Troubleshooting

Troubleshoot and errors you are encountering when creating a Decentralized Identifier (DID) using Veramo.

This guide provides common errors and potential fixes for them if you encountered errors when creating a DID.

1. When generating keys along with a DIDDoc template

When you try to generate keys along with DIDDoc template using command below

veramo execute -m cheqdGenerateDidDoc --argsJSON '{"verificationMethod": "Ed25519VerificationKey2020", "methodSpecificIdAlgo": "uuid", "network": "testnet"}'

If you encounter an error below

Unexpected token v in JSON at position 1

Create a .json file (e.g. name it something like identity-keys-on-the-fly-with-did-docs.json in same working directory level).

Copy and paste the content from below into your newly created .json file. You can choose from any of the inputs and arguments below:

verificationMethod

• Ed25519VerificationKey2020

• JsonWebKey2020

• Ed25519VerificationKey2018

methodSpecificIdAlgo

• base58btc

• uuid

network

• mainnet

• testnet

For example:

{
  "verificationMethod": "Ed25519VerificationKey2020",
  "methodSpecificIdAlgo": "uuid",
  "network": "testnet"
}

Then, instead of passing it as argument, we'll pass it as a file. Use command below to do it.

veramo execute -m cheqdGenerateDidDoc --argsFile identity-keys-on-the-fly-with-did-docs.json

The above command will output something like this (i.e. a template DID DOC with the keys)

{ argsFile: 'identity-keys-on-the-fly-with-did-docs.json' }

Method:  cheqdGenerateDidDoc

Arguments:  {
  "verificationMethod": "Ed25519VerificationKey2020",
  "methodSpecificIdAlgo": "uuid",
  "network": "testnet"
}

Result : {
  "didDoc": {
    "context": [],
    "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590",
    "controller": [
      "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590"
    ],
    "authentication": [
      "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590#key-1"
    ],
    "assertionMethod": [],
    "capabilityInvocation": [],
    "capabilityDelegation": [],
    "keyAgreement": [],
    "alsoKnownAs": [],
    "verificationMethod": [
      {
        "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590#key-1",
        "type": "Ed25519VerificationKey2020",
        "controller": "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590",
        "publicKeyMultibase": "z6MkuBcREn1LjuDCe9FfSa7WLa3yY51KFoSEg2fUifzQqVy1"
      }
    ],
    "service": []
  },
  "keys": {
    "publicKeyHex": "074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
    "privateKeyHex": "84ecb7d289dd5c5e82071f8a16503ba5d7b5b3174a619186f430918a6ab00e3b074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
    "kid": "074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
    "type": "Ed25519"
  }
}

Then you can go back to your payload.json file (if you didn't have one you can simply create one manually, and paste content below as template) which should be something like this at first.

{
  "kms": "local",
  "alias": "veramo-specific-alias-refers-to-did",
  "document": {}, // DIDDoc
  "keys": [
    {
      "publicKeyHex": "<public_key_in_hex_encoding>",
      "privateKeyHex": "<private_key_in_hex_encoding>",
      "kid": "<equal_to_public_key_hex>",
      "type": "Ed25519"
    },
    {
      // add additional key(s) if required
    }
  ]
}

Then you're going to update keys and document section of it (payload.json) with keys and didDoc you generated in above step.

After populating keys and document section. Your payload.json file should look something like this:

{
  "kms": "local",
  "alias": "your-alias",
  "document": {
    "context": [],
    "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590",
    "controller": ["did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590"],
    "authentication": ["did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590#key-1"],
    "assertionMethod": [],
    "capabilityInvocation": [],
    "capabilityDelegation": [],
    "keyAgreement": [],
    "alsoKnownAs": [],
    "verificationMethod": [
      {
        "id": "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590#key-1",
        "type": "Ed25519VerificationKey2020",
        "controller": "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590",
        "publicKeyMultibase": "z6MkuBcREn1LjuDCe9FfSa7WLa3yY51KFoSEg2fUifzQqVy1"
      }
    ],
    "service": []
  },
  "keys": [
    {
      "publicKeyHex": "074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
      "privateKeyHex": "84ecb7d289dd5c5e82071f8a16503ba5d7b5b3174a619186f430918a6ab00e3b074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
      "kid": "074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
      "type": "Ed25519"
    }
  ],
  "versionId": [
    "<uuid>" // optional
    ],
  "fee": {
    "amount": [{
      "denom": "ncheq",
      "amount": "50000000000"
      }],
    "gas": "400000",
    "payer": "cheqd1rnr5jrt4exl0samwj0yegv99jeskl0hsxmcz96"
  }
}

Assuming you have enough ncheq tokens inside your wallet, you can now run the command below to create your DID.

veramo execute -m cheqdCreateIdentifier --argsFile path/to/payload.json

If the above cmd resulted something like this:

Account does not exist on chain. Send some tokens there before trying to query sequence.

This means you don't have enough tokens in your wallet.

You can go to cheqd's testnet faucet to get your account some test tokens.

After successfully creating your DID, you should see something like this:

Result : {
  "did": "did:cheqd:testnet:3e6bd814-6851-4c8a-b114-c64f035ef590",
  "controllerKeyId": "074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
  "keys": [
    {
      "type": "Ed25519",
      "kid": "074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
      "publicKeyHex": "074035480cdcf09c33b1e8066deb55c75822c8c3b27f1c100717eb413bc08e06",
      "meta": {
        "algorithms": [
          "Ed25519",
          "EdDSA"
        ]
      },
      "kms": "local"
    }
  ],
  "services": [],
  "provider": "did:cheqd:testnet",
  "alias": "your-alias"
}

Notice, controllerKeyId is now the publicKeyHex you generated the firstly. i.e did is know associated to you via publickKeyHex or you're the controller of this the DID you created. 😄