Bitcoin Forum

Hi,
Can anyone help me out. My laptop got fried and I had to buy a new one. I had an old version of electrum on it 1.8... something. I recently got a new laptop and downloaded the new version of electrum (2.8.2). I then restored my wallet from seed. However, the bitcoins I had in my old wallet don't show up in my new one. What could be wrong and is there a way I can recover my funds?

The type of seed electrum uses was changed in the 2.x versions. You can download an old 1.8.1 version of the wallet here and import your seed into it. I think the latest version of electrum could then use the wallet file the 1.8.1 version generates. If not you can always export the private keys from the 1.8.1 version and import them into the latest electrum.

https://download.electrum.org/1.8.1/

This thread discusses fixes for your problem.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/30x79y/i_cant_restore_my_electrum_wallet_using_my_seed/

ThomasV says version 2.0 converts wallet files from older versions into a different format.

https://bitcointalk.org/?topic=942961.0


I suggest making a new seed in the latest electrum version and sending all your coins to that wallet after you get back control of your coins from your old wallet.

It's best not to try sending coins directly from a 1.8.1 version wallet because the network might not accept them since its (s values) rules changed. Import your wallet or keys into the latest electrum before sending coins through the network.

+1 on that idea

Newer versions of Electrum still support restoring the old seed format so you should be able to just restore from the seed. There shouldn't be a need to download an old version. Be sure to double check the seed for accuracy. Also, you should verify that Electrum is fully synced or the balance may not sure properly.

How do I verify electrum is fully synced?

Rolling back to the old version created an even bigger problem for me as the old wallet doesn't accept my seed. Am 100% sure my seed is correct as it works on the new wallet and I had written it down. Only problem is I can't access my bitcoins in the new version. I still have some of the transaction history on my online local bitcoin wallet. Is there a way I can use it to access my bitcoins?

Look at the bottom right corner of the window. There should be a green orb icon. If it is red then it's not synced. click on the icon to change the electrum server you are connected to. You can also access this window via tools > network.

Also bring the addresses tab into view with ctrl+a. See if there are any familiar addresses listed there. If there aren't any familiar addresses then verify that the seed you have is the correct one. It should only contain words from this list here (lines 24-1649):

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/1.8/lib/mnemonic.py

Perhaps you have mispelt some word from the above list so check the spelling too.

The seed should consist of 12 words. That's how many words you have right?

There is no need to downgrade to 1.8. You won't be able to spend your bitcoins using that version anyway.

Hello guys,
Thanks for the assistance. I had totally gave up hope on recovering my funds;so I decided to move on with my new version wallet. Anyway, after depositing a few bitcoins my bitcoin balance updated itself :) I  noticed it had factored in my previous bitcoin balance. So my bitcoins are still in there but they were not reflecting on the new wallet until I made a new deposit.

Interesting. Sounds like that must have been due to a synchronization issue then. Glad to hear you got it working.

I always bump the gap limit when restoring from seed on an old wallet.  That seems to fix these kinds of issues.

This is bad advice. You should not be changing the gap limit unless you have to. The default gap limit is fine for most users. If you change the gap limit you will have to make sure to remember to do that the next time you restore your wallet. A lot of users will forget to do that and come here and complain that their wallet is not showing the correct balance. So please don't tell users to change the gap limit unless they have to (for example for merchant wallet applications).

but if you have a wallet you restore from seed how does it know how many change addresses you had before?  If you don't bump the gap you may not see all your coins.  What am I missing?

The same way it knows how many receiving addresses you had before. Each address has an index. The gap limit is the lookahead window. It keeps looking for addresses with transactions starting from the 0 index address and only stops when it finds x consecutive unused addresses where x is the gap limit.

I just want to say a big thanks as I have finally been able to restore my old wallet by downloading 1.8.1 from your link.