Bitcoin Forum

I was able to get in the wallet and then had to update it so downloaded new version now it crashes after entering my password.  Can you assist?

You can try to uninstall everything and download the latest version instead of updating it. Make sure to verify the signatures in your version that you are downloading. On their website, there is an instruction for verification as well.

https://electrum.org/#download

When you say verify signatures, are you saying to click on it and copy and paste the PGP signature or just click on it? Forgive me as I haven’t logged in for sometime so this is uncharted waters for me. What’s the best way to uninstall everything. Also, I don’t have my seed info. Just the password so I’m skeptical. I’ve been finagling with it for over four hours now.

You can check here on how to verify the electrum signature : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5130429.0
Just make sure you download it to the official website of electrum.

If you are using MacOS, you can go to the list of applications and then find and remove the Electrum application.

Is your wallet already have Bitcoin? Or you already used it for some transactions?
If you still don't have Bitcoins there or not used, you can forget it and create a new one and the first thing you will do is to backup the seed first before funding your wallet.

Yes, it’s in there. Just making sure that if I delete the application, I won’t need the seed info to access.

If this problem still continues after you reinstall Electrum, then provide a screenshot of any error messages you see after it crashes.

When you say crash, do you mean the program terminates, or Electrum spits out an ugly error dialog while it's open?

Make a copy of the Electrum data folder before you reinstall because that's where the wallet file is located. It's at C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Electrum on Windows and at /Users/USERNAME/.electrum on Mac and /home/USERNAME/.electrum on Linux. If this folder is deleted during uninstalling you can copy the folder back after it's installed again.

Didn't you backup your seeds?

I don't recall Electrum deleting my wallet files after my uninstall but it'll probably be better for you to get a copy of your wallet file, just in case the behavior somehow changes. If you're using Windows and it's normal installation, then the wallet files should be located within %appdata%/Electrum/Wallets.

Can you open it using command line? open CMD and type type electrum to run. show us the error message on the console.
most of these "Crash issues" because you use old version of electrum.

1. Don't delete anything.
2. Copy the wallet file safely.
3. Delete it.

All the posts got me hesitant to do anything since I don’t have the seed. As I mentioned, I haven’t went into the wallet for sometime. I was able to get in the wallet but when I try to send the Bitcoin to another exchange, it wouldn't allow me too . When I realized I had the old version of the wallet. I went to electron.org, clicked the window installer. It appeared that the new version was updated but when I click on the application, the window pops up to enter your password. When I enter my password, the window closes or crashes. I really need some guidance. I live in the US so it may be helpful if I was able to talk to someone.

First of all, are you absolutely sure that the Electrum that you downloaded was from Electrum.org and not some lookalike phishing website? What if you click Create a new wallet and follow through with it (ie create a new empty wallet), will it still crash?

As long as you copy your wallet file out of that directory and put it in a safe place, it should be fine.

I clicked on the Electrum application on my desktop,  created a new wallet and able to access it successfully.  I closed the window, clicked back on the Electrum application on my desktop and entered my password for the new wallet again and was still able to access it  When I close and reopen the Electrum application on my desktop, access the original wallet and enter password, the box or window closes.  However, if I access the new wallet and click on file, open, click on the original wallet and enter password, I get an error message, I'm unable to post the image but it says.

Electrum - An Error Occurred
Sorry!
Something went wrong while executing Electrum.
To help us diagnose and fix the problem, you can send us a bug report that contains useful debug info.  Then there's a button to click that states: Show Report Contents.  
Below that it says, "Please briefly describe what led to the error".
Do you want to send this report? Then 3 buttons to click on which are:
Send Bug Report Never Not Now

Unfortunately, that sounds like your old wallet file is corrupted!!?! :o  :-\

Do you remember what the old version you were using was? ??? If so, you might be able to reinstall a copy of that older version, open the wallet file, extract your private keys (and/or seed) and then import the private keys (or restore from seed) into the new version of Electrum.

In response to HCP reply-Forgive me a as I'm new to this.  How do I go about doing that? Note: I was able to get in the original wallet initially but wasn't no longer able to get in after I updated to the new version and do not have the seed.  I copied my previous message for better understanding:

I clicked on the Electrum application on my desktop,  created a new wallet and able to access it successfully.  I closed the window, clicked back on the Electrum application on my desktop and entered my password for the new wallet again and was still able to access it  When I close and reopen the Electrum application on my desktop, access the original wallet and enter password, the box or window closes.  However, if I access the new wallet and click on file, open, click on the original wallet and enter password, I get an error message, I'm unable to post the image but it says.

Electrum - An Error Occurred
Sorry!
Something went wrong while executing Electrum.
To help us diagnose and fix the problem, you can send us a bug report that contains useful debug info.  Then there's a button to click that states: Show Report Contents. 
Below that it says, "Please briefly describe what led to the error".
Do you want to send this report? Then 3 buttons to click on which are:
Send Bug Report Never Not Now

The first thing you have to do is to make a copy of your wallet file and save it somewhere safe.
On Windows the wallet file location should be:

Then download the old version you were using before updating as HCP suggested, from here (don't forget to verify the signature):
https://download.electrum.org/
Install it and restore your wallet using the wallet file. If the file is still intact you should be able to restore your wallet.
If the version you used to use is older than 3.3.4 do not use it to broadcast transactions.

Follow khaled0111's advice and download the old version from https://download.electrum.org/ (hopefully you remember the exact version you were using!)

Note that attempting to open with an older version may not work if the "new" version of Electrum that you tried (and is now crashing) modified the wallet file and "upgraded" the wallet version before it crashed. If it did, you will likely find that the old versions will now refuse to open the "updated" wallet file :-\

Do you have old backups of the wallet file or did you make copies of it before attempting to open with the updated version of Electrum? ???

What did you do with the wallet file?

Did you download it from the internet? Did you restore it through file recovery? Did you store it on a dying hard drive?

It seems odd that electrum crashes when you are trying to open the file.
If you have copies of the file (before opening it with electrum), definitely try to open it with older versions. But please always with a fresh copy, and never work on the "original" file.

 @HCP and khaled0111

First off, thanks for being patient with me.  I copied and saved the wallet to a differ folder.  When I click on the link you provided to see the list of download, I see the 2.9 that I originally had but there are a number of differ names so not sure which 2.9 to download.

Your original version. Point to note, the reason why you're downloading this is to ensure that you can open the wallet file to export the seeds/private keys and not to send funds or anything like that. In fact, you should turn your internet connection off before opening your wallet file, those versions were also vulnerable to CORS preflight check vulnerability(unprotected JSONRPC). Absolutely do not trust any dialog that may appear to ask you to upgrade.

If you're using Windows, I would recommend that you use the "portable" 2.9.3 .exe from here: https://download.electrum.org/2.9.3/

Note that you should use the "portable" version only for this task... and only because it won't interfere with (nor be interfered with by) the currently installed version as it creates it's own "local" data directory etc. and won't try to use the common Electrum data directory in the "AppData" directory etc.

when it crashes you should use the send bug report option to create a github issue so that the developers can look into it. this is the only way to get the bug fixed over the medium term.

What exactly happens when you send an Electrum bug report from the program anyway? Does it just automatically create a Github issue or does it open an email client, or open browser to the Electrum site? Who is receiving all these reports since Electrum is an open-source project with a bunch of people collaborating on it, and you'd have to delegate one or some of the core developers to monitor it?

It automagically generates an issue on the Github issue register like this: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/6906