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Title: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? *** SOLVED *** Post by: jfhoff on April 10, 2013, 01:09:18 AM I have a special situation, and I'm hoping someone can help me out...
A while ago, when BTC1 was worth maybe $10, I started setting up "cold storage" for my bitcoins. In my ineptitude, I started by installing Bitcoin-QT on a virgin PC that had never been, and would never be, connected to the internet. I then generated an address to which to send some coins (I think I can safely reveal the address: 15dgcomA9Fv9Ecna5T2cNxXpsMnH6wCXmh), and sent a mere BTC3.1052 to it from another (connected) PC. However, since the receiving PC was never loaded with the blockchain nor connected to the internet, it never learned about the coins sent to it (of course, I backed up the wallet). Now, I have a working setup that uses Bitcoin Armory on the isolated PC, and Bitcoin Armory loaded with a read-only wallet on the connected PC (which is piggybacked on Bitcoin-QT, as per the setup instructions). Now, in order to retrieve the BTC3.1052, I loaded the wallet I had backed up, onto another copy of Bitcoin-QT, which was loaded onto yet a third PC that had an up-to-date copy of the blockchain already loaded. Although this copy of Bitcoin-QT is aware of the address that had been earlier generated, and thus presumably is able to receive the bitcoins and then spend them, it does not have knowledge of the BTC3.1052, but instead reports a zero balance. I have the sender's 64-hex-digit transaction ID, if that helps. How can I fix this situation? Those coins are getting valuable! Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: NothinG on April 10, 2013, 01:13:58 AM Does it show a list of receiving addresses in the client?
Have you tried -rescan? Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: jfhoff on April 10, 2013, 01:16:00 AM Yes, the address is still there... what is rescan? I'll look it up.
Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: paraipan on April 10, 2013, 01:20:19 AM Relax, the coins are still yours and haven't moved. Just have patience until blockchain is downloaded completely on your new wallet.
Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: jfhoff on April 10, 2013, 01:22:39 AM Thanks for the reassurance, but it's been over a day, and the client doesn't seem to be doing anything. What is -rescan?
Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: paraipan on April 10, 2013, 01:25:28 AM Thanks for the reassurance, but it's been over a day, and the client doesn't seem to be doing anything. What is -rescan? Is the option that tells bitcoin to search again for whatever coins may exist on the blockchain for it's addresses. Is not needed in newer versions of Bitcoin-qt so you can ignore it if you have +0.6. Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: jfhoff on April 10, 2013, 01:29:35 AM The third PC (receiver) is running v0.8.1-beta and the sender is running v0.7.2-beta (I know, I need to update it soon).
Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: jfhoff on April 10, 2013, 01:42:38 AM In a few minutes, if no one tells me to do otherwise, I'm going to erase the blockchain and force a reload, but this time with the wallet already in place. I'll remove everything from the data directory and insert the wallet.dat file. Then I'll find out tomorrow if it worked.
LET ME KNOW IF I SHOULD DO SOMETHING ELSE! Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: paraipan on April 10, 2013, 01:57:43 AM In a few minutes, if no one tells me to do otherwise, I'm going to erase the blockchain and force a reload, but this time with the wallet already in place. I'll remove everything from the data directory and insert the wallet.dat file. Then I'll find out tomorrow if it worked. LET ME KNOW IF I SHOULD DO SOMETHING ELSE! Please do that and report back. Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: NothinG on April 10, 2013, 02:27:13 AM In a few minutes, if no one tells me to do otherwise, I'm going to erase the blockchain and force a reload, but this time with the wallet already in place. I'll remove everything from the data directory and insert the wallet.dat file. Then I'll find out tomorrow if it worked. LET ME KNOW IF I SHOULD DO SOMETHING ELSE! https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Running_Bitcoin CTRL+F type in "-rescan" Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? Post by: jfhoff on April 10, 2013, 03:28:50 AM Thanks, NothinG, for the -rescan tip. CTRL+F didn't work (is that feature dropped on newer builds?), but fortunately I had saved the previous Data Directory by renaming it, so I renamed it back and restarted bitcoin-qt.exe with "-rescan" on the command line. VOILA! in minutes instead of hours, it came up with the missing coins.
Thanks, too, to paraipan and others who provided tips. You're awesome! Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? *** SOLVED *** Post by: NothinG on April 12, 2013, 07:47:03 AM CTRL+F was to find it on the page, not to launch a console. Sorry about the confusion.
Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? *** SOLVED *** Post by: rpm on April 12, 2013, 07:49:52 AM the coins should show once the wallet downloads the blockchain info
Title: Re: Where did my 3.1052 bitcoins go? *** SOLVED *** Post by: blobberTK on April 12, 2013, 08:26:53 AM glad to see it all worked out
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