[Bug]: Local File of Recovery Phrase Not Present?

[alex-ppg]

Describe the bug

I created a new MetaMask account but am unable to find the LDB "vault" file of the MetaMask extension in all the paths described in the tutorial: https://support.metamask.io/hc/en-us/articles/360018766351-How-to-recover-your-Secret-Recovery-Phrase

Using Chrome on a Windows 10 machine.

Expected behavior

The LDB files are present in the paths mentioned in the tutorials and I can decrypt them.

Screenshots/Recordings

No response

Steps to reproduce

1. Setup a Chrome browser with multiple profiles
2. Install the MetaMask plugin on one of the Chrome profiles
3. Create a new account on MetaMask
4. Try to find them in the paths mentioned in the tutorial: https://support.metamask.io/hc/en-us/articles/360018766351-How-to-recover-your-Secret-Recovery-Phrase

Error messages or log output

No response

Version

11.7.3

Build type

None

Browser

Chrome

Operating system

Windows

Hardware wallet

No response

Additional context

Recently, my MetaMask started acting as if I have no wallet. This caused the loss of my previous wallet. I tried recovering it by going to the paths specified in your tutorial but did not find the relevant LDB files. I assumed that my wallet was deleted, but this is not the case.

I created a new MetaMask wallet entirely and the LDB files still do not exist. I created several accounts to be sure, and re-opened my browser which loaded the accounts fine on the extension but I cannot find them in my local file system.

This means that either you or Chrome has changed their guidelines and the tutorial needs to be updated.

Severity

No response

[gauthierpetetin]

Hi @httpJunkie , we've assigned this to the DevRel team during the triage session. Let us know if not relevant.
cc @anaamolnar for visibility

[alex-ppg]

Just an update on this issue, your documentation is outdated.

Your plugin will continuously erase and create new files in the directory of the profile under the Local Extension Settings subfolder of MetaMask. This renders it very hard to recover files that have been deleted f.e. due to the computer shutting down in between erasure and write operations.

I managed to find the encrypted vault under a log file (not an ldb file as your documentation states) in a Windows 10 environment and Chrome browser. Additionally, the log file (as all files within the folder) was named with an abnormally high number contradicting your documentation about "low-integers" (f.e. 117961.log).

Once I realized what format the vault was stored under (as your live chats and emails were unhelpful), I managed to recover a corrupted file that had my TX history (the wallet I lost) but the actual vault data was not recovered.

My two recommendations:

• Fix your documentation to note that the file name may be an arbitrary number and that the extension might be either log or ldb.
• Rework how you manage the vault file itself so that it does not get constantly overwritten and rewritten as that is prone to data loss when an unexpected shutdown occurs etc. My wallet was deleted right after I faced a Blue Screen while using the browser, and I am quite confident this was one of the reasons that the wallet was lost.

As an additional note, you can instruct users that the MetaMask files for their respective profile can be located by navigating to chrome://version for Chrome browsers and specifically their Profile Path. For example, my machine has multiple profiles but my primary profile has the vault file stored under Default rather than Profile 1.

[alex-ppg]

Does the MANIFEST-XXXX file hold any potentially valuable data? It seems to be encoded and I see the prefix data a lot of times, so perhaps there is something of value there in relation to the vault.