Bitcoin: Witness program hash mismatch stack size is zero

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Bitcoin Signature Error: Witness Hash Error

As a Bitcoin developer, you have probably encountered issues when trying to sign transactions using private keys on your local machine. One common error that can occur is the “Witness Hash Error” issue, which prevents your script from validating and signing transactions correctly.

In this article, we will delve into the details of the issue and provide a step-by-step guide to resolving it.

Issue

When you try to sign a raw transaction with your private key on Bitcoin Core (BTC-Testnet) using Regtest, you may encounter the following error:

Witness Hash Error

This error usually occurs when the script is unable to verify that the witness hash matches the expected value of the transaction. This can be caused by a number of factors, including:

  • Incorrect or missing script hashes
  • Insufficient private key installation
  • Incorrect or corrupt transactions
  • Script errors or syntax issues

Troubleshooting steps

You can troubleshoot this issue and resolve the Witness hash error by doing the following:

1. Check your private key settings

Make sure your private key is set up correctly in Bitcoin Core. Here are a few things to check:

  • Make sure you have installed the bitcoin-qt package and verify its installation.
  • Check that your private key file (usually located at $HOME/.Bitcoin/privkey.json) contains valid script hashes for all scripts, including the transaction you are trying to sign.

2. Check the transaction details

Gather more information about the transaction you are trying to sign:

  • Transaction details: Make sure the transaction hash value is correct and matches the expected value.
  • Script debugging

    : Run your script with the “–debug” flag to get detailed output that can help identify potential problems.

Example command:

bitcoin-qt --regtest -txindex --debug -o myscript tx

3. Check Witness Program Hashes

Make sure the witness program hashes for all scripts in your script are correct:

  • Get script hash

    : Run bitcoin-qt --list-scripts to list all scripts with their corresponding hashes.

  • Check script hashes: Make sure the script hash for each script matches the expected value.

Example command:

bitcoin-qt --regtest -txindex --debug -o myscript tx

4. Run the script with debug output

Run the script using the “–debug” flag to generate detailed debug output:

* bitcoin-qt –regtest -txindex –debug -o myscript tx`

This will show a detailed list of transactions, including their hashes and the scripts used.

5. Update the script (optional)

If you suspect that the script itself is incorrect or outdated, update the script to ensure that it matches the latest available version:

  • Update the script: Run “git pull” or use a package manager such as pip to update the script to the latest version.

Example:

git clone 
cd scripthash
git checkout

6. Rerun the script with the corrected script hashes

Once you have fixed all the hashing issues in the script, rerun the script to ensure that it produces the correct transaction output.

Conclusion

In this article, we went through the steps to resolve the “Witness program hash mismatch” error in Bitcoin Core when signing transactions with private keys. By confirming the private key settings, reviewing the transaction details, verifying the witness program hashes, running the scripts with the corrected output, updating the scripts (if necessary), and rerunning the scripts with the correct script hashes, you should be able to overcome this issue and successfully sign raw transactions using Regtest.

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