Bitcoin Forum

Hi all,

I've recently sent 0,5 btc to my electrum wallet and it shows up on the blockexplorer just fine, however it doesn't show up in my overview in Electrum.
Do you have any suggestions as to how this could occur? And how to solve it :).

Tx ID https://blockexplorer.com/tx/e552ab0e6ee022457a8badf54b1cc55cbc61101d27a57078436c19922e9d28ff
Destination wallet addres: 1Hefr1NLzABVZhK9Kh7XSB55xRFtK5ex6e (copied from electrum, related blockexplorer site: https://blockexplorer.com/address/1Hefr1NLzABVZhK9Kh7XSB55xRFtK5ex6e)

So yeah... all seems fine except for the fact I can't actually see the added balance in electrum...

The obvious questions are:

1. Is that address definitely part of your wallet? (Check the addresses tab and/or goto the console and type:... it should return "true")

2. Is your Electrum connected and synced correctly? Do you have a green dot in the bottom right corner? or red dot? or blue arrows?

3. If you click Tools -> Network -> Overview... does it show the correct number of blocks? Most recent block as of this message is: 487,924... your transaction was in block #487,034... if your Electrum isn't synced up to at least 487,034 then you won't see the transaction.

Thanks HCP and sorry for not covering all my bases in the OP.

The address is in my addresses tab under receiving (but balance shows 0). Console confirms this.
Green dot, connected to 10 nodes and synced.
Fully up to date.

Edit: when I rightclick the address in electrum and click "view on blockexplorer" it shows up with 0,5 btc balance, but still not in electrum itself..

Next stupid question... confirm you are running Electrum... and not ElectronCash?

I cannot think how it can not find your coins if the address is definitely in the wallet and you're connected to the Bitcoin network and the Electrum server is synced up past block #487,034. ???

The only thing I can think of is that you're connected to the BitcoinCash network, in which this transaction does not exist.

What version of electrum are you using? The version number should be in the window title.

Sometimes it stops syncing even with the green dot. Close electrum and run it again to get it to sync.

And BTW you can ctrl+f to search for addresses on the addresses tab.

Version 2.9.3. Electrum and not ElectronCash.

I'm pretty sure I'm not on the bch fork as I didn't change anything + I made a payment in BTC on the same day which went through like normal.
I've restarted Electrum (and my system for that matter) multiple times since I first noticed (I wasn't too worried in the beginning as it isn't unusual for the status to take some time to update correctly).

Have you tried deleting your wallet file and restoring it again? Or tried to changing your Electrum server manually?

If you are sure that this address belongs to you, then you are safe. You just need to see how can you let Electrum know that those coins are there.

---

If you can't fix, you could do this:

Go to your Addresses tab, right click the address that received those coins and select "Private Key"; Import the private key in another wallet software and see if you can spend the coins.

If you are 100% sure that the coins are at an address you own and is an address from your electrum wallet, you can try to restore from seed which you should have safeguarded of course. It will show new balances after restoring.

In case you have the seed you can delete everything in your %appdata% folder of Electrum and install from beginning and choose "I already have a seed" during first setup. It should show your balance now.

Sorry for the late reply, it's been a while since I had time to tinker with this.

I've used Bither and imported the private key as you suggested, Bither shows a 0,00 balance for this address.
I'm really puzzled now as when I click the link from the Bither app to go to the blockexplorer (https://blockchain.info/address/1Hefr1NLzABVZhK9Kh7XSB55xRFtK5ex6e)...
AGAIN, it shows 0,5 BTC but it doesn't show up in Bither OR Electrum?

I haven't tried restoring the wallets yet but at this point I don't see how it would make a difference?

Blockexplorer sees 0,5 balance - 2 different wallet apps see 0,00.

Any other suggestions?

I'm kind of at a loss here... If you have imported the private key (not seed) and it shows that exact address, then it should show the 0.5 BTC balance!!?! ??? :-\

Time for another stupid question... You have checked the ENTIRE address for correctness... Every single character? I know I'm bad and usually only check the first 4 or 5 characters and the last 4 or 5.

Can you tell I'm grasping at straws here? :P

Maybe see if you can create a sweep transaction? In Electrum, goto "wallet -> private keys -> sweep"... Input your private key (and a receive address if you want to send to a different wallet) and see if it says "no inputs found" or it comes up with a "send" dialog...

Other than that, I'm not sure what else to try? ???

I created a watch-only wallet with two addresses from that transaction and the amounts show up correctly. I don't see why it doesn't work for you. Once again is the address listed on the addresses tab? It could be a case of compressed address vs. uncompressed address and electrum is only seeing one of those.

Sweeping comes back with "no inputs found"...

Thanks for looking into this as well, here is a screenshot of my electrum addresses page with the relevant address:
It's 100% the same address

https://s1.postimg.org/59iprdospb/image.png

Then the private key you are trying to sweep is not for address: 1Hefr1NLzABVZhK9Kh7XSB55xRFtK5ex6e

Just confirm that your private key starts with a "5" or a "K" or an "L"??... DO NOT post your private key here! ;)

It's possible that this might be a compressed/uncompressed key issue... Very unlikely, but you never know... I'd suggest that you try using an offline copy of www.bitaddress.org and on the "details" tab, pasting in your private key and seeing what addresses it actually generates.

If you see the "1Hefr" address shown, then double check that the associated private key in WIF format is the one you're actually trying to sweep

But, but... I literally copy the private key from that address (in electrum, right click on address --> private key --> enter my pw --> copy the key and enter it in Sweep).
It does mention that the inputs need to be confirmed but for as far as I understand it's been confirmed.

Can confirm that my private key starts with one of those you mention there. I'm going to try the bitaddress option soon and will report back.
I don't know what a compressed/uncompressed key issue is so I can't comment on that...

EDIT: bitaddress returns 1Hefr1NLzABVZhK9Kh7XSB55xRFtK5ex6e as the generated key which is the same as shows up in electrum.

It's showing up as a used address so that means Electrum is seeing the transaction. So what's the problem?

That it doesn't show the added balance. In blockexplorers it show's the balance is 0,5 but in electrum it shows with balance 0,0.
Also, the +0,5 doesn't show up in my transactions list (history tab).
Also, in the column Tx it shows '0' (meaning 0 transactions when in fact it should be 1)

This appears to be a segwit transaction. I think that's why it doesn't show up in your wallet. Electrum will have support for segwit in the next version 3.0. You have to wait until then.

 :o

So, how can you see it's a segwit transaction? And if I want to acces the 0,5 which wallet do I use?

Thanks again

By looking at the decoded "raw" transaction, you can see references to "witnesses" for certain inputs/outputs.

I wouldn't have thought this would be an issue, as your address is obviously NOT a SegWit address (it can't be as it starts with a "1")... But perhaps Electrum 2.x is just not able to parse the transaction and that is why you see balance=0??

If you need to move those coins in a hurry... You could always try creating a transaction manually using something like coinb.in (https://coinb.in/#newTransaction)

As a test, I put your "1Hefr" address in, it found the 0.5 BTC input... I was able to put in the same BTC address as output address, an output value of 0.49995000 (creates a fee 0.00005000 which should be about 25sats/byte) and then created the raw transaction...

Theoretically, you could then verify it, sign it and broadcast it using coinb.in as well...

Things you would have to be careful of include making sure you calculate the fee and output value correctly, so the transaction gets confirmed. Double checking that your output address is correct. Also, you'd want to do the "signing" part (when you put in your private key) using an "offline copy" of the coinb.in website (save as, or get it from the GitHub linked at the bottom of the site).

Thanks all so much for explaining this and clearing it up. After some time I was getting worried if I would ever see my 0,5 btc back but it seems like all I need is patience.

The solution you offer seems a bit too much for me right now and as I'm not in a hurry - I'll just wait out.

Thanks again!

No worries... If you get desperate, let us know what address you want to send to (and desired fee rate) and pretty much anyone can create an unsigned raw transaction for you.

You'd just need to put it in the "verify" section to confirm it's sending the correct amount(s) to the correct address(es), sign it and broadcast it.

Coinb.in is actually pretty straightforward... ;)

The other option is to download the Electrum 3.x source code from GitHub and run that... See if it reads the transaction correctly. I'm surprised that 2.x is struggling with the witness tx, as you can create a watching only wallet for your 1Hefr address and it shows the transaction just fine... So I'm not sure why it can't read it when you have the spending wallet??!? ???