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Hi all, go easy on me total newb when it comes to config files and command line options.  Just got my Cold Card in, generated a test wallet and have a .json file on a MicroSD and trying to use it air gapped.

I'm stuck on configuring all the software on my Windows 10 desktop and it's driving me nuts.
Trying to use Bitcoin Core as a full node, with Electrum and Electrum Personal Server so I don't need to connect to random servers.

I followed these guides
https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server
https://driftwoodpalace.github.io/Hodl-Guide/hodl-guide_63_eps-win.html

But some stuff is not exactly 1:1 and I had to improvise on things I did not understand and the result is that I can't get everything running.
I think I have Bitcoin Core running properly as it's connected through Tor and displaying peers as .onion addresses.

I break down when it comes to Electrum and Electrum Personal Server

I don't understand how to get EPS to look at Electrum for the .json wallet.  And I can't get Electrum to connect to the personal server.

I put xpub from the .json file into Electrum as a watch only wallet and also put it in the EPS config file.  I configured everything to localhost:50002 as per the guides

When I drag the config.ini to the .exe of EPS the command line window opens up but nothing happens.  Just says Press any key to continue.

PLEASE HELP! (I've seen the advice to get Umbrel, etc - I just want to get this running before I spend more money on tech I don't understand.)

umbrel is free software.

Does it run on Windows?  Don't you have to buy extra hardware for that

Actually, the Cold card is totally Airgapped you don't need to have a full node all transactions are airgapped but if this is for increasing privacy then you can set up a personal Electrum server.

There is a full guide here on how to set up a personal Electrum server with Windows read this "Bitcoin + Electrum server + Block explorer under Windows (with WSL and Debian) (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5367296)"

Yes my goal is to be as private as possible and not depend on public Electrum servers

I will check out this guide tomorrow, been at this for about 7 hours and need a refresher.  I got up to this point:
 https://imgur.com/a/iIyrIi4

The next point in the guide says it's supposed to say "Listening for Electrum Wallet ..." https://driftwoodpalace.github.io/Hodl-Guide/hodl-guide_63_eps-win.html

My command line doesn't do that it just says "Press any key to continue" and nothing happens

I would forget about the Coldcard for now and try to get your EPS up and running first. I'm not familiar with setting this up on Windows, but it sounds like your EPS isn't connecting to Bitcoin Core, so this is the first issue to solve as anything to do with Electrum or your Coldcard won't work without a working EPS first.

Have you worked through the config.ini file for the EPS and configured the bits that need configured? You need to import your master public key or individual addresses from your Electrum wallet in to the relevant sections, and you need to make sure the you enter the location of your Bitcoin Core datadir in the relevant field.
Has EPS successfully managed to import the master private key in to Bitcoin Core (if you open the necessary wallet in Bitcoin Core, can you see the addresses from your Electrum/Coldcard wallet?)

Like o_e_l_e_o said, you're only complicating things for yourself trying to get so many things to work at the same time.  Lets take it one step at a time.

Please keep in mind, my only experience with an Electrum server is running ElectrumX on an ubuntu server.  My main computer is a Windows PC, but I find it easier to have bitcoin core and Electrumx running on a remote (in the closet under my stair well) machine.  EPS may be slightly different, but the basics should be the same.

Bitcoin Core configuration;
Your bitcoind.conf file can be found here: C:\Users\<your-user-name>\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\.  Or, open Bitcoin Core QT (the gui,) click on Settings, then on "Main" tab, click on "Open Configuration File."

Make sure bitcoin core is listening for incoming connections, and configured for Electrum's requirements by adding these lines:

You may also need to enable RPC server, which by default will allow RPC commands from the localhost:

Try those settings in your bitcoin.conf file and see if that helps.  Also keep in mind that it may take EPS some time to synchronize with bitcoin core.  The last time I installed ElectrumX without a backup it needed 36 hours to synch.  

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ETA:

I just found this on the EPS instructions page for Windows:

Set both rpcallowip and rpcbind to localhost or 127.0.0.1.

For the rpcauth hash you'll need to run the rpcauth.py with your preferred username.  You'll need Python3 installed on your windows machine, and you can run it from Powershell.  It can be found in the bitcoin master, here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/tree/master/share/rpcauth

Sorry but I'm not sure this guide pertains to me as I'm trying to set up Electrum Personal Server and I think I understand they are two different things?


Yes I configured the config.ini according to several different guides.  Grabbed the Mater public key from Cold Card into Electrum.  My Bitcoin Core datadir I'm assuming is the one around 433GB
C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin or C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin\blocks I tried both and neither worked in getting EPS online.

As for your last question I'm not sure how to check for addresses but I do have a wallet that I created on Bitcoin Core as test1 open.  I also added the code "test1 = xpubxxx" and "wallet_filename = test1" in the EPS config but I'm not sure they are linking up.  The wallet is open but I don't see any of the receiving addresses mentioned in the command line here: https://i.imgur.com/Dr1w9aZ.jpg

I had most of these settings except txindex,dbcache,prune.  One guide did say to have listen set to 0 so I just changed it to 1.  Nothing happened differently AFAIK.

Are you saying I need to leave the command line window open for a day or more even though it says to Press any key to continue?  Is the program still initializing and I'm abrubtly quitting it every time I close it?
This is where I'm at right now.  According to the guides it should say "listening for Electrum Wallet" at this point https://i.imgur.com/Dr1w9aZ.jpg   

---

ETA:

I just found this on the EPS instructions page for Windows:
And I have the rpcauth set up from way back when I set up bitcoin core on the first day - though I don't know how to test if it is working properly.  I also added the same rpcauth string to the EPS config.ini file.

This is the correct path for Windows.

Might be a silly question, but did you uncomment both these lines (delete the # symbol at the start)? Your screenshot says that it is importing in to "electrum-watchonly-addresses", but you say you called your wallet "test1", which is why I'm asking if you have maybe forgotten to uncomment a line. And are you sure Core has the correct wallet open?

I don't think so. EPS only scans the addresses in your wallet, as opposed to ElectrumX which scans every address, so it should rescan in a matter of minutes. EPS (on Linux, at least) also tells you when it is rescanning and gives you a progress bar.

Really not sure why this isn't linking up, but as I say, I'm not very familiar with Windows. Are you using Tor maybe?

I've watched this
https://youtu.be/1JMP4NZCC5g
but the commands are so confusing for me being on a different OS I don't know how to translate 100%

https://youtu.be/4H8gCFrjTYs
At 8:17 he does something with Python that I didn't try until now but I don't think that did anything.  (Is this part outdated)  As the current release on github did not include the setup.py I downloaded that separately today to try and install it the way he did in the video. 
It got installed in C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python310\Scripts  This .exe in there does not do ANYTHING, it just flashes the command line for a second and it disappears automatically.


The only thing I can think of is that I'm looking at too many different guides and I got my ports and IPs mixed up.  Is localhost and 127.0.0.1 interchangable?  I've been putting 127.0.0.1 anywhere it says to put localhost.

bitcoin.conf has

EPS config has

Some thoughts and questions I got just by typing that out.  Why so many different host and ports?  Is the config confusing itself?  There are headers I'm assuming the program can read [bitcoin-rpc] and [electrum-server] having different host and ports.  Even tor has it's own port number.  Is that all up to par?


Lastly for this post I found a config file for Electrum here C:\Users\xxx\AppData\Roaming\Electrum
Some thoughts and questions I've tried manually setting the rpcpassword and rpcuser to the same as the rpcauth information in the other two config file and it will just revert to this default upon reopening the config file.

What is the ":s" part in the "server": "127.0.0.1:50002:s".  Several different guides I have seen :s and also a :t, etc.  Currently in my network window of Electrum it shows "localhost:1"  Instead of any of the ports mentioned previously.  Is this just mean the same as localhost?
In the proxy tab of network settings both "Use Tor proxy at port 9050" and "Use proxy" is both unchecked.  They were previously checked but it does not seem to make any difference in getting everything running currently.

Yes I found that part funny too.  the [electrum-watchonly-addresses] is wayyyyy down in the config but I have nothing listed there just the comments made from the default sample config.  Should I add the # to omit that header too?  The correct header [master-public-keys] has no # symbol in front of the test1 line.

I don't know how to check if Core has the correct wallet open.  Somewhere along the line one of the guides said to "Create a new wallet" manually IN bitcoin core.  I named it the same test1 as the same name label I gave to my xpub in Electrum.  Are they supposed to be different names?  I think I messed up there if they are.  And I don't know how to delete a wallet in Bitcoin Core, I only see the option to close wallet




I am using Tor for Bitcoin Core and it seems to be running fine - I'm currently connected to 10 onion addresses.  Beyond that Not sure if there are settings I'm missing in the EPS/Electrum config files that I need

Thinking about it, does it matter if the wallet is a watch only wallet or a regular standard wallet?  When I tried setting up the wallet in Electrum it was asking for the wallet seed or a master key.  I thought the whole purpose of the hardware wallet is not to type out a seed ever on the desktop so I put the xpub in where it asks for the master key.  Am I supposed to have put the seeds in at this point?

https://i.imgur.com/sPkXM5t.png

Again, I wouldn't even be opening Electrum right now. It will never connect until your EPS is working properly, and by messing around with Electrum config files you are likely to just cause yourself more issues in the future when we get to that part.

The default config file doesn't have a header named [electrum-watchonly-addresses] - https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server/blob/master/config.ini_sample
It does have [watch-only-addresses], which I assume is what you mean. Whether or not the header is commented shouldn't make a difference.

If you are using the GUI, then there is a drop down menu at the top right of the main window.

After you press any key, does this window (https://i.imgur.com/Dr1w9aZ.jpg) close? What happens if you then start the server back up again?

It seems that EPS is indeed linking with Bitcoin Core, but for some reason isn't importing the addresses in to the Bitcoin Core wallet properly. I'd maybe redownload the config file from above to have a clean slate and start the whole process again with a newly named wallet.

Whatever you do in Electrum right now is irrelevant to getting EPS set up and running. You could be using a dummy xpub pulled from iancoleman.io to try to get the server running. But no, you should never type your hardware wallet seed phrase in to Electrum.

Sorry yes, I got the headers wrong.

Ok, I won't even be looking at Electrum for now - I didn't know the xpub in EPS config could be a dummy one I thought it all had to sync up between EPS/Electrum/Bitcoin Core


After I press the key the window does close, and if I drag the config over the exe again it happens again exactly the same.

Unfortunately I don't see the addresses anywhere in Bitcoin core  https://i.imgur.com/9pQANCa.png

I am wondering why one of the guides said to even create a wallet in Bitcoin core - can I delete the Bitcoin core wallet somehow?  Since EPS is supposed to give the wallet data TO bitcoin core how come I need to start a separate wallet in Bitcoin Core?

Could you take a look at my previous post where I put the config file settings and see if all the ports match up properly?

Eventually yes, but for the time being we need to get EPS and Core to sync up first. Then we can worry about Electrum. EPS runs just fine without Electrum being open, and just sits at the "Listening for Electrum Wallet" screen until you open Electrum. That's the point we need to get to first.

Click on Window -> Console, and then in console enter the command listaddressgroupings. Does it show up the addresses from your xpub?

Go in to your bitcoin directory, open the wallets folder, and delete any wallets you don't need. Be careful doing this if you have ever used any of those wallets though! Don't want to accidentally delete access to some coins. (If you have ever used any of these wallets, better to just move them out to a different directory rather than delete them, just in case.)

You need to create an empty Bitcoin Core wallet first for EPS to import the addresses in to. If you point EPS at a wallet which doesn't exist (or no wallet at all), it will return an error.

I can't see anything obvious that would be causing issues here. It looks like EPS successfully finds your Bitcoin Core client, so the ports, etc. must all be working, but then cannot actually import the addresses in to the wallet file.

Unfortunately it is blank even after running a fresh download of EPS.
https://i.imgur.com/WwTkrl4.png

I deleted all the EPS files and downloaded a new fresh .zip of the latest EPS and still the exact same thing.  I'm putting the xpub where it asks for the [master-public-keys]  but should I be putting it elsewhere?

I even tried deleting the # in front of the example given in the sample config and that produced the same result.

Also another thought how you called me out on naming "electrum-watchonly-addresses"  This is something only seen in the command line window it's no where to be found in the config.ini

Thanks for the warning - I didn't have any wallets and any wallet made was just to get this set up and were blank.

So do the names of the wallet in Bitcoin Core and the "any_name_works = " + "wallet_filename = " in the config.ini supposed to match up?

I'm stumped - beginning to lose hope

I mentioned this on my previous post but one big thing that is confusing me is

That Python command from setup.py sets up a whole new EPS.exe that can be found in the file path mentioned but am I supposed to be doing this step  in this new version of EPS?  Seems like I'm supposed to skip this step in the video.

I saw someone else with a similar if not the same issue as me and they opened it up on github

https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server/issues/268

Glad to see I might not be the only one having trouble to get this to work

So your wallet in Bitcoin Core is called "electrumpersonalserver", but your EPS config.ini file that you quoted above has "wallet_file = test1". I would create a new wallet in Bitcoin Core called something new, and then put this new wallet name in to your EPS config file and try again.

Yes.

If you've download and ran the Windows release (which is running, just not syncing with Core), then you shouldn't also need to install a version using Python.

No I think you might be looking at the old config, the past few days I did have both named as test1 on Bitcoin Core and the EPS config.ini.  Today when I deleted all files and re-downloaded EPS I use electrumpersonalserver for both sides.  Still the same result.

Unless there is a very specific order of operations to naming and creating the wallet and modifying the settings...

I've hit a dead end and am out of ideas

I'm afraid I am too. If it were me, I would be trying Linux instead, or even Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) or a virtual machine.

Paging @NeuroticFish @DaveF @HCP - not sure if any of these good folks might be able to figure this out.

Woah, I've "scanned" shortly the posts, from what I understand OP couldn't make even EPS work (and he's still keen to use EPS)?
If so, I recommend this post of mine where I managed to run EPS with Electrum (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5362554.msg58047028#msg58047028). Maybe it hives hints of what is missing.
I remember that I did also hit a dead end .. until I've tried with Sparrow wallet which kinda hinted me that I should create a wallet file. Then all started working. But I didn't like it at all (I find Electrs a much better server).

I've had a break through just messing around with various check boxes but still no working EPS

I just created a new Bitcoin Core wallet with Descriptor wallet un-checked.  (IDK what descriptor does)  It was checked by default this whole time.
https://i.imgur.com/5uHbr4e.png

Can one of you advise really which of those settings should be checked when creating a new wallet with Bitcoin Core ?  - I think I've been selecting Make Blank Wallet and Descriptor Wallet.  Until now

Now this is what my command line looks like

https://i.imgur.com/58IWmNv.jpg


At least it looks a little different?!?!?!

The descriptor wallet just changes the export format of (bitcoin core) wallets from regular public keys to a data structure which includes derivation paths and unlocking scripts (eliminating problems such as "wrong derivation path used and now I can't see my addresses"). It's unlikely to be of any use to EPS [particularly if it doesn't support the descriptor wallet export format].

When I've set up EPS in the past, I've always just left all the boxes unchecked. Wasn't aware that made a difference though.

What happens next? Have you tried relaunching it after it's synchronized? Go back in to the console on Core and use the listaddressgroupings command again and see if your addresses have imported properly this time?

First thing I tried is listaddressgroupings but unfortunately it is still blank.  If I relaunch the exact same messages display.

Are you running Core Version 23.0? Here is an issue of several people experiencing hanging at the same point of "Synchronizing mempool": https://github.com/chris-belcher/electrum-personal-server/issues/266

Essentially, just add deprecatedrpc=fees to your bitcoin.conf file and then restart everything. Might be worth a try?

I COULD KISS YOU!

Finally got a "Listening for Electrum Wallet"

https://i.imgur.com/qZhTVr2.jpg



At this point I just feel dumb

I am still getting a big red button when I start up Electrum - but at least I know that EPS can work!!!

On the electrum side - I have the command

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Electrum\electrum-4.2.2.exe" --oneserver --server 127.0.0.1:50002

to run as per one of the guides - but it is still showing red

I think that what you need there is (note the :s at the end) :

:-*

Amazing! God, took us long enough, haha. So in the end it seemed to be a combination of the Bitcoin Care wallet not being quite right, plus a bug with Bitcoin Core version 23.0.

Yeah, I think this is right. If I run my Electrum without the s, then in Tools -> Network inside Electrum it just tries to connect to "localhost". If I include the s, then it correctly tries to connect to "127.0.0.1:50002".

Thank you so much this fixed it.

What do you call these letter identifiers after the port number?  I saw the :s and another guide had a :t

Am I supposed to use :t to run it through Tor or something?

That is exactly what happened

https://i.imgur.com/HRlWs6e.png

Oh glory green button how you have pained me.

Thank you guys for helping me solve this puzzle, can finally get my stuff off of the websites in peace

Just a last few questions

I read that Bitcoin Core stores your wallet data (xpub etc) unencrypted on the desktop.  Is there a setting to prevent that so only Electrum is handling the wallet data?

Also, is there a way to close the command line window of EPS once it's running? X-ing it out closes the server currently.

The letter is basically the protocol identifier, though for each protocol there's a default port. It's not something related to Tor.



1. xpub is not a security concern.
2. I guess that it cannot work without that info in Bitcoin Core (that was my missing bit and one of the reasons I've dropped EPS), but, as we said in the past, maybe you consider switching to Electrs server which doesn't care/works as good no matter how many wallets you use in Electrum (and doesn't need any wallet info in Bitcoin core)


Did you try Ctrl-C?

Not really. Public keys are not encrypted in Bitcoin Core wallets, only the private keys are (which your Bitcoin Core wallet shouldn't contain anyway). Whenever Core is running, then it must have access to your public keys to be able to watch the relevant addresses for transactions. You could encrypt your wallet file manually (using something like VeraCrypt, for example) so it cannot be accessed by anyone else, but you would need to decrypt it every time you wanted to run Core or your EPS.

Don't think so. You could use a virtual desktop to hide it where you can't see it, though.