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I just installed Electrum today, 6/19/21, on a Win10 machine.  When I open Electrum to the default wallet, it does not connect to any server.  The round icon in the lower right hand corner remains red.  What I've tried:
- Unchecking "Select Server Automatically" and tried assigning 10 different servers, but round icon remains red.
- Disabled windows firewall and my anti-virus, but no change in behavior.
- I went into windows firewall to allow the access to Electrum, but Electrum isn't even listed.

I seem to be out of options.  Any ideas?

What version of Electrum are you using?

Are you sure you installed Electrum from electrum.org and not a phishing site? Did you validate the installation using PGP?

I recently had an issue with connecting to servers with domain names, can only use the servers that are IP addresses, maybe you're experiencing the same?
I think it had something to do with DNS cache and solved itself after a few days.

To check if it's the same issue:
Look for the "status" in the Network settings; to open it quickly: click the (red) connection circle icon.
If it has at least 1 connected node (but not to the selected server) you can temporarily use any of those "connected nodes" (IP addresses) as server.
To select, right click on it and select "Use as server".

That's the way Windows Firewall lists permissions. Programs you just installed which you haven't made a firewall rule for will not appear in the "Windows Firewall With Advanced Security" mmc.exe snap-in. And Windows Firewall does block Electrum's network activity initially, showing a dialog prompting you to select it to run as part of a private network (on) or public network (off). Do you recall seeing such a notice the first time you ran Electrum?

If Electrum can discover servers on other machines on your network, this is the most likely culprit.

I have had my Anti Virus block a bunch of Electrum servers for some time now, I haven't investigated this since it never caused any troubles for me but in a more severe case with a more strict AV it may prevent any connections from taking place.
It lists the reason for the blocked servers as its "internal blacklist" and "anti-phishing blacklist"

If I had to guess this is the reason why OP can't connect though: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/5195

That would then be contrary to his story in OP. He stated that he installed Electrum on 19 July (yesterday). That does not exclude the possibility that he originally downloaded and installed an old version of the software, but I doubt it. Versions 3.3.0 - 3.3.8 were released during 2018/2019 and you can only get them from the 'Previous Releases' section on the official download page. If he download from the official site, I don't think he took that route.

I have Electrum installed on two computers, never experienced my AVs or firewalls blocking the connection to it. Unless OP did it himself but doesn't know it. But I have noticed that sometimes if the sever I got connected to is offline, I couldn't manually select and connect to a different node without restarting my Electrum client. @OP, you could try that as well. Untick the 'select server automatically' box, pick a random server, connect to it, and restart Electrum to see if that will work.   

I've researched all of your suggestions. 
- I did download Electrum 4.1.4 directly from Electrum home page.
- I re-installed Electrum, but no change in behavior.
- Went into Help > Check for Updates, and I get an error saying "Update Check Failed".
- There are no entries beneath "Connected Nodes"
- I am getting no warnings from Kaspersky or Windows Firewall when I start Electrum. 
- Went into Win10  Settings, clicked "Speech, region, date' , chose Date&Time and clicked Synch now.
- Reboot and re-started Electrum.

Without hiring a computer expert, looks like I won't be able to use Electrum.   What would be the next best alternative to Electrum, given that I am a newbie at Bitcoin?  Using Win10.

This indicates that there's a problem with your internet connection, unless you haven't downloaded electrum from its official website (https://electrum.org/#home).
That error should be displayed when you are not connected to internet. If you are connected to internet, it should say "Already up to date".  

Using a (secure) VPN or not using VPN (if you are using a VPN) may solve your problem.

Thanks.  I took your suggestion and activated the VPN that comes with Kaspersky, then opened Electrum.  When I go Help > Check for Updates it get the following feedback:

Update Check Failed
Sorry but we were unable to check for updates.
Please try again later.

HOWEVER, now it seems to actually be making an attempt to search for updates (it searches for about two seconds).  When VPN is off, I get the error message instantly, like it is not even making an attempt.  I guess that progess, of sorts.

So you have Kaspersky Anti Virus on your computer. If it's not an Internet Security Suite, you are probably using the firewall that comes with Windows Defender.

You can try and disable real-time protection on your device and turn off the firewall to see if that changes anything. Open up your Kaspersky and disable it. That will probably automatically turn on the Windows Defender, so you will have to temporarily turn that off as well. Click Start and search for 'security'. Click on Virus & Threat Protection > Manage Settings under Virus & Threat settings and turn off real-time protection.

After that, click on Firewall & network protection and turn off all the firewalls that are displayed under each of your networks.

Yes, I've diabled Windows Firewall and Kaspersky anti-virus.  Still can't connect.  I have a Windows 7 base install on a different partition so I installed Electrum on it.  Works like a charm no issues.  So, there is some setting somewhere that is stopping Electrum from being able to connect to ouside servers, including Electrum itself (for updates).  I either have to re-install Win10, which I really don't want to do, or try another wallet and see if I get the same behavior. 

Since you tried all the above and none of them worked then the problem might be because of Windows itself or because your ports are blocked either by your ISP or router.
I found this solution on GitHub posted by SomberNight (Electrum developer), it should fix your problem if it's due to port blocking:


Also, try to connect to one of the servers using its IP instead of its name. You can find a list of servers by clicking on the red circle. Ping the server to retrieve its IP:

You (probably) don't have to reinstall Windows. Check if other programs, and browsers in particular, can connect to the internet such as Google Chrome. If they can, then it must be outdated proxy settings.

Check your proxy settings in Control Panel > Internet Options. If you see any proxy listed, remove it unless you require a proxy to connect to the internet. On the other hand, if you do need a proxy to connect, go to Electrum, then Tools -> Network -> Proxy and fill in the proxy information in there.

Or you can try while connected to a free VPN like ProtonVPN. This should override any proxy settings set by Windows.

Some servers disables their ICMP ping and can result in a false negative.

Here's a list that can be pinged:

---

OP, if you're able to access the website, then the update checking should not fail as it is hosted on the same domain. There might be something specifically blocking your Electrum from accessing the internet instead of a filter on your network.

Go to Tools>Preference and check "Write Logs to File", restart Electrum and try connecting to a server again. Next, go to the data directory (%appdata%/Electrum) or whichever directory you're storing your files. You will see a folder called Logs, open it and open the latest file with a text editor. You can scroll to the bottom and look for any anomalies related to the connection attempt.

Alternatively, you can try using Wasabi wallet. It isn't as easy to use as Electrum IMO but it is definitely better in terms of privacy in the first place.

That's strange.  I don't see Ransomeware Protection in the location you suggested.  So I typed those words into the search box which does find it.  When I try to go there, I get the following response:

"Page not available.  Your IT Administrator has limited access to some areas of this app, and the item you tried to access is not available.  Contact IT helpdesk for more information."

Well, there is no IT administrator on my PC.  It's a home computer I built from scratch with Win10 Pro.  I'm the Administrator and only user. What is that about and how do I get around that?  I tried logging in as Administrator, but I still cannot enter Ransomeware Protection.

Finally got access to the Ransome Ware Protection applet.  Added electrum-4.1.4.exe to Controlled Folder Access, but no luck.

Is your Windows10 in the latest or at least newer build?
Most of the time, issues with inexplicable reason like this are likely caused by an unknown fault in the OS (since your W7 OS works).

Or try to re-install/update your network adapter's driver in the device manager:

• Right-click Start icon, select "Device Manager" | or search for device manager.
• Expand network adapters, and use "right-click>update driver" on your network adapter.
• If it didn't do anything, reinstall it.

You might also want to remove any installed non-active network adapters that may cause connection issues, "view->show hidden devices".
Hidden devices have light-colored icons.

Did you try checking your proxy settings as I mentioned in my above post?

Try this. Electrum logs communication with the servers which should give some clues as to what is happening.

Thanks for everyone's help, esp. NC50lc.  I downloaded the portable version, and everything works great right out of the box.  A couple of questions:
-  I'm using the same seed that I used for the installer version.  How does the portable program recognize the same seed?  Is it reaching out to the Electrum server to verify, or what?
- Are there any security compromises in using the portable version vs. installed version?
- Does the fact that the portable version works right out of the box narrow the scope of what's going on with my Win10 setup?  Cause there was one other program that I  had to abandon because my PC had issues with reaching out to its server for program updates.

The seed you enter doesn't need to be verified by a server or any other third party. You can generate same addresses even if your computer is offline.
All your keys (private keys, public keys and addresses) are generated using your seed phrase through some one-sided mathematical calculations without any need to a third party.


Yes, Visit the link below and read the topic made by ThomasV.
Warning about portable versions (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154451.0)

If seed phrases were sent to servers then Electrum would have been considered an insecure wallet software and nobody would have ever recommended it. As @hosseinimr93 said the seed generation, validation and key derivation all happen on client side (on your computer) and the only thing you send to Electrum nodes is your address which is "public" to get your transaction history.
The point of using portable versions is to have a software that is ready to run without needing any dependencies. This way you won't need to download any packages or worry about missing components needing to be downloaded. Other than that the software is the same and security of it depends on the system you are using it on.

The portable version is slightly different in that it doesn't store the application/wallet data in the "%AppData%/Electrum" location... instead, it will create a folder called "electrum_data" in the same location as the portable.exe and store all the application and wallet data there.

This allows you to use/run Electrum on say a USB thumb drive without leaving any trace on the main system drive etc. (Nothing listed in Add/Remove programs, no entries in start menu etc).

Based from your reply, it's xenon131's post that solved the issue.

Anyhow, now it looks like the issue is more of antivirus blocking the installed/stand-alone Electrum's connection and not the Portable Electrum.
If you want clarity and possible fix to the normal versions, follow ranochigo's post about activating the "logs": /index.php?topic=5344767.msg57291656 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5344767.msg57291656#msg57291656)
Do not forget to turn that off after.

Since it's not the first time your system blocks internet access to a program, you could check your Kaspersky protection history and quarantine folder and see if there are any Electrum files there. I don't use Kaspersky, so I don't know the exact steps how to do it there. For Windows Defender you will have to search for 'Virus & threat protection' and then click on 'Protection history'. Take a look at what is in there and restore any Electrum files that you might find. It can't be much different for Kaspersky, they probably just use different terms.

I'm wondering if this is at all related to issues from several years ago where some Electrum servers were linked to IPs/domains that had been blocked for "malware mining" etc? ???

Additionally, I know that Windows Defender complains a lot about Electrum. I am always getting "Windows has blocked this file"-type errors when trying to download/install Electrum.

I click "keep", "report as safe" etc... and every new version, the same thing seems to happen ::) I know it's due to PyInstaller being marked "bad" and not limited to just Electrum, but honestly, the heuristics are just stupid ::) :-\

Sounds like a blanket ban as opposed to selective restrictions on the server. The update check communicates with electrum.org/version and if OP was able to access electrum.org in the first place, then the restriction is only specific to the Electrum instance and not on the IPs/domains.

As far as I'm aware, Electrum.org was never an issue. It was certain domains/IPs that were hosting Electrum servers. They had been blacklisted by a couple of the more "helpful" Antivirus applications that try to prevent connections to domains/IPs known for distributing malware, being botnet controllers, being malware cryptominer controllers etc.

In any case, given that the portable worked, and the installed .exe didn't... Either the portable was connecting to different servers or it was some weird Windows firewall thing blocking the connections then. Then isn't really anything different between the installed/portable versions from a networking perspective... and Windows can be a bit problematic like that sometimes. Especially, if you click the wrong button when it first prompts to allow/block connections for the .exe on public/private networks etc.

Honestly, I have never seen it or experienced my computers blocking Electrum. The machine I am on right now uses a genuine Windows 10 operating system and Windows Defender + firewall. I have a 4.0.9 version of Electrum installed on it and it has always worked without any hassle. I don't have any money on it, but I keep it installed just in case.

Windows Defender keeps blocking an office loader (crack) for MS Word every now and then, but never Electrum.

Huh... I wonder why my system keeps complaining about Electrum? It is basically the same... genuine Windows 10 with Windows Defender etc... Although, now that I think about it, I haven't downloaded Electrum in a while (missed a couple of versions), so maybe the Windows system is working now. Who knows? maybe all the "report safe" things I clicked actually worked! :P :D

It's also possible that it was the browser (Edge) being stupid? But I'm almost certain it was Windows system dialogs that were popping up saying that it had been blocked.