Bitcoin Forum

I made a cash purchase at a liberty x store for BTC on 6/19/2018. My electrum wallet gave me a receiving address which I used for the transaction. When I returned home I found that my wallet had changed the receiving address it originally gave me. The transaction shows that it went through, but the BTC is not in my wallet and the wallet shows a transaction labeled as unknown. My electrum wallet has said synchronizing since the transaction. I scrolled through my list of receiving addresses in my electrum wallet but can not find the address it originally gave me for this transaction. I spoke with liberty x support and they verified the transaction went through to the original receiving address and that the BTC are there. How do I get Theses BTC into my electrum wallet.   HELP!

It's been a while since the last time I used an Electrum Wallet, but if I remember it correctly, Electrum is always changing addresses for security, but you can consult (or must) all your used addresses by typing crtl+A or simply following the Wallet>Adresses in the main menu of the Electrum wallet.
If it does not appear, maybe you can ask Liberty for the address they send the BTC to you and import it into your wallet, for all the generated addresses are under your private key (they belong to you and only you).

Notice I haven't use electrum for a long time, but I had once a similar problem and this is how I solved it.

On the console enter
If it doesn't return true then that address didn't come from your Electrum wallet.

You'll have to check if you have a malware/fake Electrum or a clipboard malware that changes any Bitcoin address to that of the hacker.

Thanks for your help. I have the address the BTC was sent to and confirmed it is still there. how do I import the receiving address to my electrum wallet?

Check this: http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html

In there, they explain how to import it.

You can't just import any address. Your wallet either has the private key, or it doesn't. If it doesn't have it, something somehow went wrong, and your funds went to an address you don't control.

Yep, OP, only if that address was automatically generated by your electrum wallet and it is in your list. Check it out.

Thanks again for the help in trying to solve this problem  -  Following the instructions from the info you sent me I created another wallet, called a import/watching only wallet and it allowed me to import the receiving address the BTC was sent to. It has the original receiving address and the amount of BTC requested, but still says synchronizing. Do you think this will work or not. any other suggestions?

Also, Can anyone tell me why my 2 wallets constantly say synchronizing? is this normal and if not how do I fix the problem.  Thanks

Did you get your BTC back?

Take a look at that post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2356386.0
Your problem seems the same, and in that thread, it was solved.

Just Adding this and I think you can also fix it by changing your electrum server by clicking it on the circle on the right bottom of the electrum wallet its likely green when connected and red when disconnected so by clicking it you can see the option for selecting a server then uncheck the select automatically then after that manually choose any server host and port then let your wallet sync for few minutes.

No, it isn't normal.

What version of Electrum are you running? Older versions (ie. v2.x versions) exhibit this behaviour.

You need to ensure you are running the latest version from here: https://electrum.org/#download

Currently, that is v3.1.3


Also, if you created a "import/watching only wallet", you will NOT be able to spend the coins, as that wallet does not contain the private key.

all you had to do was update electrum. creating a second wallet was totally unneccessary. next time post in the appropriate forum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?board=98.0

Did you actually try what Xynerise suggested?



This command will check whether this address has been generated by your wallet.


Electrum does give you a new receiving address each time. This is done to increase your privacy.
The above command will clear out whether the private needed to spend funds sent to this address have been generated by your wallet.

To open the console goto 'View' -> 'Show Console' -> then go to the 'Console'-tab.

If it returns true your wallet does hold the private key. In this case it is a network-/sync- issue.
If it returns false your wallet does NOT hold the private key. In this case you somehow copy/pasted the wrong address (maybe clipping board malware ? ).

So you buy BTC for cash, and you get receiving address from Electrum, how much I understood this was physical purchase in the store. So how you provide your address to the seller, by Electrum on smarthphone, laptop or you just write it down at home and give to seller? If the last one is case, maybe you just give wrong receiving address to seller?

However it seems that you have big problem with sync, follow instruction from others members and install latest version of Electrum, be sure your antivirus/firewall is not blocking Electrum for some reason. I just hope you are not victim of fake Electrum wallet, or that clipboard malware that change addresses.