Topic: Nano Ledger S Battery Question? (Read 689 times)

That's a lot of assumptions. You can never assume you will never get phished or malware, and there is no guarantee Binance will cover any future hacks or losses.

I answered that above. I would probably encrypt it and carry the encrypted seed phrase with me abroad.

It was released on July 26, 2018.

The same thing if something happens to any wallet - restore from back up.

No exchange is good for keeping coins.

So someone who is associated with ledger mentioned this





Then no, we don't repair devices, we ship back new ones. We used to send spare parts (such as the screen, which can easily be replaced) but I don't think we do that any longer - you can still ask though.

I believe in your case a screen replacement would work (the problem is known for some units), but I don't think we're doing that anymore.




Now has there been anyone here who had sent a ledger nano s back to ledger and they returned and fixed it for you a while back?  Or they sent a screen replacement to you and then you fixed the issue?  He seems to say they use to do that... back then.


Has there been anyone here or cases where you tried to fix the screen yourself by doing something or ledger sending you a replacement screen a long time ago and that was the actual issue?

Yes i hear about the phishing and malware.  But when binance got hacked, you say they covered the losses of their customers.  If that is the case, wouldn't that mean as long as you don't get phished or malware on binance... then you are safe since binance covered the hack?  So if more hacks come on binance... will binance cover the losses in the future?


Well I didn't want to keep my seed with me outside the country.  Well i could but how would i get the seed here?  I mean i dont feel good having it on a piece of paper in my luggage if you know what i mean?  Or in my pocket? 


The seed check app, do you know how long that has been around.  Was it around two and a half years ago? 


Airgapped wallet and paper wallet.  Airgap you mean computer right?  But what if something happens to your computer or paper wallet?  Also couldn't a paper wallet get torn apart if you rip it up?


But binance/coinbase is still best exchanges for keeping coins right?

Absolutely. It is not a rare occurrence for individual users to fall victim to phishing or malware scams which results in their accounts being compromised.

Binance itself was hacked for $40 million worth of bitcoin, but they covered the losses and no individual customers lost out because of it.

No, that is reasonable, but if you are going to be away from it for so long then you should make other arrangements to be able to access your bitcoin should your hardware wallet fail (as it has done in your case).

I would either take a back up hardware wallet with you, or encrypt your seed, write it on paper, and take that with you.

If you don't want to use the seed check app, then next time you generate a new seed phrase you can write it down, reset the device, reenter the seed phrase, and check the addresses match. Or recover the seed phrase to a second hardware wallet, and again, check the addresses match.

I use a combination of of airgapped wallets, paper wallets, and hardware wallets, for the bulk of my bitcoin.

There is an app called "Recovery Check" which you can install on your device through Ledger Live under "Manager" tab. It is completely safe. It will ask you to enter your seed on the device and will tell you if it's correct. You can connect your Ledger to a phone charger if you are afraid that your seed might be somehow captured by another device during the recovery check.

Well here is my issue.  Im outside the US the majority of the time.  I go back to visit a few times a year only.  I thought leaving the seed there is fine because I didnt feel safe carrying my seed with me on a piece of paper when traveling.  Such as imagine you go through the airport and suddenly you had an issue and they take your belongings or things like that.  If they have you seed on a piece of paper, if they know what it is, they could hack you. Does that make sense or its complete paranoia?  Like i feel like having your seed with you on a piece of paper even in you personal item isn't that safe.  Now what would be your recommendation for someone in my position.  Basically all year around, Im outside the US.  I come back to the US only few times a year and few weeks each time... so rarely more than month and a half while staying in the US.  How would you get the seed to the outside US country that you stay at.  Back then what i did was literally type my seed on lastpass/keepass and my seed was there... so i didn't need to have physical seed.


Yea back then... i wanted to know if there was way to confirm my seed was right.  Someone said you could download the app on the ledger s but i didnt felt safe since i heard you should never enter your seed in certain places and then i thought... what if the app on ledger s got hacked etc.  Like i heard this with google chrome and play store etc. But how long has that program where it check your seed in nano ledger s been there for?  Has it been there for a long time?  I think it was last year someone said this and i didn't do it because it didn't feel safe to me.



Well how would you suggest i handle this situation with the single point of failure?  I never meant to have 90 percent of my net worth in a single asset... it was much less a while back when the price was low... then it went up etc.  So you say if you had a good amount of btc, you would have gotten two or three nano ledger s and split them a few ways?

Thanks for that picture description.  But i dont think i will do this as that is very extreme.


Yes i heard binance got hacked before but did their customers lose coins though?  Yes hear of mt gox and cryptopia.  But has coinbase/gemini/bitstamp had cases where customers accounts got hacked?  I thought binance hack affected few users only but did those users get reimbursed?  Which accounts got targeted/hacked or was it random?  I recall i heard one specific coin got hacked by users in a big exchange and i believe it was binance... so it was only ppl who had a certain coin?

I wouldn't have landed myself in a position where I needed access to my coins and only had one method of doing so, because as you have just discovered, that becomes a single point of failure. If I was away on holiday for a few weeks, maybe, but if I was going to be away from home for months or years then I would have figured out a secure way to take a couple of back ups with me.

No, you are correct. The critical points were to confirm the seed phrase when you first wrote it down, and to arrange to take it with you when you left the country, both of which it is obviously far too late for now. Whether you go back now or in a few weeks is more-or-less irrelevant, provided your seed phrase isn't compromised/stolen/damaged/destroyed in the intervening few weeks.

Again, I wouldn't have landed myself in the position of a single point of failure preventing me from accessing my bitcoin. I also wouldn't have 90% of my net worth in any single asset or stored on any single device or in any single location. Once you get all this sorted, you need to re-examine your general security practices.

Once the board and all the chips are in tiny pieces (or "dust" if you hit it long enough)... disolved in acid... or a big blobby molten charred mess... it's fairly safe to assume the secure element is destroyed.

The internals aren't much... pry open the case before starting and the point of destruction of the internals would be fairly obvious.



Yes, Binance got hacked once: https://www.wired.com/story/hack-binance-cryptocurrency-exchange/

There have been other "big name" hacks like Bitfenix, Cryptopia and of course Mt Gox... and a lot of smaller name exchanges that have been hacked over the years. Have a look here: https://selfkey.org/list-of-cryptocurrency-exchange-hacks/

There is a reason people say "don't leave large amounts on exchanges"... as always: "not your keys, not your coins."

Hi okay didn't know about aliexpresss.


Okay make sense that you destroy it as a small price to pay.  But i paid over one thirty for it though which was a lot for me.


How do you know the secure element inside is destroyed?  How would you know?




Also im curious about you and others.  But if you have a good amount of btc in your wallet and this happened... would almost all of you immediately head back to the US and get the seed and then try it to see if its correct?  I basically have everything there.  So I was going to head back this week.  I was planning to head back to the US anyways in a few weeks but these few weeks, I had things to do here for the next few weeks.  But I did thought... well if i go back this week for few weeks later, if my seed where i store it is correct or not... its the same result whether i go back this week or few weeks from now.  Is that bad logic?  Again, i did not confirm my seed when i wrote it years ago but i did make sure i wrote it correctly when doing it. 


Like if you guys had almost everything in your wallet such as almost all your money to your name to this and this happened say like 80 percent or 90 percent of everything you had, would you be thinking about it day/night until you get access to your seed to see if it works?  When this happened and i noticed my nano ledger s did not turn on today, i was freaked out but not that freaked out because i knew the screen had issues with the dimming.


I don't know why but I regretted not sending the btc to coinbase/binance in the meantime when my nano ledger s had that dimmed light.  I mean have you heard of cases of coinbase or binance accounts getting hacked?  I keep some coins there in binance but very little but i never felt concerned of my funds in binance.

Almost any electronics store or mobile phone store should be able to sell you one. They sell them everywhere here, like supermarkets, gas stations, dollar stores... it's just a very basic, very common cable... Pretty much any android mobile phone would have come with one as a charging cable (prior to the move to USB-C which is really only the newer devices).

https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=micro+usb+cable


Correct. For my piece of mind, securely destroying a $50 device is a small price to pay.


Fire, a hammer, acid... take your pick. Just need to make sure that the secure element inside the device is destroyed.

I took a look on amazon.com and the cable you mention seem to cost ten dollars... the cheaper one on amazon is like 5 dollars.  Of course i can't buy it now since im outside the US.


But where do you find these for one - two dollars?


Okay that idea with ziplock bag and those silica packs is interesting.


Well, the reason you wouldn't return it is because of security reasons right?  Like if you send it back to them, and somehow they enter the pin correctly even with three tries, then you are at risk?


How would you securely destroy the old one?


Well if you return old one and they send new one... then say you have your coins in the new one you bought.  Then once they send you a replacement, then you could send the coins from the new one you bought... to the replacement one... then wouldn't you be secure?  But during the time they have it until you receive it... well there is a security issue if somehow they got into your broken nano ledger?

No. That will be a "lightning" connector... completely different.


Cable shouldn't cost more than $1-$2... so it's not a huge expense if it turns out that the original cable is fine and the device is just dead.


It really makes no difference. Like I said, if it's not airtight, moisture will get in. You'd be better putting it in a ziplock bag or other airtight container with some of those silica packs if you're concerned about humidity.


Personally, I wouldn't bother sending the old one back... once I had a new device, and had restored using the seed mnemonic, I would (securely) destroy the old one.

Hi.  I had no idea it was just a micro usb cable.  Thought it was a special ledger nano cable.  Also i don't think i ever used a micro usb cable before.  I can't use my iphone charging cable for it right?


Do you think its worth buying one right now where im located now to try to see if that would work? 


Well would you say its better keeping it in a box as oppose to having it in a fanny pack zipped up if my apartment is humid?  Again almost all apartments here are humid where located... no escaping that unless you want AC on all the time. 


Yea i know i should have gotten a replacement months ago but issue was i was outside the us... and still am at the moment.


You agree best option is buy a new one first and then put the seed in right?  Then if seed works, send back old nano ledger for a replacement so i have an extra one?  Like don't just send the old one back to a new one for replacement first right?  I mean, i know i could type in my seed in electrum wallet on my laptop but i haven't used or keep btc in it for a while but i know the wallet is generally safe.  I just haven't downloaded the new version of electrum for long time because i kept my coins in my ledger.

It's not a "special" cable... it's just a standard micro-USB cable... they're available pretty much everywhere.


Unless it is an airtight box (which the ledger ones are not), then there is still a way for moisture to get in... that's the thing with electronics... quite often they will work "fine" over extended periods of time while humidity is busy taking it's toll on the internal components... until one day "poof" it stops working. The dim screen was probably a good indication that your device was defective and/or slowly dying. You should have sourced a replacement months ago when the issues with your device first became apparent.


You're asking for absolute answers to scenarios with multiple, unknown variables... the only way you'll know 100% what happened to the device is if a suitably qualified technician pulls it apart and inspects it. Humidity is one option, a defective unit with bad components or some latent manufacturing flaw is another.


Of course, you'll void any warranty by physically opening the device and attempting any repairs.

Speaking of humidity, what if you keep your nano ledger s in the box it already came with?  Does humidity affect that or it would have no effect if its inside the box?  I put my nano ledger in like a fanny pack zipped up.  But again, I left it there for a long time before this and had none of these issues.


Where do you guys store your ledger nano then?  I mean it could be humidity but then again i read of ppl who said their devices dimmed and dimmed and won't turn on and none of them mentioned humidity.  But humidity most likely played a role here? 


But is there any risk of going to a repair shop or trying to find someone that could fix it if it indeed doesn't work anymore?  But doing this would mean you definitely can't get a replacement right?  I will most likely buy a new one from ledger... then send this one old back to them for a new one.  So i have two nano ledger s.  That is probably best option?  But yea i like to know if there has been cases where someone couldn't turn their nano ledger on for a while... then got it to work again.

I posted on reddit and a person who appears to be related to ledger says they would replace the device but i didn't hear anything about them fixing it and sending the old one back to you... which is what i want to know if that is possible.


I would get the same nano ledger s... i mean what are my other options?  Its basically nano ledger s or x or trezor right?  I heard other brands but those don't sound good.


Well i have my seed but i dont have it on me at the moment, its back in the US.  And i mentioned this as well... i never tested the seed ever.



Yea the ledger doesn't turn on when connected to my laptop.  Do you think its possible its a cable issue and getting a new cable could fix it?  But where would i buy a new cable?  Again, im outside the US at the moment.


I plan to fix these issues when im back in the US.


Yea i did thought... sending a hardware wallet to them and them fixing it and sending it back to you... even if its ledger... couldn't their technicians compromise it somehow and thats why ppl say only get sealed nano ledger s?

Sounds like the device is most likely dead. I vaguely recall, from previous statements you have made, that you live in a relatively hot/humid environment... it's possible that the high humidity has killed your device.

Your options are:

1. Contact Ledger support and see if there is anything they can do.
or
2. Buy a replacement hardware wallet (can certainly understand if you chose a different manufacturer! ) and restore from the seed mnemonic backup
or
3. Restore your seed mnemonic into a BIP39 wallet like Electrum


I would suspect that there isn't much Ledger can really do to help... if the device isn't even powering on, the options for recovery are very limited... and I'm not sure I would want to send an "initialised" hardware wallet to anyone anyway.

If you are having issues with support, you might also want to post on the "LedgerWallet" reddit, there support team are way more active over there.

Okay I will contact ledger support.  The thing is months ago when i had the dim screen issue, i contacted them about it and they said they will reply back to me.  They never did.  So during that time, I didn't do anything since I was out of the country and still at the moment... outside the US.  So i figure i buy a new one when i head back to the us but have not.


Well my screen had no issue for 1.5 years or so, then i saw the dimmed screen and was concerned.  When i saw dimmed screen, i recall connecting it to my laptop a few times after it... it still worked in the sense that you could enter your pin etc but the screen is very hard to read... so i didn't do any firmware update or do any transfers etc.  Then now i see it doesn't even turn on.


Yea i want to know has there been cases of someone sending nano ledger back to them... they fix it... and it doesn't reset... that is the big question here.  If so, that would be good.  Someone mentioned you could ask ledger if they could repair the screen ... but again im not sure if its the screen itself or the device itself.  Well i have my seeds written down and its back home in the US.. but the thing is i never entered my seed on any device to confirm it.  That is a concern.


I will definitely buy a new device once i head back to the US.  I am planning to head back to the US very soon because of this.  I'm guessing best advice is don't do anything to the ledger s... buy new device, enter seed on the new nano ledger s.  That is the only thing i can do now right?  My plan originally months ago when the nano ledger s screen was dimmed was when i go back to the US, enter my seed on the dimmed screen just to confirm it works... then buy a new nano ledger s.  But since it doesn't turn on now... i wanted to know if there was a way to turn on the screen somehow.  Because someone says nano ledger might be able to repair it but could they repair it without resetting the device. 


Anyone else have advice based on what i mentioned here?

I'm ignorant as to how long Ledger has been in business, but I've been reading this section of the forum for over a year now and have never heard of anyone sending their device back because of screen issues--so my guess is that you're probably not going to get any replies to that question (though for your sake I hope I'm wrong).

That sucks that you're having all these problems with your Nano S, and hopefully you'll get it all sorted out.  At least you have your seed words written down, so things could be a hell of a lot worse. 

Is buying a new device an option for you?