Fix undefined accountId property that is causing an Engine failure during initialization

[Cal-L]

What is this about?

We are continuing to see instances of Sentry errors where it shows that Engine is not found. There are currently two variants of the issue that we believe are caused by the same root issue. In one instance, Engine is not found when NetworkController is being accessed, while in the other, KeyringController is being accessed when Engine is not found:

• NetworkController being accessed - https://metamask.sentry.io/issues/6395530333/?environment=production&project=2299799&query=is%3Aunresolved%20issue.priority%3A%5Bhigh%2C%20medium%5D%20dist%3A1637%20engine%20does%20not%20exist&referrer=issue-stream&sort=date&stream_index=0
  • This scenario is a by-product of the App.tsx rendering in the event of an Engine initialization failure. App needs to render since the app needs access to the vault recovery flow. In the future, the App.tsx file will not be rendered when Engine fails and vault recovery flow will be hoisted higher in the stack. The area where this error is happening does not affect user experience since they are on vault recovery.
• KeyringController being accessed - https://metamask.sentry.io/issues/6463179230/?environment=production&project=2299799&query=is%3Aunresolved%20issue.priority%3A%5Bhigh%2C%20medium%5D%20dist%3A1637%20engine%20does%20not%20exist&referrer=issue-stream&sort=date&stream_index=2
  • This scenario happens when biometrics prompts while the engine fails to initialize. Upon success of biometrics, the app runs through auth logic but fails and attempts to lock the app, in which case it accesses KeyringController from engine. Since engine is not available, this error appears. Similar to the first issue, this error does not affect user experience since the user is on the vault recovery flow.

Diving into their stack traces. Ex: https://metamask.sentry.io/issues/trace/94c89e86313d4860971193ff0d352bb7/?environment=production&groupId=6463179230&node=error-21e301158800481db25188e99925cd3d&pageEnd=2025-03-28T05%3A21%3A22.734&pageStart=2025-03-27T05%3A21%3A22.734&project=2299799&query=is%3Aunresolved%20issue.priority%3A%5Bhigh%2C%20medium%5D%20dist%3A1637%20engine%20does%20not%20exist&referrer=issue-stream&sort=date&source=issue_details&stream_index=2&timestamp=1743096082, we can see that in both cases, the underlying error being thrown during Engine.init is accountId being undefined. Furthermore, the error throws in the AccountsController. Lastly, there has been past suspicions that the error is thrown when another controller is using the AccountsController methods.

Some more investigative work is needed to get to the bottom of this issue. Below are some steps to take to get there:

• Collect and record all of the areas where accountId is set on the AccountsController. Record this in a document and attach the link to this issue
• Add logs to these areas whenever the value being set is undefined
• See if there are common errors occurring on Extension - Can indicate an issue related to controller interactions between controllers
• BONUS - Fix area if it's obvious and identified

Scenario

No response

Design

No response

Technical Details

• Collect and record all of the areas where accountId is set on the AccountsController. Record this in a document and attach the link to this issue
• Add logs to these areas whenever the value being set is undefined
• See if there are common errors occurring on Extension - Can indicate an issue related to controller interactions between controllers
• BONUS - Fix area if it's obvious and identified

Threat Modeling Framework

No response

Acceptance Criteria

These are performed

• Collect and record all of the areas where accountId is set on the AccountsController. Record this in a document and attach the link to this issue
• Add logs to these areas whenever the value being set is undefined
• See if there are common errors occurring on Extension - Can indicate an issue related to controller interactions between controllers
• BONUS - Fix area if it's obvious and identified

Stakeholder review needed before the work gets merged

• Engineering (needed in most cases)
• Design
• Product
• QA (automation tests are required to pass before merging PRs but not all changes are covered by automation tests - please review if QA is needed beyond automation tests)
• Security
• Legal
• Marketing
• Management (please specify)
• Other (please specify)

References

No response

[Cal-L]

• Most issues are still account ID being undefined ex. https://metamask.sentry.io/issues/5990881371/events/96f1db80e2484dcab7c6d558540ad39d/?project=2299799
• Most happen when NftController is initialized in Engine with the action AccountsController:getSelectedAccount
• AccountController fails when selectedAccount is undefined
• Possible related to low memory as well

[Cal-L]

• Most issues are accompanied by the migration validate error where it complains internal accounts being empty for the AccountsController. Ex. https://metamask.sentry.io/issues/6271463281/events/7bcf82f528b14d7790e103d1aad4f3b1/?referrer=event-or-group-header
• In the appState, we can see that internalAccounts is in fact an empty object. More importantly, selectedAccount property is missing, which will appear as undefined when it's accessed