Ledger Nano S does not show old ETH address anymore

[tyz]

About two/three years ago (in 2017) I used Ledger Nano S in combination with MyEtherWallet to manage some ERC20 assets with one address.

I have not moved the assets for almost 2 years now and also have not connected my ledger Nano with MEW for 2 years. Now I wanted to transfer the ERC-20 tokens and found out that the ETH account is neither displayed in Ledger Nano Live Manager nor after connecting to MEW.

I'm a little bit confused. Were there any technical changes so that it no longer appears? I also realized that MEW only supports m/44'/60'/0' and m/44'/60' format. I remember there were more formats in the past.

Any idea what happened and how I can get access to the address again?  

Before someone asks: I am sure it was legit MEW back then and the assets are still on the address, so nothing was moved.

PS: I know this is Bitcoin section for HW-Wallets and my quesiton is ETH-related. Please move it if it does not fit here.

[1714785786]

1714785786

[NeuroticFish]

Before someone asks

Another rather obvious question to rule out is: are you sure you didn't reset/go for a new seed at some point in the last 2-3 years?

Edit: a clue may be here ( https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/19055/what-is-the-difference-between-m-44-60-0-0-and-m-44-60-0 ); I would get offline IanColeman tool and play with it on ETH branch with the numbers until I'd find that address (obviously I'd also move everything in my Ledger to a new seed).

[AB de Royse777]

I have not moved the assets for almost 2 years now and also have not connected my ledger Nano with MEW for 2 years. Now I wanted to transfer the ERC-20 tokens and found out that the ETH account is neither displayed in Ledger Nano Live Manager nor after connecting to MEW.

Can you remember the address? If yes then check on the block explorer. You can check the list of addresses you have with your nano S.

Try with https://mycrypto.com/ it has same interface like MEW.

PS: Seems like I misunderstood your post and made the first post with irrelevant contents.

[tyz]

Before someone asks

Another rather obvious question to rule out is: are you sure you didn't reset/go for a new seed at some point in the last 2-3 years?

I am absolutely sure. I am managing some other coins with this Ledger Nano S, among other things Bitcoin. So I used it regularly, just not for Ether and ERC20 which have not been touched for two years.

Can you remember the address? If yes then check on the block explorer. You can check the list of addresses you have with your nano S.

Try with https://mycrypto.com/ it has same interface like MEW.

PS: Seems like I misunderstood your post and made the first post with irrelevant contents.

Yes, the address is known and I can look it up on the block explorer. So I know there were no transactions which were not made by me.

[HCP]

I have vague recollections that there were some issues with Ledger Nano S and ETH back in the day... in that the "Ledger Ethereum Chrome Wallet" was using a "non-standard" or, more correctly, "different" derivation path than other wallets... They didn't start using the actual BIP44 standard until Ledger Live I believe.

Indeed, we can see things like this: https://github.com/MyCryptoHQ/MyCrypto/issues/2070

Try looking for your address at: mycrypto.com

The 2 options to look for are, "Ledger (ETH) (m/44'/60'/0')":



and "Default (ETH) (m/44'/60'/0'/0)":


MyCrypto will give you multiple addresses (and show the balance)... it's possible that years ago, you didn't select the (default) "0 index" address... but selected one of the higher index addresses...

If that doesn't work, you might need to select the Custom option and start experimenting with other combinations.



If you're more comfortable with MEW, you can actually click the "Ethereum" title:



And then select "Custom Paths" at the bottom:



Then click on the dropdown box again and select "Add customs paths - custom":



This will allow you to select any custom derivation path that you like:

[tyz]

-snip-

Thank you for the detailed explanation!

The more I read about the topic, the more I am sure that it should be due to the derivation path. I tried the options as described by you but unfortunately without success! I have contacted MEW support and hope that they can help me.

Is it basically possible to determine the derivation path from the provided ETH address?

[HCP]

Is it basically possible to determine the derivation path from the provided ETH address?

No, it is not possible to determine a derivation path from an address.

An ETH address is simply the last 40 chars from a Keccak-256 hash of the ETH private key, with "0x" prepended... There is nothing encoded in this address which would give any indication of the derivation path used to get it... or even if a derivation path was actually used, as it is entirely possible that the private key was generated by coinflips/dice rolls or some other RNG process.