Bitcoin Forum

Hello, I'm new to Electrum. I'm trying to run it on my Ubuntu box, Android tablet and Android phone.

One of the features mentioned is "Ubiquitous: You can use the same wallet on different computers, it will auto-synchronize."

So, like if I use the same seed, same wallet, right? Shouldn't it show the same balance and the same transactions?

Yes, all transactions will be synched.

So what am I doing wrong? My Ubuntu box, tablet and phone all seem to function like completely separate wallets. I am using the same seed - is there something I'm missing?

Things like address labels and preferences are not synced across devices.  The transactions are...

When it says synched, it means addresses, transactions, amount of bitcoins, etc.

Labels, contacts, and other things not related to your wallet's addresses will not be synched.

To test the synching functionality, send some bitcoin from one address in your wallet to another wallet on your tablet etc.

Once the transaction has been broadcasted, load up electrum on another device with the same seed... it should show that transaction from your tablet on your other device as well.

I'm only hoping for the balance and transaction history to sync, but I'm not getting that.

Maybe because I sent from (the same) Electrum wallet on my phone to my computer. It got sent, but balance and transaction history not synched. I'll try sending to a different wallet altogether and see if things get synched.

If you sent to the same wallet with the same seed, then the balance should only go down by the cost of your fee on your transaction.

Also, sometimes the server you're connected to doesn't update correctly and you need to manually select a server to connect to until you find one that updates your balance.

Electrum servers are run by volunteers running open source software, so sometimes you can get a dud...

Just go into network menu uncheck autoconnect and then pick some servers, wait a few seconds and see if the transactions show. Repeat.

Hmmm... ok, trying with different servers. But is it unreasonable when I see the green light that it's connected to the servers to assume that it's synched?

Also, what about the different ports and protocol - how do I choose, and might those make a difference?

The servers are run by volunteers using open source software. Depending on the person, they may pose limits such as, we will not search for spent transactions before a specific block etc. also, depending on what kind of system they run on there could be a plethora of problems causing synching errors.

The green light just says "you are connected to Bob's server" but it's up to Bob to ensure the server is running properly.

If you see wonky behavior with synching etc. try picking another server. The port settings are fine as default.

OK, I got it to work. It wasn't about servers. I think there's a bug when recovering a wallet using a QR code on Android. I have tried it several times on my phone and tablet and, even though the correct mnemonic is displayed, the correct balance and recent transactions never show up.

I just tried it again using the mnemonic to recover my Ubuntu wallet, and voila!

Thanks for the help - I suppose there is somewhere that I should report this bug (at least I think it's a bug)...