Metamask: ethers web3provider can’t connect to metamask the second time

Metamask Connection Issue: Unable to Connect to Web3Provider Second Time

As a developer building a React NFT marketplace on Polygon, you’ve probably encountered the frustration of having connectivity issues with your web3 provider. In this article, we’ll delve into the details of why Metamask/web3provider fails to connect a second time and provide guidance on how to resolve this issue.

Problem:

When a user creates an NFT on our platform, they are prompted to connect their Metamask wallet to interact with it. However, after successfully connecting the first time, the web3 provider fails to reconnect a second time, leading to connectivity issues when trying to create, purchase, or relist an NFT.

Why is this happening?

Several factors contribute to this issue:

• Web3Provider Reconnection Mechanism: Web3 providers like MetaMask and others have a built-in reconnection mechanism that attempts to reconnect to the wallet after it has been closed. This process can be intermittent, causing issues when a connection is already established.

• Wallet Session Timeout: When a user closes their wallet, a session timeout can prevent the web3 provider from automatically reconnecting. This wait time is usually set to 60 seconds by default, but can vary depending on the wallet and operating system.

• Network Outages

  : Network outages or DNS resolution issues between the wallet and our platform can cause connectivity issues.

Workarounds:

To resolve this issue, we recommend implementing the following workarounds:

• Implement a reconnect mechanism: Introduce an API endpoint that listens for reconnect requests from the web3 provider. When the user closes their wallet, send a request to this endpoint to initiate a reconnect.

• Use a Web3Provider with advanced options: Use a web3 provider such as MetaMask’s wallet-adapter or ethers.js, which provides more control over the reconnection process and allows for better optimization.

• Implement Session Timeout: Set a session timeout for the wallet to prevent it from being closed unnecessarily, ensuring that reconnection attempts can occur without interruption.

Example code:

Here’s an example of how you can implement a reconnection mechanism using MetaMask’s wallet-adapter and ethers.js:

import { WalletAdapter } from "@metamask/web3-provider";

import { ethers } from "ethers";


const walletAdapter = new WalletAdapter();


export default async function connectWallet() {

  try {

    const provider = await walletAdapter.connect();

    // Use the connected provider for the following operations
} catch (error) {
console.error("Error connecting to wallet:", error);
// Introduce a reconnection attempt after a short delay
setTimeout(connectWallet, 5000).catch(() => null);
}
}

In this example, we use connect to establish a connection to the Metamask provider and store it in the provider variable. We then try to connect again using connect after a 5 second delay. If an error occurs during the reconnection, we log the error and introduce another reconnection attempt.

By implementing these solutions or modifying your existing code, you should be able to resolve the issue of connecting to Metamask/web3provider for the second time when creating, purchasing, or relisting NFTs on our React NFT marketplace.