Getting `insufficient funds for gas * price + value` error when performing transaction with another account than Alice

Question

I'd like to use Substrate Frontier as a private blockchain for my current project. I have set up a project using a frontier-template-node build and I am now trying to adjust its settings.

I am currently stuck with issues with accounts I generated:

• In the chain specification file (customSpec.yml), I replaced the sudo account id of Alice by an account id I created. This account is not able to deploy a contract but Alice is still authorized to do it. I get the error Returned error: insufficient funds for gas * price + value while the substrate and EVM balances of the account seems well funded.
• All the user accounts I created are not able to perform a transaction. I get the same error Returned error: insufficient funds for gas * price + value even with a balance of 1,000,000,000 ETH

Here is a sample call I execute on my code:

    // Load contract
    const contract = new web3.eth.Contract(contractAbi, contractAddress, {
      from: signerAddress,
      gasPrice: '0x3B9ACA00',
    });

    // Prepare method transaction
    const encodedMethod = await contract.methods.transfer([userAddress, 100]).encodeABI();

    // Sign transaction
    const methodTx = await web3.eth.accounts.signTransaction(
      {
        from: signerAddress,
        to: contractAddress,
        data: encodedMethod,
        gasPrice: '0x3B9ACA00',
        gas: '0x1000000',
      },
      signerPrivateKey,
    );

    // Send transaction
    const txReceipt = await web3.eth.sendSignedTransaction(methodTx.rawTransaction);

Could you give me some advices to fix this issue?

Answer 1

I finally solved this issue.

The Public key (hex) returned by the substrate command line ./target/release/frontier-template-node key generate --scheme Sr25519 does not worked for the evm accounts configuration in customSpec.yml.

I generated the right public key by calling the privateKeyToAccount function of Web3.js:

import Web3Accounts from 'web3-eth-accounts';
const ethPublicKey = new Web3Accounts().privateKeyToAccount(privateKey).address;

Then the eth balance is correctly assign to my sudo account at the initialization of my local blockchain and I can use it to make transaction and fund other accounts.