ValueError: {'code': -32000, 'message': 'invalid sender'}

Question

I'm trying to transfer some test ether from one Metamask address to another using the private key that I exported from it. But it always return a error code of -32000 with a message of 'Invalid sender'.

import web3 
import json
from eth_account import Account
from web3 import Web3
w3 = Web3(Web3.HTTPProvider('https://ropsten.infura.io/v3/apiKey'))
acct = Account.privateKeyToAccount('Private key from Metamask')
nonce = w3.eth.getTransactionCount(acct.address)
transaction = {'
to' : toAccount,
'value': 1000000000,
'gas': 2000000,
'gasPrice': 234567897654321,
'nonce': nonce,
'chainId': 1
}
key = acct.privateKey
signed = w3.eth.account.signTransaction(transaction, key)
w3.eth.sendRawTransaction(signed.rawTransaction)

Answer 1

Usually, error -32000 means that the transaction signature is wrong.

The issue is chainId, because chainId is important during the transaction signing. Basically, your Python code signs the transaction with chainId: 1, but the infura ropsten node does not recognize the signature, because it expects chainId: 3.

1 is mainnet's chain id.

For ropsten you should use chain id 3. You can find list of network ids here.

P. S.

It's unrelated, but you only need 21000 gas to do a simple ether transfer and you probably should get your gasPrice from web3.