Bitcoin Forum

Hi,

It seems I have lost bitcoins, trying to create a second wallet.
Here is the problem:

1 - Close the Bitcoin client
2 - Copied wallet.dat (the FIRST FILE) to another directory (with coins in it).
3- re opened the bitcoin client, those created a new wallet.dat (the SECOND FILE).
4 - remind the new address (14FCgzxoRAcTEDZhXT8r3yopJssupVh31K)
5- closed the bitcoin client.
6- Copied the new wallet.dat (the SECOND FILE)  in another directory (with no coins in it)
7- restore the FIRST FILE in the original directory
8- opened Bticoin client
9 - Send x bitcoins to the new address (14FCgzxoRAcTEDZhXT8r3yopJssupVh31K)
10- Close the bitcoin client
11- exchange again the SECOND et and the FIRST file
12- re opened bitcoin client
13 - A this point, I thought I would see the arrival of the bitcoins of my FIRST FILE.

It wasn't the case.
At this time, when I open with the FIRST wallet, it shows me "x bitcoins sent / 0 confirmation"
and when I open with the SECOND wallet, it shows me 0 bitcoin."
The operation was made yesterday evening.

Please would you help me to find my x bitcoins ?

Try to...
0. Close the Bitcoin client.
1. Install your FIRST FILE.
2. Remove database folder.
3. Remove .lock & .00* files.
4. Remove blkindex.dat file.
5. Remove blk0001.dat file.
6. Open the Bitcoin client.
7. You'll get confirmations.
8. Close the Bitcoin client.
9. Install your SECOND FILE.
10. Then do steps from 2 to 8.

This is slow, but should work. :)

You probably didn't lose your coins, if you transfered to the correct address.
It's just that restoring a backup like that is not automatic yet, you must force the indexation by deleting the block chain from your computer.

Hopefully I'm not wrong or confusing here.

Your wallet interacts the block chain to make an index that lets you know how many coins are at addresses that you own and to give you an account of how they got there (when and in what amounts, and what was spent).

When you put a new wallet in, a new index is not automatically created unless you delete the old one. That's what lzsaver walked you through doing.

There's a -rescan switch in the works :)

I almost got a heart attack when it first happened ot me xD

Hi!

I found this thread through Google and am having a similar problem with missing bitcoins not showing up. I did step 1 to 10 (do I also need to remove the addr.dat file?) but when restarting bitcoin, I get a visual C runtime error.

I think the problem causing bitcoin.exe to crash is in the wallet file because when I move the wallet to a new location and start bitcoin, the blocks start downloading immediately.

Is there a way I can solve this? I have a couple of broken wallets (from testing that I would like to recover.) I'm running this on an old windows 2k3 box but had no problems up until this afternoon.

There is no real rush, it's a dev machine but would like to recover the losts coins, even if it is just to learn a little bit more about the inner workings of the bitcoin wallet.


Kind regards,

M

I am not sure that it will help, but try to install Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Redistributable Package: 32-bit (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=200b2fd9-ae1a-4a14-984d-389c36f85647), 64-bit (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=eb4ebe2d-33c0-4a47-9dd4-b9a6d7bd44da).
An information from the debug.log file may help to understand the problem. Do you use only one operating system?

Just a small message that deleting all the blocks and downloading them again did indeed recover all the bitcoins from my dead development wallets. Every single bitcoin penny is back. (is helps having good a backup plan in place)

The crashed wallet (the one causing the Visual C++ error) turned out to be a corrupted file, restoring to a recent backup and re-downloading all the blocks solved the issue.

Thanks!