Bitcoin Forum

Hello,
need help.
Windows 7 home basic 32-bit, all updates are installed

I tried to install Electrum 4.0.7, installations was successful. But wen I try to run it it crashes wis BEX error. Then I tried portable version, it crashes too with the same error. I tried some older builds but they crashes. Only version 3.0.2 works but it not synchronizing. What can I do?

What version of Windows 7 are you running? I had an original version on my old laptop and it wouldn't work. But another machine with windows 7 service pack 1 does. Can you try installing the service pack from the official Microsoft website?

Alternatively there's a suggestion of an update you have to run at the bottom of the electrum downloads section which you can searchffor on Microsoft downloads and attempt to place.

That sounds like you are facing the Buffer Overflow Exception which only happens when the program can not put its data in your memory (you run out of memory). Check how much free memory you have and see if Electrum is getting enough when you try to run it.

Is your Windows set for English or a different language (Is Electrum trying to start in another language than English)?
Certain much older version has thrown BEX because of badly translated strings.
I'd try to go if possible for English Windows and/or try other 4.0.x version of Electrum.

To be honestly.. it doesn't matter with windows 7 if you have any updates installed at all.

You are already asking to lose your data including all of your private keys.

Windows 7 already had tons of vulnerabilities when the support has ended roughly a year ago.
Even before that date, windows 7 was already missing tons of security features which are present in win10. So if you really want to use windows, at least use windows 10 which isn't an invitation to get compromised by a 12y old script kiddie with 10 minutes of spare time.

Are you running any anti-virus on that system? If so, this error is not from Electrum itself, but your anti-virus program is causing Electrum to crash. Especially if other programs in your system are crashing with BEX error. Uninstall your anti-virus or replace it with another one and the problem should go away.

Anti-viruses inject their own DLLs in all running programs, and your antivirus' libraries seem to be interfering with the Data Execution Prevention security feature that prevents illegal/out of range memory accesses. That's why the program was killed with a BEX (Buffer overflow EXception) error.

An error in someone's injected DLL causes your program to terminate even if it is completely unrelated to your program.

I'm with bob123 on this one... Windows 7 just should not be used today. Attempting all sorts of "hacks" and "workarounds" to try and make Electrum run on Windows 7 is just a "Bad Idea"™, in my opinion.

You'd be much better off either upgrading to Windows 10 where Electrum will just work without any issues... or installing a current version of Linux (or even using a Linux Live OS on a USB stick).

I suppose, you could even just install a VM like "Virtual Box" (https://www.virtualbox.org/) and install Linux on that if you get really desperate... but that is basically a "workaround" for running Electrum on Windows 7 and, again, isn't a good idea for long term use.

I don't know this will work on Windows 7 Home Basic but to me, it works on my Windows 7 Ultimate service pack 1.

What I installed is the whole Microsoft VC++ package includes all visual C++ retribution that available for Windows 7 and Microsoft.net framework 4.8.

Electrum on Windows 7 PC working fine without any error but the problem is the source where I downloaded this from Microsoft is gone but there is a 3rd party source which is the same copy. If you want I will add the link below but make sure to scan the file first before you install it (I already tested it from another PC without any problem since 2019).

Source: Visual C++ Redistributable Packages (https://getintopc.com/softwares/utilities/visual-c-plus-plus-redistributable-packages-free-download-1557309/)

For DotNet framework 4.8 go directly to Microsoft or use this link https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-framework/net48

Have you tried the links provided here:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2977003/the-latest-supported-visual-c-downloads
it also says the Visual C++ 2019 redistributable will affect the program written in previous versions. It sounds like installing that one is enough.

Thanks to all. Alas, nothing had helped. Does Electrum ever work in 32-bit systems?

Since it's written in Python it should work on both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows.

Can you post a screenshot of the error so we have a better idea of the problem you are experiencing?

Yes, download the Standalone Executable, it works for a 32-bit system.

https://i.postimg.cc/cLTZGC5L/qq.jpg

Yes, here is it:

https://i.postimg.cc/NMvDh5SC/el-er1.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/Y976nTLJ/el-er2.jpg

(The same type of error for any other versions -- portable, standalone and installed -- higher than 3.0.3.)

So you're getting errror c0000005 when you open Electrum. Can you try turning off Data Execution Prevention for electrum and try running it again?

There's a tutorial on a website on how to do it. Don't attempt any of the other solutions, just the one that turns off DEP.


I will ask again, do you have any antivirus running? They are known to interfere with a lot of programs.

If this doesn't work then maybe there's a bug with the way Electrum generates the binaries. They use PyInstaller to make the installer and portable program and that doesn't officially support Windows 7 although it runs fine on it.

Windows have not let me to turn DEP off for Electrum arguing that Electrum must be run with DEP being on.

I have uninstalled antivirus for experiments but it hadn't helped, the same error as on printscreen.

Electrum 3.0.3 runs fine with DEP and protection system (except that it not synchronizing with network, seems the protocol is changed).

Can you try booting Windows 7 into Safe Mode (press F8 once you see the BIOS hardware/manufacturer screen while booting and you should see the option), and checking if newer versions of Electrum run in there?

If they can run in Safe Mode but not in normal mode, one of your services or start-up programs are causing Electrum to fail with a BEX error.

Ih safe mode I got a popup window with an error "failed to execute script run_electrum". I think the crash point is somewhere further because in normal mode I noticed a cmd's window (terminal-like) flashes for a glance before BEX error.

"Failed to execute script run_electrum" is a common error and it's resolution (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5130553.msg50555609#msg50555609) is to install KB2999226. Check that you have it installed.

But you don't get a BEX error in Safe Mode so that means one of your drivers or start-up programs is buggy and is messing with other programs' memory (or the specific update that I mentioned is not installed).

You can also download the portable .tar.gz distribution from the Electrum download page, and install a supported version of python and just run "run_electrum" by hand. I'm 99% sure your problem is caused by pyinstaller, used for generating Electrum executables.

You were already given the solution.

Stop using an incredibly insecure outdated operating system which has reached its end of life already and even before that date was the least secure operating system.

The upgrade to windows 10 is still free. There is literally not a single good reason to stay with windows 7 instead of windows 10.

You could have simply used the time you already wasted on trying to get electrum running on your outdated os, to upgrade windows.

Yes, I have.
No, it is not. As I mentioned above, in normal mode I see a flashing command line screen and in safe mode there's no that screen. The command line screen means that some scrypt (I think the run_electrum) is started -- and this means that it is started only in normal mode, not in safe mode.
I think that's the clue. As I see there're different sets for 32- and 64-bit systems. And sinse there's only one executable for Windows I'm pretty sure it's 64-bit.

Will try to install 32-bit python...

My hardware is too weak to  migrate to 10. (And, by the way, why to do it if my current system is working quit well, except this little one trouble.)

Generally, the adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is fairly apt... however Windows 7 is "broke" :P

Honestly, it's purely from a security standpoint... Windows 7 has a number of unpatched security vulnerabilities that will never be patched because Microsoft stopped official support for it on January 14th 2020 (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-7-support-ended-on-january-14-2020-b75d4580-2cc7-895a-2c9c-1466d9a53962#:~:text=The%20specific%20end%20of%20support,longer%20available%20for%20the%20product.).

Keeping that machine connected to the internet... and using it for cryptocurrency tasks is asking for trouble. The sooner you can get yourself some updated hardware and update to the latest version of Windows the better.

Alternatively, you'll probably find that Linux runs quite nicely on any machine that runs Windows 7 as the hardware requirements for Linux are generally a lot lower (for instance, I can run Linux quite happily in a virtual machine that only has 2 cores and like 4 Gigs of RAM). Something like Ubuntu 18.04 would be sufficient and would run Electrum fine.


Anyway, do try running from the python source and see if it works... in any case, be sure to update this thread with your results, as it might assist someone else who has a similar issue and finds this thread ;)

It is not the so-called "bloat" that makes Windows 10 heavier than 7, it's the fact that Microsoft completely redesigned the kernel and OS services in Windows 8 & 10 such that the base system has twice as much memory usage as Windows 7. Transitioning from 32 bits to 64 bits further increases the memory usage.

Where Windows 7 x64 requires 512 MB to boot successfully, Windows 10 x64 requires 1GB for the same, because the kernel now uses more memory.

I'm going to guess that OP's system has 2GB of RAM in it since the Windows 7 home basic OS was likely preinstalled by the manufacturer and considering that Windows 7 x64 was actually popular among manufacturers at launch, the fact that OP's system has 32-bit Windows 7 on it hints that the vendor was dumping their inventory of old outdated hardware components on low-spec systems like this.

Kubuntu has about the same memory requirements as Windows 10.

I'd argue not to use Windows at all period. Anyone with Visual Studio can write a program that monitors the clipboard and replaces addresses with their own, without any vulnerabilities required. They can bundle it with some popular adwares up for download at CNET.com to get victims easily.

Alternatively, you'll probably find that Linux runs quite nicely on any machine that runs Windows 7 as the hardware requirements for Linux are generally a lot lower (for instance, I can run Linux quite happily in a virtual machine that only has 2 cores and like 4 Gigs of RAM).
[/quote]
Hm, I can'st say that 2-core proc with 4 Gb RAM is light hardware requirements. And, nore important, the Linux still user-hostile -- their programs not ever bother to put shortcuts on the main screen. (And the common practice when you need to manually edit config files with a little idea where all that stuff is hidden, and a need to type a multi-linear command to start a program -- and with mistyping type it again... Bgg.)

@aarge, did you manage to install and run a Python interpreter successfully?

Your system is not working well.
It is completely broken and unsecure. Any script kiddie with 5 minutes of spare time could compromise your system and steal all of your data.




Linux runs with as little as 300MB RAM.
Depending on the desktop environment this obviously gets a lot more.




Do you really need so much clicky-pointy that you can't even put the shortcunts on the screen yourself?

Btw, there are dekstop environments which allow you to make a tick to have the shortcut on your screen...

Finally, I have installed python 3.6.1. And overhelmed all non-obvious obstacles to try to start Electrum (which requires installation of different additional packages and copy-renaming files).

As a result I got the same error (BEX) as before with only difference that now it flags python itself.

I can't figure out what line(s) of script(s) causes that error 'cause I'm not familiar with programming. All I can say that without pgqt5 package the Electrum's daemon has started but then quit with an error something about that package is not installed and after I have installed it the BEX occurs.

In that case, it seems that no amount of fiddling is going to get the newer versions of Electrum running on your current OS. :-\

Can you try installing and booting Linux as a LiveOS from a USB drive... and test Electrum on that. Alternatively, you'll need to find a different wallet application.


What hardware are you attempting to run Windows 7 and Electrum on? ??? :o

Yeah, it seems so. Shit happens...
I tried it on Win 8.1 64 bit and it crashes too. But because it crashes on exit I don't bother.
1-core Celeron at 2 GHz with 3 Gb RAM (some of RAM is used by onboard video card).

I think I found the root cause of your problems. It has something to do with the 32-bit Qt5 installation that Electrum (and PyQt5 module) use. They both build their programs with using MinGW libraries instead of as a native Windows program (see Qt installer fails on Windows 7, exception Code: c0000005 (https://forum.qt.io/topic/81928/qt-installer-fails-on-windows-7-exception-code-c0000005) and Qt4 and Qt5 Segmentation faults (https://github.com/msys2/MINGW-packages/issues/940)).

It is caused by the way the Qt libraries are packaged and there's nothing you can do to change that unfortunately.

As a corollary, this means all programs that use Qt and were compiled with MinGW will similarly crash like this too.

So, you've found a "workaround" by using Win 8.1? ??? It installs and runs "OK", but then crashes when you attempt to exit the application? If so, I guess that's better than nothing



OUCH!!?! :o :o :o :o

I'm honestly surprised that Windows 7 runs on that hardware... hopefully with the increase in value of BTC you could upgrade your system ;)

Hehe, back in the day, I used to run Windows Vista 32 on an AMD Sempron and 1GB memory stick. Innocent times...

Windows doesn't need too high a clock speed to run on its own, the issue is when you multitask by running different programs on it. That will really hurt performance.