Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Armory => Topic started by: thewayshegoes on September 11, 2013, 09:09:25 PM



Title: Non-technical Armory user. Can't access my Bitcoins.
Post by: thewayshegoes on September 11, 2013, 09:09:25 PM
I've been using Armory for awhile, since back when you didn't need a ton of RAM to run the program.  I haven't been able to run Armory for months and I want to be able to access my Bitcoins.  I've been waiting, hoping that there will be a solution, but I would like to get my BTC to somewhere that I can access them.  Is there any way I can get them out of Armory and into another wallet without being able to run Armory?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.


Title: Re: Non-technical Armory user. Can't access my Bitcoins.
Post by: etotheipi on September 11, 2013, 09:11:39 PM
I've been using Armory for awhile, since back when you didn't need a ton of RAM to run the program.  I haven't been able to run Armory for months and I want to be able to access my Bitcoins.  I've been waiting, hoping that there will be a solution, but I would like to get my BTC to somewhere that I can access them.  Is there any way I can get them out of Armory and into another wallet without being able to run Armory?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.

In the next couple days I'll have something that will help you get your coins out of Armory.  This week I finally converged on a working DB system and it requires less than 300 MB RAM to run.  A version is currently available for linux that works if you wait 4-6 hours for the DB build (done once).  I'm in the process of trying to get it running on Windows, but Windows isn't playing nice.

Be patient just a couple more days!


Title: Re: Non-technical Armory user. Can't access my Bitcoins.
Post by: wachtwoord on September 11, 2013, 09:13:04 PM
Mmm I'm pretty sure you can:

1. run Armory without internet connection
2. Create a raw transaction, moving the funds
3. Sign the raw transaction
4. Close down armory, and with good old bitcoind you can use the (command line) "sendrawtransaction" command.

Be careful when creating the raw transaction though. Without an internet connection you'll have to check the validity of the raw transaction. Armory won't be able to.


Title: Re: Non-technical Armory user. Can't access my Bitcoins.
Post by: etotheipi on September 11, 2013, 09:15:45 PM
Mmm I'm pretty sure you can:

1. run Armory without internet connection
2. Create a raw transaction, moving the funds
3. Sign the raw transaction
4. Close down armory, and with good old bitcoind you can use the (command line) "sendrawtransaction" command.

Be careful when creating the raw transaction though. Without an internet connection you'll have to check the validity of the raw transaction. Armory won't be able to.

You can't create transactions in offline mode.  That's why the offline computer setup needs an online version of Armory to create the tx for you.  It needs to be online to know what coins you have so that it can sign them.  Technically, even brief access to a computer able to run online Armory would be sufficient - import your watching-only wallet, create a tx that sweeps your funds to another non-Armory address, then take it to the offline computer for signing.

If you're not even using online-offline split, you can do this with your primary wallet (without any extra steps between creating and signing), but I would try to limit the number of devices that your private keys have touched.


Title: Re: Non-technical Armory user. Can't access my Bitcoins.
Post by: wachtwoord on September 11, 2013, 09:17:21 PM
Mmm I'm pretty sure you can:

1. run Armory without internet connection
2. Create a raw transaction, moving the funds
3. Sign the raw transaction
4. Close down armory, and with good old bitcoind you can use the (command line) "sendrawtransaction" command.

Be careful when creating the raw transaction though. Without an internet connection you'll have to check the validity of the raw transaction. Armory won't be able to.

You can't create transactions in offline mode.  That's why the offline computer setup needs an online version of Armory to create the tx for you.  It needs to be online to know what coins you have so that it can sign them.  Technically, even brief access to a computer able to run online Armory would be sufficient - import your watching-only wallet, create a tx that sweeps your funds to another non-Armory address, then take it to the offline computer for signing.

If you're not even using online-offline split, you can do this with your primary wallet (without any extra steps between creating and signing), but I would try to limit the number of devices that your private keys have touched.


Okay thanks for correcting me. It's been a while since I did anything with my (cold) Armory wallet accept make more addresses and add to my cold wallet.

BTW: If you ever drop support and I'm not able to read the private keys out of my wallet I'm going to cry ;)


Title: Re: Non-technical Armory user. Can't access my Bitcoins.
Post by: etotheipi on September 11, 2013, 09:23:53 PM
BTW: If you ever drop support and I'm not able to read the private keys out of my wallet I'm going to cry ;)

That's not even possible.  The github repo is public and forever.  And even if it went away, any version created in the past 2 years can read your wallet, so you'd only need to find one person who has an old copy of Armory.  AND, the wallet format is public: https://bitcoinarmory.com/armory-wallet-files/

There's no way to make you cry :)


Title: Re: Non-technical Armory user. Can't access my Bitcoins.
Post by: wachtwoord on September 11, 2013, 09:58:33 PM
BTW: If you ever drop support and I'm not able to read the private keys out of my wallet I'm going to cry ;)

That's not even possible.  The github repo is public and forever.  And even if it went away, any version created in the past 2 years can read your wallet, so you'd only need to find one person who has an old copy of Armory.  AND, the wallet format is public: https://bitcoinarmory.com/armory-wallet-files/

There's no way to make you cry :)

I was thinking of the unlikely scenario were all my computer explode, Github dies and no-one publically keeps a backup of the program, code or documentation and all I have is my paper wallet. I went ahead and marked this risk as acceptably unlikely ;)

I might have an old version of the paper wallet though ...