Bitcoin Forum

I purchased some a samll amount of bitcoin a few years back and stored them on Multibit v. 0.5.15 - recently I've transferred a few with no problems. Earlier this evening I tried to send some to a wallet and the transaction was seen by 1 peer but not confirmed. After reading online it seems that the fee wasn't high enough for it to be picked up by other peers.

Apparently I need to Reset blockchain and transactions to resync my wallet, but I've been advised to upgrade to the latest version of Multibit before doing anything. Does anyone know if it's safe to do this in Multibit HD, or have I got to download the latest version of Multibit Classic? Will I need to extract my keys or can I use the current .wallet file on my mac?

This might be insignificant but I don't want to risk my coins. Any help much appreciated.

Multibit HD does not allow the importing of keys so you have to sweep them. Additionally, Multibit HD is rather unstable so I don't really recommend you going to that path.

You should download the latest version of Multibit Classic and that makes everything much easier. Its advised to transfer your Bitcoins to another wallet, I recommend Electrum. The easier way is obviously to extract your private keys and sweep it into Electrum. Look at my post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1959806.msg19477410#msg19477410.

Ok, thanks for the help. I've downloaded the latest Multibit Classic, installed electrum and extracted my private keys.

Should I reset the blockchain transactions in Multibit Classic before I sweep my private keys into my electrum wallet? Or is simply sweeping my keys sufficient to get the btc from my earlier failed transaction? thanks

Nope, thats not necessary. The resetting of blockchain doesn't affect the network as a whole, it just makes the client reload all the transactions.
Check if the transaction on Blockexplorer.com. If it doesn't exist, you're fine.

Done.  :)

Really appreciate the help, I was sweating for a minute there!

Electrum seems so streamlined after coming from a dated version of Multibit. Are my private keys still the same as the one from my old wallet, or should I back this new one up?

I assume that you were given a 12 word seed before. If you did, keep the 12 words seed in a safe place. Thats all you need for a backup.

Can you confirm that you used "sweep" to get your coins from MultiBit to Electrum... and that you didn't use the "import" feature?

If you used "sweep", this will have created a transaction on the blockchain and your coins are now in a new wallet in new address(es) with new private key(s). As ranochigo pointed out, everything you now do in Electrum will be able to be restored from your "12 word seed"... write that seed down and keep it safe! :)

If you used "import", your coins are still controlled by your old private keys and you will have to continue to back up your wallet file.

Yeah, I used sweep. Good to know. Cheers.

Will someone please advise me? I stopped mining just over 3 years ago. Shut everything down and put my computer in storage. 3 months ago I decided to buy a kepkey and transfer my Bitcoin to it from my multibit classic desktop wallet for safe storage. I figured that at $2k each, letting them continue to sit on a desktop hard drive wasn't the best idea. So I turned my iMac on after 3 years, got the Kepkey set up and transferred them over.

Stupid me, and feel free to talk trash, I didn't update my multibit before transferring. Nor did I decide to test it out by sending a small amount at first. I have not been engaged in the btc community for the past 3 years and didn't realize that you're now are supposed to tip when you send btc. So it took the minimum fee like it used to back in the day and now my transaction has been pending/seen by 1 peer for just shy of 3 months. A few days ago I read on multibit's website that when this happens you are supposed to reset the block chain and transactions and that's supposed to fix it. So I reset to a specific date; the day before I sent my btc to my keepkey. Now that it has re-downloaded the block chain, the transaction no longer shows up in my multibit transaction list. Furthermore, my balance still shows 0.00 btc. So the transaction disappeared, but the btc are not back in my wallet.


What should I do?

Thank you.

Do you have the transaction ID for the transaction that you attempted to send? It might be possible to "push" it along so that it confirms... and your coins would end up in your keepkey.

How did you "reset to a specific date"? That isn't possible as far as I'm aware... you just click the "reset blockchain and transactions" and it should start at the very beginning and resync everything? Which version of MultiBit Classic are you running?

In any case, it should be possible to get your keys/addresses out of MultiBit Classic and import or sweep them into a more up to date (and actually maintained) wallet like Electrum.

I think I tried to push it along. I went to a mining pool where you and put it in there and they will prioritize it so that it gets confirmed, but it said the transaction didn't exist.

I'm using multibit classics I believe. When I installed multibit back in the day, there was only 1 multibit, and that's the one I have. Multibit HD didn't exist back then. Version 0.5.15

When I went to reset transaction, you can choose to reset all transactions, or reset from a specific date. I didn't want to choose all transactions because I didn't want the transactions that did go through years back to disappear (I don't know that this would happen, but because I was unsure, I just reset to the day before the transaction that never went through).

On multibit's help page, it says to reset up to 3 times because it doesn't always work. I've reset three times and all my past transactions have the green check mark next to them to show they are verified,  but my balance says 0.00 still. I think if I search for my wallet address on the block chain is says I have btc in it though. Maybe I need to do a sweep? I have 2 separate wallets on my multibit. They both should have btc in them but the balance says 0.00.

Should I start my trying to update multibit? Then if that doesn't work sweep it? I fear that if I update, my bitcoins will disappear.  I'm very uneducated when it comes to doing any of this.

You were using the "ViaBTC TX Accelerator (https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/)"? They'll say the transaction doesn't exist if it fails one of their requirements (fee less than 10 sats/byte etc)


I believe the latest version of MultiBit Classic is 0.5.19... https://multibit.org/release-info/classic/v0.5.19.html


Theoretically, they shouldn't disappear... as the transactions are recorded forever in the blockchain, that is how the blockchain is designed... a permanent record of all transacations. :)

If you enter your address on www.blockchain.info website and it still has balance then you'll be fine. It is just MBC being old and broken. If you still see those address in your wallet, then you should be able to export your private keys and get access to your coins.


Before you update, I would create backups of your wallets... by default, on Windows, MBC puts the data files in %appdata%\MultiBit directory. This is usually something like C:\users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\MultiBit

Note: If you can't find the AppData directory, it may be hidden: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/14201/windows-show-hidden-files


Honestly, I think the best idea is to just export your private keys (Tools -> Export Private Keys)... don't use encryption... ie. "do not use password protection", save the file somewhere you can find it, and then sweep those keys into another wallet like Electrum. It will save you a LOT of hassle later on, as MBC is basically abandoned and will likely continue to give you issues (especially with fees)