Simple Open Auction example contract in Solidity docs doesn't pay beneficiary - ethereum

Question

I tried the Simple Open Auction example (https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/v0.4.24/solidity-by-example.html#simple-open-auction) from the Solidity docs with ganache-cli and truffle. In migrations/2_deploy_contracts.js I set up:
var SimpleAuction = artifacts.require("./SimpleAuction.sol");
module.exports = function(deployer) {
deployer.deploy(SimpleAuction, 300, "0xe6ebc74aa685527a83c9e0df01b21acf0a1e8286");
};
With "0xe6ebc74aa685527a83c9e0df01b21acf0a1e8286" the address of account 1 in ganache.
In truffle console, I executed the following commands to simulate an auction (and I waited 300 seconds before calling auction.auctionEnd(), which succeeded):
auction = SimpleAuction.at(SimpleAuction.address)
account1 = web3.eth.accounts[1]
account2 = web3.eth.accounts[2]
account3 = web3.eth.accounts[3]
account4 = web3.eth.accounts[4]
auction.bid({from: account2, value: web3.toWei(10, "ether")})
auction.bid({from: account3, value: web3.toWei(13, "ether")})
auction.bid({from: account4, value: web3.toWei(15, "ether")})
auction.withdraw({from: account2})
auction.withdraw({from: account3})
auction.auctionEnd()
web3.fromWei(web3.eth.getBalance(account1).toString(), "ether")
web3.fromWei(web3.eth.getBalance(account2).toString(), "ether")
web3.fromWei(web3.eth.getBalance(account3).toString(), "ether")
web3.fromWei(web3.eth.getBalance(account4).toString(), "ether")
After this, the balances are:
100
99.9936296
99.9945537
84.9945537
Account 4 has won the auction and paid 15 eth, but I expected account 1 to have a balance of 115 eth, because this account is the beneficiary. I suppose the example code, which I copied verbatim, doesn't have a bug, so what am I doing wrong here?
The contract code is:
pragma solidity ^0.4.22;
contract SimpleAuction {
// Parameters of the auction. Times are either
// absolute unix timestamps (seconds since 1970-01-01)
// or time periods in seconds.
address public beneficiary;
uint public auctionEnd;
// Current state of the auction.
address public highestBidder;
uint public highestBid;
// Allowed withdrawals of previous bids
mapping(address => uint) pendingReturns;
// Set to true at the end, disallows any change
bool ended;
// Events that will be fired on changes.
event HighestBidIncreased(address bidder, uint amount);
event AuctionEnded(address winner, uint amount);
// The following is a so-called natspec comment,
// recognizable by the three slashes.
// It will be shown when the user is asked to
// confirm a transaction.
/// Create a simple auction with `_biddingTime`
/// seconds bidding time on behalf of the
/// beneficiary address `_beneficiary`.
constructor(
uint _biddingTime,
address _beneficiary
) public {
beneficiary = _beneficiary;
auctionEnd = now + _biddingTime;
}
/// Bid on the auction with the value sent
/// together with this transaction.
/// The value will only be refunded if the
/// auction is not won.
function bid() public payable {
// No arguments are necessary, all
// information is already part of
// the transaction. The keyword payable
// is required for the function to
// be able to receive Ether.
// Revert the call if the bidding
// period is over.
require(
now <= auctionEnd,
"Auction already ended."
);
// If the bid is not higher, send the
// money back.
require(
msg.value > highestBid,
"There already is a higher bid."
);
if (highestBid != 0) {
// Sending back the money by simply using
// highestBidder.send(highestBid) is a security risk
// because it could execute an untrusted contract.
// It is always safer to let the recipients
// withdraw their money themselves.
pendingReturns[highestBidder] += highestBid;
}
highestBidder = msg.sender;
highestBid = msg.value;
emit HighestBidIncreased(msg.sender, msg.value);
}
/// Withdraw a bid that was overbid.
function withdraw() public returns (bool) {
uint amount = pendingReturns[msg.sender];
if (amount > 0) {
// It is important to set this to zero because the recipient
// can call this function again as part of the receiving call
// before `send` returns.
pendingReturns[msg.sender] = 0;
if (!msg.sender.send(amount)) {
// No need to call throw here, just reset the amount owing
pendingReturns[msg.sender] = amount;
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
/// End the auction and send the highest bid
/// to the beneficiary.
function auctionEnd() public {
// It is a good guideline to structure functions that interact
// with other contracts (i.e. they call functions or send Ether)
// into three phases:
// 1. checking conditions
// 2. performing actions (potentially changing conditions)
// 3. interacting with other contracts
// If these phases are mixed up, the other contract could call
// back into the current contract and modify the state or cause
// effects (ether payout) to be performed multiple times.
// If functions called internally include interaction with external
// contracts, they also have to be considered interaction with
// external contracts.
// 1. Conditions
require(now >= auctionEnd, "Auction not yet ended.");
require(!ended, "auctionEnd has already been called.");
// 2. Effects
ended = true;
emit AuctionEnded(highestBidder, highestBid);
// 3. Interaction
beneficiary.transfer(highestBid);
}
}
When I call auction.auctionEnd() before the 300 seconds, I get an exception "Auction not yet ended", which is what it is supposed to do:
truffle(development)> auction.auctionEnd()
Error: VM Exception while processing transaction: revert Auction not yet ended.
at XMLHttpRequest._onHttpResponseEnd (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/truffle/build/webpack:/~/xhr2/lib/xhr2.js:509:1)
at XMLHttpRequest._setReadyState (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/truffle/build/webpack:/~/xhr2/lib/xhr2.js:354:1)
at XMLHttpRequestEventTarget.dispatchEvent (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/truffle/build/webpack:/~/xhr2/lib/xhr2.js:64:1)
at XMLHttpRequest.request.onreadystatechange (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/truffle/build/webpack:/~/web3/lib/web3/httpprovider.js:128:1)
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/truffle/build/webpack:/packages/truffle-provider/wrapper.js:134:1
at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/truffle/build/webpack:/~/web3/lib/web3/requestmanager.js:86:1
at Object.InvalidResponse (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/truffle/build/webpack:/~/web3/lib/web3/errors.js:38:1)
When I call it after 300 seconds, I get a transaction and an event AuctionEnded, so it looks like the now >= auctionEnd condition is met:
truffle(development)> auction.auctionEnd()
{ tx: '0x480208cd6c4ac3580e7dcc3aa7e64cd0e7b5e11d5bea75e4769b554767158e35',
receipt:
{ transactionHash: '0x480208cd6c4ac3580e7dcc3aa7e64cd0e7b5e11d5bea75e4769b554767158e35',
transactionIndex: 0,
blockHash: '0xfde6956d9c7d6e99235606b70e11161965ddf832063e572a87df00c14484e5a1',
blockNumber: 12,
gasUsed: 76921,
cumulativeGasUsed: 76921,
contractAddress: null,
logs: [ [Object] ],
status: '0x1',
logsBloom: '0x00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000080000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000800000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000100000000040000000000000000000000000001000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000' },
logs:
[ { logIndex: 0,
transactionIndex: 0,
transactionHash: '0x480208cd6c4ac3580e7dcc3aa7e64cd0e7b5e11d5bea75e4769b554767158e35',
blockHash: '0xfde6956d9c7d6e99235606b70e11161965ddf832063e572a87df00c14484e5a1',
blockNumber: 12,
address: '0xef0a6e95779240516e8a05039f97968f727c4f18',
type: 'mined',
event: 'AuctionEnded',
args: [Object] } ] }

Answer 1

Hopefully this can help you. I think you missed time travel part.
// test/SimpleAuction.js
const sa = artifacts.require("SimpleAuction");
contract('SimpleAuction', async function(accounts) {
/**
* TimeTravel function - can move this to helper file
* https://www.reddit.com/r/ethdev/comments/6n65ar/using_testrpc_and_truffles_built_in_js_tests_how/dk7357l/
*/
const timeTravel = function (time) {
return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
web3.currentProvider.sendAsync({
jsonrpc: "2.0",
method: "evm_increaseTime",
params: [time], // 86400 is num seconds in day
id: new Date().getTime()
}, (err, result) => {
if(err){ return reject(err) }
return resolve(result)
});
})
}
var sa_instance;
var highest_bid = 2; // ether
var bob = accounts[1];
var alice = accounts[2];
var john = accounts[3];
var beneficiary = accounts[accounts.length - 1]; // last account in Ganache
var beneficiary_initial_balance;
before(async function() {
sa_instance = await sa.new(300, beneficiary);
var bib_balance_wei = await web3.eth.getBalance(beneficiary);
var bib_balance_eth = web3.fromWei(web3.toDecimal(bib_balance_wei), "ether");
beneficiary_initial_balance = parseInt(bib_balance_eth);
})
it("Bob bids with 1 ETH", async function() {
await sa_instance.bid({from: bob, value: web3.toWei(1, "ether")})
var sa_balance_wei = await web3.eth.getBalance(sa_instance.address);
var sa_balance_eth = web3.fromWei(web3.toDecimal(sa_balance_wei), "ether");
assert.equal(sa_balance_eth, 1);
})
it("Alice bids with 2 ETH", async function() {
await sa_instance.bid({from: alice, value: web3.toWei(highest_bid, "ether")})
var sa_balance_wei = await web3.eth.getBalance(sa_instance.address);
var sa_balance_eth = web3.fromWei(web3.toDecimal(sa_balance_wei), "ether");
assert.equal(sa_balance_eth, 3);
})
it("Bob can withdraw his 1 ETH back", async function() {
await sa_instance.withdraw({from: bob})
var sa_balance_wei = await web3.eth.getBalance(sa_instance.address);
var sa_balance_eth = web3.fromWei(web3.toDecimal(sa_balance_wei), "ether");
assert.equal(sa_balance_eth, highest_bid);
})
it("Anyone can end the auction when it's due", async function() {
await timeTravel(300);
await sa_instance.auctionEnd({from: john});
})
it("Contract balance left with 0 ETH", async function() {
var sa_balance_wei = await web3.eth.getBalance(sa_instance.address);
var sa_balance_eth = web3.fromWei(web3.toDecimal(sa_balance_wei), "ether");
assert.equal(sa_balance_eth, 0);
})
it("And beneficiary is now 2 ETH richer", async function() {
var bib_balance_wei = await web3.eth.getBalance(beneficiary);
var bib_balance_eth = web3.fromWei(web3.toDecimal(bib_balance_wei), "ether");
var expected_new_beneficiary_balance = beneficiary_initial_balance + highest_bid;
assert.equal(expected_new_beneficiary_balance, bib_balance_eth);
})
})

Answer 2

Did auctionEnd() succeed?
Most likely require(now >= auctionEnd) is not satisfied thus auctionEnd() failed.
Update: Debugged the contract myself, the transfer is successful. Beneficiary address is: 0xe6ebc74aa685527a83c9e0df01b21acf0a1e8286 not account1. So the contract works as expected, there is no problem. Check the balance of beneficiary address, you will see it has 15 ether.
Clarification:
This is the deployment instruction:
module.exports = function(deployer) {
deployer.deploy(SimpleAuction, 300, "0xe6ebc74aa685527a83c9e0df01b21acf0a1e8286");
};
So you set beneficiary address as: 0xe6ebc74aa685527a83c9e0df01b21acf0a1e8286.
And this is the transfer instruction inside auctionEnd():
beneficiary.transfer(highestBid);
So after the execution, if you run the following command you will see that beneficiary has 15 ether.
web3.eth.getBalance("0xe6ebc74aa685527a83c9e0df01b21acf0a1e8286")
BigNumber { s: 1, e: 19, c: [ 150000 ] }