Electrum and Ledger - Stuck at processing with lots of UTXO - finally worked

[bitmover]

I have an old ledger nano S (which they don't sell anymore, and is incompatible with Ledger Recover).

It always worked very well, the only thing that i needed to change was the LED visor. 100% now.

Today, following LoyceV suggestion to make consolidations, I made a transaction with 102 input to 1 output. However, after several minutes, it is still processing in my Ledger:

It was very hard to find information about it, then I found this reddit topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ledgerwallet/comments/s18sbk/ledger_nano_x_wont_transfer_btc_and_gets_stuck_on/



u/LedgerSupport_Muto avatar
3y ago
Hi! This long processing time is probably due to the fact that you're trying to spend a lot of UTXOs, that must be signed individually, which takes some time. Please try again and wait several minutes to see if the transaction ultimately succeeds.

Looks like the problem was related to spending a lot of UTXO.

After several minutes it worked, and I decided to post it here! So I hope it helps other forum members

[joker_josue]

It's always good to know that in the end there is no problem. We just have to be patient and wait.

Do you have any tips to reduce this waiting time? Maybe not making so many moves at the same time. 

[satscraper]

Ledger nano s has the relatively slow MCU thus the  processing/signing of big numbers of UTXO is extremely painful process which may last for hours. Besides  that processes depends on the history of those UTXO ^{Some UTXO are more difficult to sign than others}. To learn why read this article.

[Pmalek]

I have an old ledger nano S (which they don't sell anymore, and is incompatible with Ledger Recover).

Allegedly. Ledger says it's incompatible. I don't really trust much that comes out of their mouths anymore, but if we take into account that the Nano S has very limited internal memory, they might be telling the truth.

The issues with Ledger taking a long time to sign transactions with many inputs and multisig transactions of the same type are known. Jameson Lopp carried out a test last year featuring many hardware wallets and Ledger's two devices (the Nano S and Nano S Plus) were the worst performers. Well, aside from Foundation Passport's Founder's Edition which failed to complete some of the tests at the time.

I created a thread about it back in May 2024: Jameson Lopp's multisig hardware wallet signing test

[bitmover]

The issues with Ledger taking a long time to sign transactions with many inputs and multisig transactions of the same type are known. Jameson Lopp carried out a test last year featuring many hardware wallets and Ledger's two devices (the Nano S and Nano S Plus) were the worst performers. Well, aside from Foundation Passport's Founder's Edition which failed to complete some of the tests at the time.

I created a thread about it back in May 2024: Jameson Lopp's multisig hardware wallet signing test

I didn't know about this.

I was quite worried when that happened.

I even unplugged the device when it passed like 3minutes without any response , just processing.

This is not a big deal, and certainly it is not a problem for me.
100 utxo in a transaction is very unlikely for personal uses, even for someone like me
 Those were basically 60-70% of all inputs i have ever received

And the way bitcointalk campaigns works we all tend to accumulate lots of utxo... which is very uncommon.

In the end I was very happy, as I was able to consolidate 200 utxo into 2 utxo , in two transactions. I spent a total of 16 usd.

Do you have any tips to reduce this waiting time? Maybe not making so many moves at the same time. 

Nothing  can be done. This is how my old ledger model.works..

[Forsyth Jones]

I thought this was a limitation of Ledger Live, but apparently it's a hardware limitation, does anyone know if the model X has the same slowness to process many UTXOs? Because in theory the nano x hardware has better memory than the predecessor model.

[satscraper]

I thought this was a limitation of Ledger Live, but apparently it's a hardware limitation, does anyone know if the model X has the same slowness to process many UTXOs? Because in theory the nano x hardware has better memory than the predecessor model.

Ledger nano s uses STM32F042K6 while  nano x utilizes STM32WB55 wich adds wireless module ^{Reference here}. The memory of  STM32WB55 equals to 1MB vs 32 Kb for STM32F042K6. Probably the increased memory should add juice to x at processing  UTXO bulk. The better way to prove this assumption to test it via testnet. Unfortunately I do not have nano x but with nano s I have maneged to sign up to 1000 UTXOs for around 2 hours.

[Pmalek]

I didn't know about this.

I was quite worried when that happened.

I even unplugged the device when it passed like 3minutes without any response , just processing.

I know how you felt. I didn't know what was going on when I did my first consolidation of coins I held in my Ledger at the time either. But I noticed that the device was doing something. The cursor icon of my laptop would get stuck briefly every 2-3 seconds. That's how I knew that something was happening, and I just let the wallet do its work. 

I thought this was a limitation of Ledger Live, but apparently it's a hardware limitation, does anyone know if the model X has the same slowness to process many UTXOs? Because in theory the nano x hardware has better memory than the predecessor model.

It's both a problem of the Ledger Live and the hardware wallets. If you go back to the link I shared for Jameson Lopp's test, you will notice two different results for Ledger. One with Electrum and one using the HW1 library. The results with Electrum were much better but still very slow compared to competitor devices.

The Nano X should be faster, but again not as fast as other models.

[NeuroticFish]

Nothing  can be done. This is how my old ledger model.works..

I had this same problem with Ledger. Consolidating was incredibly slow. Somehow I believe it has became worse with the time. I don't think I was ever so brave to spend 100+ tx on Ledger, always took smaller amount of them for consolidation.

100 utxo in a transaction is very unlikely for personal uses, even for someone like me
[...]
And the way bitcointalk campaigns works we all tend to accumulate lots of utxo... which is very uncommon.

100+tx is indeed not uncommon for signature campaigns, especially since lately/briefly some had the chance to enroll to different campaign for signature and avatar.

I thought this was a limitation of Ledger Live, but apparently it's a hardware limitation

Yep, it's hardware issue. I've been using mostly Electrum.

I have an old ledger nano S (which they don't sell anymore, and is incompatible with Ledger Recover).

Allegedly. Ledger says it's incompatible. I don't really trust much that comes out of their mouths anymore

I got sick and tired of their ways - errors, things hidden from the customers, lately incredibly odd features - they add up and... yeah.
I no longer use my old Nano S, switched to different hardware. For now it seems faster.

[bitmover]

I have an old ledger nano S (which they don't sell anymore, and is incompatible with Ledger Recover).

Allegedly. Ledger says it's incompatible. I don't really trust much that comes out of their mouths anymore

I got sick and tired of their ways - errors, things hidden from the customers, lately incredibly odd features - they add up and... yeah.
I no longer use my old Nano S, switched to different hardware. For now it seems faster.

I had a problem with my ledger LED visor, which i needed to change. Other than that, I can't complain about my ledger...

Waiting a few minutes to transfer 100+ inputs is not a big deal imo.

I will probably buy a new hardware wallet in a few years, maybe trezor. But for now, I will stick to my old ledger