Bitcoin Forum

Hello everybody, I have a problem with electrum, when I open the program (on mac) check an error window that says:

"This wallet is watching-only. This means you will not be able to spend Bitcoins with it. Make sure you own the seed phrase or the private keys, before you request Bitcoins to be sent to this wallet."

my bitcoin are trapped?

Was it a new wallet you created or was it a older wallet that you restored?

A watch-only wallet is one where there is no seed present so no private keys. That means that you cannot spend any of the coins in the wallet. In order to be able to spend the coins in the wallet you will have to enter the seed. Not sure now whether you can just enter it and or whether you will have to restore the wallet again together with the seed. Will need to check, have not done it in a while.

How did you create the wallet?

I tried resetting the portfolio, though he says: "enter your seed".. what's my seed?
http://i59.tinypic.com/16avc4m.jpg

When you create a wallet for the first time a seed is generated. The seed is a list of word, either 6 or more depending on which software you use. I think with Electrum its 12 word. Those words or seed is your backup. You need to write them down and keep them in a safe place. Anybody who gets hold of that seed will be able to recreate your wallet and take anything that's inside it.

The seed is all you need as a backup. With the seed you can restore your wallet at anytime so its important that its writen down and kept in a safe place. If you do not have the seed for the wallet it means that you will not be able to restore it should you need to do so and anything inside that wallet will be lost.

As said, when you created the wallet Electrum would have shown you a list of words which you should have written down. If you did not it means that you will no longer have access to that wallet to send coins. It will be a watch-only wallet.

EDIT: Below is an image showing the step where the seed is shown to you together with instructions to make a note of them and a WARNING that you will not be able to restore your wallet should you not have a copy of the words. You must have skipped past this stage it seems.

https://i.imgur.com/G1VP4TP.jpg

I do not remember having to do with any seed. i don't remember what's my seed.. now in my electrum portfolio there are 0.22 bitcoin. They are stuck there? I can not spend it?

It comes in the start when you make a wallet using electrum, I saved mine immediately which you should have done as well. Shorena might be able to help you though, he mostly solves these types of problems.

Yes, without the seed you will not be able to spend those bitcoins unless somebody can help you to recover that wallet.

Okay thanks for your support  :)

Shorena please help me  :-\

Not sure I can, but how did you create that wallet?

wait! now that I think I have never created a portfolio with Electrum. I had created a payment request with Bitcoin core, when I realized that the program could not connect, and then I would not have received the money, I moved the address of the payment of Electrum, which is why I have never seen the seed

Alright, thats why its warning you. Electrum does not know the private key. You just gave it the address. That is not enough to spend the funds.

Do you still have bitcoin core installed? Which OS (Windows/Mac/Linux) do you use?

I've still bitcoin core, use macintosh.
But apparently it does not work, I am attaching a screen
http://i62.tinypic.com/289gb36.jpg

It is still syncing, this can take a few days.

You can either wait for it to sync and send the coins to a new electrum wallet or move the private key.

To move the private key into electrum:

Open the development console, there should be a menu bar at the top of your screen. Its one of the menu points behind "Help"

Once you are there you need to unlock the wallet with your password and export the private key. Lets assume your password is secret123 and your bitcoin address is 1somelongstring

To unlock it for 120 second you enter:
and hit enter.

To let it show you the private key you enter:
and hit enter.

It will show you something like 5yourveryveryveryverylongprivatekeystring

Do not show that to anyone else.

Now that you have the privat key, start Electrum and click

File -> New/Restore -> enter a wallet name -> OK -> select "Restore a wallet or import keys" -> put the private key in the box -> "next" -> set a password -> "ok" and let it sync. It should only take a few minutes.

Keep in mind that you should not use this wallet long term. You should create a new wallet with a seed and transfer the funds once you have secured them. The seed can be easily stored (e.g. on paper) and can always restore all private keys for the wallet in question. The imported key is not covered by a seed.

thanks you saved me.
here is how the historical payments:
http://i58.tinypic.com/a0csw8.jpg

Anyway still on the site have not arrived

http://i60.tinypic.com/2i20hf6.jpg

Just to get on the same page. You now have your funds available in electrum (balance lower left), but they have not arrived at a certain service?

I would think that you could not have made a transaction that sends your coins to someone else (e.g. said service). When your key was still in bitcoin core, the client was not synced and would not send the transaction to the network. When you used electrum, it did not have the private key and could not sign a transaction.

You can confirm this as your electrum history should only show positive entries in the amount column. If you transfer the coins elsewhere it would show a negative entry.

If thats the case you should be safe the create the transaction again.

Hi, i had the same problem this morning as well, but I found the solution. Do you still need it?

I am also in this predicament, sent bitcoins to my electrum wallet over a year ago, just remembered about it now, it is stuck in watching-only mode and i have no way to access them, i have some seed phrases saved but none of them match with the wallet im trying to access, any help would be appreciated

Watching only = No private keys...

Unfortunately, the ONLY way to move those coins is to have the seed or private key(s) for the address(es) that hold the coins. If the seeds you have don't regenerate the same wallet/addresses, then your coins are stuck. Nobody can help you. :-\

Yeah lesson learned  :D :'(

Please help me I have the same problem

There's no convenient solution to that issue.
The "solution" is to find the address' private key or the watch-only wallet's master public key's 'seed phrase'/'master private key' to create a (non-watching-only) Standard wallet.

You must have imported an address(es) or master public key to create the wallet or it's from someone else,
there are no other means of creating a watch-only wallet other than those options.

"The problem" is that you don't have the private keys for your address.

No one can help you with that. You need to find out how and when you created that watch only wallet.
You had to use an address, public key or master public key on purpose.

You need to gain access to the corresponding private key or master private key or mnemonic code from which the private key(s) is/are derived.