Vintage Ethereum Testnet and Wallet tests

3 min readAug 16, 2019

An old meta-tutorial with problems solved

I download Test blockchain, create and fund Ethereum Mist wallet account, transact test crypto with my Metamask Ethereum Wallet.

Difficulty: Low

This vintage draft dates from 390 days ago, per Etherscan, around July 2018. I wrote it and then alas set it aside.

Audience: This is a liesurely high level developer piece. It shows what I did, and a few problems I solved. It doesn’t go into details.

Here is an how-to article (2016) on Medium: https://medium.com/@attores/step-by-step-guide-getting-started-with-ethereum-mist-wallet-772a3cc99af4

Problems can be researched

User Q & A https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/

Open issues https://github.com/ethereum/

Take-Away

Start with stable previous versions of software.
Can’t mine for Eth in Light sync mode.
Fast sync mode takes a long time
geth and Mist may stop syncing and have to be restarted.
Mist Wallet Warning: you are on the Test Network. Be careful not to transfer real funds to this account. → Let’s unpack that! Do Ethereum founders cash in on my real funds?

Tools

Ethereum Geth 11.
Wallet: Ethereum Mist 10.

Setting Up

I run Geth from command line to sync to the Ropsten Test Network, with these parameters.

— testnet — networkid 3 — syncmode light — cache 1024

Light mode allows for fastest Blockchain syncing. Ropsten Test is network 3.

If Geth stalls while downloading and syncing to the blockchain, I just click Enter on the cursor line, or kill the process and restart.

Check https://ropsten.etherscan.io/ to see the latest Block Number to which Geth should sync.

Once the last blocks synced, I start and sync Mist to Geth and open the Mist Wallet.

In Mist Wallet, I verify the network is Ropsten, all blocks are synced or syncing from the latest block. I check that I have one or more Peers to sync future wallet transactions.

If Mist Wallet stops syncing, quit and check if Geth has downloaded latest Block, then start Mist again.

Creating Wallet and getting Eth

I create a Wallet account , which just needs a strong password. The copy account number button displays a warning message:

Warning: you are on the Test Network. Be careful not to transfer real funds to this account.

I get one Test Ether deposited in my new account by visiting the Ethereum Ropsten Test Faucet http://faucet.ropsten.be:3001/

I had more luck getting Test Ether from Metamask Faucet https://faucet.metamask.io/ .

*If you already have a Metamask wallet, make sure to connect to the Ropsten network, and create a separate account in Metamask for the Test wallet accounts.

After requesting a few from Metamask without getting greedy*, I have about 15 Ether. I sent some Ether to my Mist Wallet, which can’t directly use the Metamask faucet.

*If too many Ether are requested from the Metamask faucet you are denied, the page shows an error message: “user is greedy”. We’ll see how long they withhold Ethers.

Verifying Deposits

Mist Wallet and Metamask wallet have some test cryptocurrency we can verify the balances in the wallets.

Neither Wallets display deposits, only sent funds, however they are verifiable on the blockchain at the URLs below.

Account credits and debits: https://ropsten.etherscan.io/address/<account number>

Search the blockchain: https://ropsten.etherscan.io/

Wallet Contract accounts

In Mist Wallet I create a Wallet Contract account, which is owned by the Mist Wallet Test account.

A Test Wallet Account:
https://ropsten.etherscan.io/address/0xb40de9847902b5c836ec635d1ad3f712685ecfd9

Test Wallet Contract.
https://ropsten.etherscan.io/address/0x4a9d8C8C48ce584bc23f25A3d8F5aC2cb444a1d9

Sent Test Ether to both accounts.

A Mist Wallet only shows sent funds transactions, not received. Mist Wallet Contract accounts list both deposits and sent amounts transactions.

See What’s the difference between account and wallet contract?: https://www.reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/45xeiw/whats_the_difference_between_account_and_wallet/

I am ready to do a test ICO.