Brownie: PRIVATE_KEY issue: ValueError: The private key must be exactly 32 bytes long, instead of 0 bytes

Question

I am trying to run a script in brownie, but I'm running into this error:

ValueError: The private key must be exactly 32 bytes long, instead of 0 bytes.
Terminating local RPC client...

I'm using a .env file with a PRIVATE_KEY environment variable.

What can I do to solve it?

Answer 1

When working with Brownie and private key environment variables, you'll need to make sure a few things are set.

1. In your .env file, you have your PRIVATE_KEY variable set correctly. If using a .env file, it should look something like:

export PRIVATE_KEY='0xasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfas'

If you exported your private key from metamask, you'll want to append a 0x to the start of your key.

2. You'll want to make sure your brownie-config.yaml is set to include a .env file, if that's what you're using to set your environment variable.

In your brownie-config.yaml:

dotenv: .env

3. Then finally, you'll want your environment variable set correctly in your brownie-config.yaml, something like:

wallets:
  from_key: ${PRIVATE_KEY}

Where you are using the appropriate $ and bracket syntax.

Answer 2

your PRIVATE_KEY in .env should be the wallet metamask private key not the encrypted private key showed the step before or the wallet adress. seems =0 that you didn't set up PRIVATE_KEY in .env

Answer 3

In your main script, add

print(os.getenv("PRIVATE_KEY"))

If it prints [None] in the terminal, that mean its not reading your key. Make your its:

export PRIVATE_KEY='0xasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfas' [In Ubuntu]

PRIVATE_KEY='0xasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfasdfas' [In windows]

Make sure to put 0x before the private key & = sign instead of : sign