Concerns regarding Specter flooding bitcoin core debug.log with "scriptPubKey Manager"

[cybern0id]

Hi folks,

I'm hoping someone will be able to help me to understand and to alleviate my concerns regarding entries flooding my bitcoin core node debug log when using Specter.

I recently moved my bitcoins to a Ledger Nano X hardware wallet, some into the default Ledger mnemonic based wallet and some into the passphrase wallet (i.e. one that uses the standard 24 word mnemonic plus an additional user passphrase).

I set up Specter to communicate with my bitcoin node, running on a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB with 64 bit Debian derived Raspberry Pi OS, so that I could manage the Ledger passphrase wallet (Ledger Live + ledger satstack won't do this as far as I can determine).

First I tried Specter running on the same host as the bitcoin full node, communicating via RPC over localhost. I used Specter web interface to create a single key wallet using my device and to facilitate the coin transfers. I didn't use address #0, instead opting to start with address # 1. After discovering the debug.log entries I also tried running Specter desktop on my Linux laptop, communicating via RPC over my home network. In both scenarios I get these log entries, sometimes as frequently as every 30 seconds, other times every 10 minutes.

2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] External scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 0 does not exist
2021-04-10T21:18:17Z [specter/wallet1] Internal scriptPubKey Manager for output type 1 does not exist

I've also noticed that when closing Specter, either the desktop app or the python server, my Specter wallet remains "loaded" in the bitcoin core node. Shouldn't Specter execute something like bitcoin-cli -rpcwallet=specter/wallet1 unloadwallet before closing for example?

Any advice gratefully received, thank you!

[ben-kaufman]

Hi, regarding unloading wallets, we intentionally do unload the wallets by default since it could lead to wallets getting out of sync in pruned nodes, and in any case, I don't see a reason most users would want to unload them on closing Specter (also possible to just restart).

Regading the messages, I've seen them, seems to be related to the new native descriptor wallets on Core v21, but still couldn't figure out why it gives the logs, but it seems to be harmless.

[cybern0id]

Thanks for the help and advice. I'll ignore those log messages for now - it's reassuring to hear I'm not the only one seeing them.

Regarding unloading the wallet - after quitting Specter Desktop (v. 1.3.0) on my laptop, the wallet remains loaded in my Bitcoin core server and I have to manually unload it. The only entries in my bitcoin.conf file relating to wallets are the following:

disablewallet=0
main.wallet=wallet.dat

You say that you do intentionally unload the wallet by default or did you mean "do not"?

[ben-kaufman]

Oh sorry I meant do not

[cybern0id]

OK, thanks for you help and advice.