TypeError: Cannot set property 'method' of undefined when using WebsocketProvider

Question

I'm using:

• web3 v0.20.6
• web3-providers-ws v1.0.0-beta.34

First question - can web3-providers-ws be used with web3 v0.20.*?

Second question (problem) - I get an error when probably trying to send transaction (reading and watching events through this provider is totally fine).

Pull request: https://github.com/ethereum-alarm-clock/timenode-core/pull/146

Working HTTP provider E2E tests:

https://travis-ci.org/ethereum-alarm-clock/timenode-core/jobs/406823597

Failing WS provider E2E tests:

https://travis-ci.org/ethereum-alarm-clock/timenode-core/jobs/406823603

Actual error:

5 passing (4s)
  3 failing
  1) ScheduleTx
       schedules a basic transaction:
     TypeError: Cannot set property 'method' of undefined
      at WebsocketProvider._addResponseCallback (node_modules/web3-providers-ws/src/index.js:197:39)
      at WebsocketProvider.send (node_modules/web3-providers-ws/src/index.js:252:10)
      at RequestManager.send (node_modules/web3/lib/web3/requestmanager.js:58:32)
      at Eth.get [as accounts] (node_modules/web3/lib/web3/property.js:107:62)
      at Object.<anonymous> (test/e2e/TestScheduleTx.ts:75:34)
      at Generator.next (<anonymous>)
      at fulfilled (test/e2e/TestScheduleTx.ts:4:58)
      at <anonymous>
      at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:188:7)

The only difference between HTTP provider and WS provider is using ws://localhost:5454 instead of http://localhost:8545. RPC I'm talking to is ganache-cli 6.1.6.

Answer 1

Make sure you have ganache-cli@beta installed

You have to hack around the send and sendAsync issue when setting provider.

so:

export const setProvider = (provider: any) => 
    Contracts.concat(HumanFriendlyToken).forEach((contract) => {
        contract.setProvider(provider)
        if (typeof contract.currentProvider.sendAsync !== "function") {
            contract.currentProvider.sendAsync = function() {
                return contract.currentProvider.send.apply(contract.currentProvider, arguments)
            }
        }
    })

^ Make sure NOT to use an arrow () => function above as it binds this to the scope and we dont want that.

Should work after that

Answer 2

Are you aware that the API for RPC and WS is different? Not sure if ganache supports this, with the "normal" geth you need to start it like geth --ws. That will bind the websocket API to port 8546 per default.