in and been using it with other apps.

Firstly, make sure that NO other Ledger apps (like Ledger Manger or Ledger Wallet Bitcoin chrome apps etc) are running and shut down Electrum, then unplug the Ledger device.

Then start Electrum... File -> New\Restore -> Standard Wallet -> Use a Hardware Device... at this point, Electrum should tell you take it can't find a device...

Now, connect the Ledger Device... enter your PIN... then select the Bitcoin "app" on the device.

Now, in Electrum, click "Next" to force the re-scan... it should then show you "an unnamed ledger [ledger, initialized]", click "next" and it should hopefully finish creating your wallet.

Getting a read error in the electrum wallet after choosing hardware device
But google apps works fine

It sounds like you've got some sort of app or process that is communicating with the Ledger device... that read error generally happens if ANY ledger related app has been talking to the device prior to trying to connect it with that Electrum wallet.

Like I said, it can be very "picky" about the order things are done in... especially when dealing with Electrum. Once you hit the "read error" you need to shut Electrum down, unplug the Ledger and then restart Electrum (making sure that NONE of the Ledger Google Apps are open!)

Get to the point where it asks for the Hardware Device... then connect the Ledger to your PC, enter your PIN and make sure that you select the bitcoin app on the ledger device.