The Ledger Nano S is a widely used cryptocurrency stick for secure processing of crypto currencies. Unfortunately I had some problems with mine at the beginning. I almost had to send back the brand new stick. After hours of trial and error I managed to get it to work. Here's the recipe that led me to the success. Maybe it helps someone else not to have to do the whole trouble and return process.
Problem solutions
If you update the firmware and the stick displays "Bootloader" or "Update" forever:
Try first to connect your stick to another USB port. Best bet are those directly on the computer. I had now multiple cases where the update could not be finished until I tried connecting the stick to another port. In another case I had this when entering into the Ethereum app in Ledger Live. It immediately put a check mark on "Connect and unlock" but when I entered the Ethereum app on the stick a "usb device disconnected" sound could be heard (three short notes going from high to low) and the check mark at "Connect and unlock" vanished. Actually a never ending loop. The connecting of the stick to another port directly at the PC solved my problem. Funny was that the check marks were jumping around for a second and then both marks appeared.
If the previous paragraph doesn't help, or you don't have another free usb port, you can do the following:
- Open the "Device Manager" (or similar on your OS). In Windows it is a right click on the Windows logo in the lower left corner and then it has an entry of this name there.
- Go to USB devices (in Windows the tag "Input Devices (Human Interface Devices)")
- Check if there is a "USB Input Device" that has a yellow warning sign.
If not sure which one, disconnect the stick and observe which icon disappears. Reconnect.
The new one is it. Rightclick on Uninstall to remove it.
- Unplug and Replug
the stick. The driver installation should now start and show up in the task bar. Wait until the installation is finished.
- Start the app Ledger Live or the Google Chrome extension Ledger Manager (the latter must be found by googling, it doesn't show up in the search dialog of the extensions).
One of them should accept the stick now. Info: Ledger support confirmed that version 1.8.0 contains a bug. Use version 1.7.0 or a newer version than 1.8.0 instead, if it exists [not yet there at the time of this text]. Then click on "Manager".
- If Manager gets stuck with rotating arrows on point 1 or 2 and there is still no
reaction on the stick (still displaying "Bootloader" or "Update"), try
starting the other app of step 5. In my case I used Ledger Live first and the stick was stuck at displaying "Bootloader". After I started "Ledger Manager" it said briefly "Recovering MCU" and more stuff and ended up in "Update". You can also try to reconnect the stick on another USB port directly on the computer.
- If still no success repeat from 1.
Golden Tips
- In the "Ledger Live" application there is a repair function in the menu Settings->Help->Repair my Device. There even the problem with the hanging bootloader is listed. But if the USB driver doesn't run correctly, it just hangs too. By pressing Ctrl-R you can restart the app.
- The repair function for the case of a hanging bootloader can only be used on a computer
which was at least once in communication with a stick in working condition. Once the stick is hanging, you can't even get into the settings. Switching to another computer is also useless because "Ledger Live" wants to communicate with the stick and can't. However, you can transfer the folder "%appdata%\Legder Live" to the other PC and then you have access to the repair function. Therefore this tip: One should make a backup of this folder as long as the stick is still functioning. For that we recommend Mighty Desktop's Backup functionality.
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