Wallet signing failures
Diagnose a wallet that will not sign, by capability, encoding, and signature hash flag.
Universe implementation Verified 2026-08-31
Describes what a Bitcoin Universe service actually does today. It is not a statement about the protocol in general.
- Page ID
-
guides/wallet-signing-failures - Normative authority
- Universe implementation documentation
- Networks
- mainnet
- Documentation version
- 2026.08
- Audience
- holder, developer, integrator
- Owner
- bitcoin-universe-docs
- Sources
-
- Universe ARC-20 index and Marketplace v1 authority
at
670030e50071private repository
- Universe ARC-20 index and Marketplace v1 authority
at
- Known limitations
-
- Provider capabilities vary between wallets and versions. Discover capability before building, rather than after a failure.
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The four categories
Section titled “The four categories”Almost every signing failure is one of these.
Capability. The wallet does not support the thing you asked for: a script type, a signature hash flag, a PSBT feature, or message signing.
Encoding. The PSBT is a form the wallet cannot read, or is missing information it needs.
Scope. The signature hash flag is not one the wallet will produce, or not one you should accept.
State. The wallet is locked, disconnected, on the wrong network, or on a different account.
Diagnosing, in order
Section titled “Diagnosing, in order”- Is the wallet unlocked and connected? Reconnect and try again.
- Is it on the right network? A mainnet PSBT presented to a testnet account fails.
- Is the account the one that owns the input? Check the derivation path.
- Does the input carry everything the wallet needs? Previous output script and value, derivation information, and for Taproot the internal key and merkle root.
- Is the signature hash flag supported? Ask the provider what it supports rather than guessing.
- Is the PSBT encoding one the provider accepts? Providers differ on hex against base64.
- Is it sign only or sign and broadcast? Some providers broadcast automatically. Know which before you sign.
What you should refuse to sign
Section titled “What you should refuse to sign”- A PSBT whose outputs you cannot see in full, with scripts and values.
- A signature hash flag that does not commit to the outputs you care about.
- A swap where the payment output to you is not bound exactly.
- Anything where the wallet cannot tell you which inputs are coloured.
For integrators
Section titled “For integrators”Discover capability first. Ask the provider what script types, flags, and encodings it supports, then build for that. Normalise errors so a user sees the category rather than a raw provider message.
See wallet integration.
After a failed signature
Section titled “After a failed signature”Nothing was broadcast, so nothing happened. Rebuild for the capability the wallet actually has, or use a different wallet.