Bitcoin Forum

Hey everyone!
I sure hope I didn't ACTUALLY lose my coins but I am at the extent of my knowledge here so please help if you can.  I am new to Electrum and to wallets, although I've had them for years but never used them due to the fear of this very thing.....  Thanks in advance!

-So I got some BTC via the localbitcoins.com website today.

-Next, I installed electrum on CPU and I restored my Wallet from my seed.

- I chose to receiving addresses and marked them priority and labeled them


- then sent my coins from my localbitcoins.com wallet to the 2 electrum wallet addresses I labeled,
and have the record of both transactions on my acct page at localbtcs.com, It says the transactions are complete and I have $0 in my acct at that site now.

- Electrum showed both transactions were pending and I think I saw one got the completed status when my computer crashed and restarted!!@!

Thanks and ay help as quickly as possible is appreciated I am about to curse the BTC this is my 3rd time losing a lot of $ due to varied B.S. of some sort in a month!  I have been using BTC for 2 years!  Never a problem til now.... 

Zonts

Relax. Assuming you sent to the addresses generated by your Electrum wallet, you have no worries. The coins are not actually just in your computer, but are on the blockchain, jargon which means that the data is distributed to every computer in the world which is running the full client. When you solve your computer problems and bring up Electrum, the coins should be there, looking at you cool as a cucumber.

Whew (kinda)!  That is good news but how do I use them.... for instance I need to send them to another wallet now and realize now that if they go the same wallet im best off doing 1 transaction to save money.  I thought wallets were for that purpose and let you manage the coins r whatever so could I somehow merge the two wallet addy's b4 I send them off to spend?
How do I take the coin out of my wallet address and get the coin into another?
Thanks for the reply

May a payment to yourself to a different address

Can you update the title of this thread? It describes something that is not what really happened to you.

okay I went to Blockchain and entered the addresses of my missing URLS or codes  and Yes they are there somewhere out there as far a I can tell, but I  don't have any way to SEND them to my other wallet address like ive been trying to do since late last night. 

The page that loads when I search for my wallet addy's has the header:

"Addresses are identifiers which you use to send bitcoins to another person."

Here I can see BTC Amount in each wallet is right, so I can VIEW my missing wallet Addy's (or are these the transactions, stored within?) and see everything adds up to show they are still in existence, sure.  I don't see any ways for me to send them from where they are now to a website's wallet address or top any for that Matter?

WHAT AM I MISSING HERE?

I could be losing a lot o my rent $ as we speak so if anyone can helpa ASAP pls do..
- THANKS

If you think Electrum wallet got corrupted on crash try to restore from seed (12 words you got when first creating wallet):

Open Electrum go to File > Create/Restore and create a new file and restore from seed. Then wait for sync.

Ive done that a fw times already and somehow dont' have just one seed file to check now...  there are multiple. 

I DO have the same one that I used to restore the wallet minutes b4 I the crash which happen within a min of me using the seed to install them.  I just wonder if the crash during a transaction is the reason this is happening?

cant I just use that wallet address, the tx id and all the othrr stuff at localbitcoins.com site along with the seed phrase somehiow?

@zonts can you start all over and explain clearly what you want to do and what do you have? I don't understand anything that you've said.

NO! Never put your seed on a website. As flagel8 said you need to calm down. You will likely make mistakes that will cost you your coins if you go on like this.

You will need a computer to spend your coins. So first fix your PC or use a laptop or smartphone (electrum works on android - check out electrum.org/download.html). As long as you have the seed you can restore your wallet on any TRUSTED device you OWN and then spend the coins.
 

Okay guys you are right and my haste is what got me here in first place.  However I have my seed and have restored 10+ times and tried it all I'm thinking. but lets got step by step.

So from the beginning:

Where do we start?

I have a screean shot of the actual words when I first got them, so what info do you need?

As mentioned before you must *never* reveal the seed to anyone.

First do you have a working PC? What machine are you using to restore the wallet from the seed?

When you restore via the seed do you see a) all the transactions or b) some of the transactions? Also is  the balance accurate? Do you see the address you sent the coins to in the list of addresses on the receive tab?

Make sure you are not misspelling the seed. You should have copied and pasted the seed as txt document so you could have restored it with copy and paste again.

What do you mean by that? That you have multiple seeds therefore? If so check them all one by one untill you find out the wallet that includes the correct addresses.

Note that as a seed is considered the complete sentence of the 12 words. This is what you must use to restore your wallet.

Okay away we go!  I am hopeful and thankful for all your help.


 My PC is ready to go w/ recently wiped hd fresh win7sp 64 bit installed.  But that was the only transaction I tried w/ electrum,  (so far I give it 1 star... for
its forum members otherwise it sucks lol) so I wouldn't have much history, but balance is $0 should be different than that for sure.

Yeah SORRY, I meant I have multiple files in random places name 'default wallet' and they open to different wallets.
Does one have to do any sort of backup or "Save" or anything in order to back up each transaction? Because it was so fast, but I had been labeling my wallet addresses and customizing and going through preferences prior to CPU crash and the first thing I did was start Eletrum when I restarted, but only to find an empty wallet with new addresses.

**Updated**
I don't know if it matters, but I I used the standalone/portable version when the cpu crashed.

Basically I know this:

I have the "Tx numbers and every code imaginable from localbitcoins.com, and when I install programs or do anything where I will have a password, username, a list of 12 words in a particular order, etc... I always take a Screenshot of the said pass code or whatever, so I know I have the words in correct order etc....

So they should be opening the same wallet they did on the day the wallet crashed, only the difference is the balance is $0 and the wallet addresses in the list are different.

So, I am thinking that Ihad created a new wallet in the very beginning when, but I am positive I remember restoring the whole one wallet I ever created back in the summer that had lied dormant until now.  I had to use the very screenshot I mentioned earlier, so I have one Seed deal that has 12 words trhat brings me to wrong address.  I also have all the recrods of the transaction pone should need.  That's it, so ....:\

Can I still get my btcs'?

Thanks in advance

Do you have a link to transaction tx on blockchain?

Yes I do!

You can post that transaction ID or the address here so we can see if you even have coins on that address. Nothing can be done with that transaction ID or address to recover coins.

Lets go step by step again:

Do you have the seed (12 words) from your crashed Electrum? If you have it - but do not post that 12 words here - you can recover all coins and all transactions by entering those 12 words on File>Create/Restore>Choose any name for new file> Restore wallet from seed. When you do that if Electrum connects to network and you can see that address on receive tab, coins should be there. If not: that was not correct seed for that wallet that crashed.

If you don't have those 12 words your only option is 'default_wallet' file from Electrum on your crashed PC.

How much did you lose?

Yes I sent the coins in 2 transactions, and both have plenty of "Verifications" or whatever to make it an official transaction (or are they called "confirmations"?).  And I have the history of the transaction in wallet on Localbtc.com which has the "Txid's" and amounts right there.  I see the blockchain site recognizes them with the correct balances.


Yes I have the words and everytime I restore it brings up a different wallet.


I have a bunch of those files so how do I restore from them?

It's only ($200) but $200 I need that WOULD be much more had I been able to access it but then again with the rising BTC value, I may be better off this way granted I get the coinage back at some point before any crash in the market or whatever you wanna call it.

some time ago there was the case of a user suffering from dyslexia.
he had saved his seed on paper, but was not able to restore because he made several mistakes writing it down.
luckily I was able to find the original seed.

This is why the client now asks users to retype their seed during wallet creation.
I guess this is about the best we can do to prevent such disasters.

That was why I mentioned that I take pictures/screenshots of stuff like that so that I don't have to worry about it.  SO if anything I may be a narcoleptic or something or maybe I go into trances and don't realize what I'm doing and that is what happened to my seed,  J/K... No I know if I had been presented a seed to record in some way, that I would have no doubt, but im thinking the crash at the right (or wrong actually) time is what caused this.

 I just can't believe that I am the ONLY person with certain info about the transaction but that won't help me get my coins... SO I have the seed info, its correct, it briongs up either the wrong wallet which is impossible, or it somehow lost the info for my transaction, so to hell with the seed.  How else can I get my coins if I have "TXId" code and "default wallet" files?

zonts, man, chillout.

Have you tried in a different computer to install the latest version of Electrum and write one by one each word in plain English to see if the computer you are using is not ok?

Okay I may have stumbled upon a clue:  I came across a post here about someone else with similar prob because he didn't pay the site their commission so they never sent them totally because he sent all the coins with out the commission, so maybe this is the case in my Localbtc.com wallet history I see the tansactions had some red & some green arrows so maybe it never went all the way through?


I was wary of showing the Tax Id but after researching I see that is not going to compromise my coins, now but had to check first, so here we go:

1st transaction:

txid 45fb2428d8296ccc0efea523eb7f6bda5ba458c79682159f7f02694e4887b4a3


2nd transaction:

txid 9e416cd6d0826cd459b63e9b778a5b344bef1abd693bc9f54f2c3cd533e579e8

Well the transactions look smooth. The second one was without fees but it is confirmed anyway.
As long as you properly restore your wallet you should be able to use them.

I have properly restored my wallet and it's running right now, but there are NO transactions in history and no BTC on balance. 

So this must not be my wallet I sent the coins to. I'm seeing this is a common occurrence with "wallets" like electrum and other similar things, as I do more reading on the subject and it appears that since everyone is saying that I need the seed sequence or to properly recover the seed, I ran Recuva to recover any possible deleted files that were crucial but with nothing to recover.

I am able to see that I didn't delete the seed or the seed hint or anything as far as lost files related to the reason behind the mystery in it all.

I am thinking that there is something I can do with the Load transaction menu item?

that's probably the issue.
can you reproduce this?

Previously you said you had restored the wallet 10 times from seed. So what makes it a "proper restore" this time?

unless you can restore a wallet some other way than:

1. start up electrum

2. When it asks if you are creating a new wallet or restoring,  you pick "Restore wallet from seed" option.

3. type wallet seed words in correctly.

4. wait to connect wallet

or what am I missing?

Yes that is how it is done. So again what makes you feel your latest attempt was a proper restore while your previous attempts were not? Do you see familiar addresses in your wallet?

No... I don't see familiar addresses, & I get the same result no matter which "default_wallet" file I open, so im thinkin they're gone because I've restored the wallet with the only seed I have so if that's not it then I don't have it.

Oh my gox, are you still in this trouble?

Have you tried in a different computer yet?

Yes and here's where I am at, Firstly the coins are worth more now so I have no problem sending a little something to anyone who can help me get these back.

I have checked with LocalBTC.com and still no word from support or whatever but I have a hard time believing that something like that can happen so quickly and without any way to avoid it or prevent it from happening.  If that were the case then BTC would not be popular at all.   So here's what I have:

1.  The seed, the only one I have ever gotten.  I used it to restore the wallet I retrieved addresses from in order to do the transaction from localbtc.com to electrum so I know that I am restoring it right.

2.  I have every file that has ever been placed on my computer in relation to Electrum, including a default_wallet etc...

3.  I have the complete history of the transaction as shown in the wallet page on user accounts in "Wallet History" like the TxId , Contact #'s as well as the actual address the transaction went to.

What other options do I have, seeing as restoring the wallet from seed doesn't bring up the right wallet for some reason? Either that or the two addresses with BTC on them are for some reason absent.

Try a restore again, typing your seed manually (no copy paste) separated by spaces, on a single line.

If that still fails, please post (or PM me) a screenshot of the result (not the seed).

Try what flatfly've said. Try restoring with that seed in an older version of Electrum. You could also share the MPK with ThomasV to see if he can manage to figure out why you can't restore the real set of addresses you used in the first place.


Why don't you use the default_wallet file you have? Does it have the set of addresses you are trying to generate? Don't you remember the password or something?

Does the restoring process gives a different set of addresses each time, or only one unknown set of addresses, that repeats? Were the two addresses you sent bitcoins to one of the first 5 receiving addresses or the 3 first change addresses? Or did you used a new one, for example the 6th or 7th in the list created with a different gap limit?

Your thinking about the change in address generation algos, aren't you?

Zonts when you put the transaction id in blockchain.info's search bar do you see a transaction page with confirmations?

I tried restoring seeds from a 1.8 wallet to a 1.9 install and it worked fine. Also the reverse also works fine. So it looks like the OP copied the seed wrong.

I would swear I saw different behavior generating from seed between the full client and the portable one.  If you sent the coins to the addresses generated by the portable, I would try regenerating from seed with the portable version again and see what happens.

I've created a fresh wallet with the 1.9.5 installer, then run the 1.9.5 portable version and restore from that seed. The result is the same in both versions of the software. Still can't reproduce the problem you and others have mentioned.

This may just be me here. But what if he hasnt let the network sync up? I havent used Electrum that much before, but I do remember its just like qt in that it has to pull the blockchain first. Is it possible you just havent synced yet?

Electrum only downloads block headers, so I don't think that is the case.

Okay everyone.  Thanks for all your input!  I tried another idea something that I am surprised worked but it did...  I searched my downloads folder for the word "electrum".  I tried opening the "1.9.4 Portable".exe at the bottom of page for some reason instead of the first one that I figured was the only one I had seeing as I only was aware of downloading one portable and one regular version.  It opened up immediately no problem.  I could swear that I had opened every file AT LEAST 10 times, but I guess I was always trying to restore from seed and by some strange reason missed it or the fact that I finally emptied the trash, which id not done due to risk of losing any important files, but I did that yesterday and now it works, so maybe there is an exception?

confused about wtf happened?

Everybody is confused. What Zonts says is difficult to understand.

I'll tell ya what happened....  See, you got a guy (me) trying to explain his situation to experts, when he never really paid the attention he should have when learning about BTC.  

I didn't realize I had 2 "Electrum portable " exe's and the only thing I can think of that caused me to overlook the correct exe but was trying the other wrong file.  Of course I was getting nowhere, causing me to be frustrated and give up b4 realizing the other correct portable exe was elsewhere in the system and the search for "wallet" brought it up a brought it up and I tried that 2nd one first, which I thought I had tried numerous times but maybe not considering the fiasco that ensued....  

Or at least after pondering the whole thing, that is the most likely reason all this happened.  Sorry, and was under the influence of some pretty strong zonts: http://pl.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=HeatRod%21 and on day 12 so go figure... Mama always said: "Flailer is as flailer does....".  





- "Hurricane" Heat-Rod Zonts
(WWF/WWE/WCW/AWA Tag Team title holder 1999)

Why are you using the Portable in the system, and in different directories? That's supposed to be used in USB keys or removable hard disks. If you you it in your system you'll likely lose your wallet files.