That massive drop must have caused an increased heart rate

Also, please don't multi-post... simply edit your previous post and add the new info if no-one else has posted after you.

You should probably also warn them that 2FA comes at an added cost... as the 2FA system requires a prepayment of a service fee to TrustedCoin to buy credits. Read more (including current service fees) here: https://api.trustedcoin.com/#/electrum-help

Otherwise, already paranoid people are likely to get any more paranoid when unexpected outputs are added to their first 2FA transaction to buy credits

No, it's not blocked... and DNS hasn't changed... just different servers are being DoS'd I guess... yesterday hsmiths and xskyx were fine... today, they won't connect. However, hodlister and jochen-hoenicke (which didn't work yesterday), are working OK.

That's the problem with this sort of thing... the goalposts are constantly moving... what works for me right now, probably isn't working for others (or me) in 2 hours

Actually, that's half right...

The only FULL protection, is to ALWAYS verify that you download Electrum only from the official site (https://electrum.org/#download) AND then verify the digital signature of the downloaded file BEFORE you install/run it.


This is possibly the single most important part of using Electrum safely.

The servers being under attack is really just an inconvenience if you're running the latest version. It doesn't affect the safety or security of your coins.

Firstly, I very much doubt that this is a virus... especially if you downloaded from electrum.org (and verified the digital signature)

But to clarify... You set the language in "Preferences -> General":


Then you completely shut down and restarted Electrum and it was still set to "default"...

How exactly did you "install" Electrum? Did you open the .dmg file and then drag the "Electrum" icon into your "Applications" folder? or did you simply double click the Electrum icon in the .dmg file and run it directly from there? It's possible that if you are just running from the .dmg (and didn't "install" it to the applications folder), the app isn't able to save the preferences correctly... so when you restart, it is back to default again.

Full instructions here, refer #2: http://www.bitcoin-en.com/install-electrum-wallet.html

Not necessarily. There are many factors at play other than just Electrum version. Things like:
- Number of transactions/addresses needed to sync
- Network speed/latency
- Local computer speed
- Server load

Even prior to the DoS attack, users who were attempting to sync wallets with thousands of addresses/transactions would also face really long sync times.

I previously didn't have any issues... but this morning seems relatively "bad"... Several servers which show up in the list will just result in "not connected" if I attempt to connect to them. I've managed to find one or two that seem to work OK at this time.

Further to this... the important part is this:
That means that the signature is OK


If the signature wasn't valid (ie. fake file)... you'd see something like this:

That is unfortunate... for you. However, that doesn't make it nonsense

I don't seem to be able to connect to that server either, but that isn't suprising... "hsmiths" is one of the older Electrum servers, it has been around for a long time and it wouldn't surprise me if they were a priority target for the DoS attack... also, given that one person claimed it had worked, no doubt everyone tried to use it... possibly DoSing the server some more!

Just keep trying various servers on the server tab... right click one, select "use as server"... then wait at least 5 minutes before you attempt to try another one. Unfortunately, the network is just slow right now, and will be until this DoS attack ends (or the devs get the updates completed to mitigate it).

If you got that error message... then you certainly did NOT have version 3.3.4 installed. The vulnerability whereby a malicious server could create those fake update popup messages was patched in version v3.3.3. It had previously been patched to make the link non-clickable in version v3.3.2. Unfortunately, you must have been using an older version that still allowed the popup

Sadly, as others have mentioned, your coins are gone

Both your highlighted comment and that article are somewhat misleading... the DoS attack is not really directly responsible for users losing coins. All the DoS attack is doing is making it a bit difficult to get connected to a "good" Electrum server and get your wallet synced. This does not in any way affect the safety or security of a users coins, especially if they are running the latest version. It is just inconvenient

For users who were on older versions... it possibly increases the chances of connecting to a "bad server" and getting the "fake update popup". But if you exercise the necessary precaution, you'll be fine.

You also forgot the most important part of safe Electrum use... Users absolutely must verify the digital signature of any and all Electrum downloads!

If you are 110% sure that you are using exactly the same passphrase... then the only other explanation would be that the recovery seed mnemonic you have used is "wrong". That is to say, it's a valid seed mnemonic (otherwise you would not have been able to restore using it), but it isn't the seed mnemonic that was used to generate the seed your wallet was actually using.

If you had any transactions conducted before you used the passphrase feature, then they should show up just with the seed mnemonic and an empty passphrase, which would at least confirm you have the correct seed mnemonic.

Have you ever restored using this seed mnemonic before?

As per their twitter account: https://twitter.com/ElectrumWallet/status/1114987055736655873

They Electrum server network is under DDoS attack...

Note that this does not in any way affect the safety or security of your wallet, private keys or your BTC... it just means that syncing your wallet can be problematic, and broadcasting transactions might be problematic. Personally, I've not had any issues with it... I synced up a new copy of my hardware wallet a few hours ago and that took less than 2 minutes.

Best advice, is to simply try manually connecting to different servers... note that you need to Right Click on a server from the list on the Network tab and select "Use as server" to actually change servers.

Are you intending on use a copy of the same wallet on both computers (Not really recommended) or are you going to have two different wallets?

Either way, I don't see it really being a problem...

Fair enough... So, essentially you're wanting the "preview"/"export" functionality from Electrum... but in Bitcoin Core.

As achow101 has mentioned, there isn't any way of achieving that in the GUI at the present time... hopefully that PSBT stuff gets brought to the GUI in the not to distant future... that looks like pretty much exactly what you're after.

Until that happens, you'd either have to use the RPC calls (which would still be quite labour intensive) or use an airgapped setup with Electrum which would also cater for your desired workflow.

I vaguely recall seeing an explanation as to why this is the case... I seem to recall it was because if the wallet.dat was fully encrypted (and not just private keys) you would need the password simply to open the wallet file at startup, and that this would be problematic when using "bitcoind", as it doesn't have a GUI to prompt the user for input etc.

At the end of the day... the private keys are protected (the most important thing) and if someone has access to be able to read your wallet.dat... you've probably got bigger problems that their ability to see your transactions/balances etc.

That is great news... sounds like it has all worked out That was a very good idea keeping the paper wallet!


Actually, you can close the thread yourself... bottom left corner of the page, you will see "lock thread" link... click that link


This is not necessary... I'm always happy to help, but if you feel that you really want to, I have PM'd you my address.

As per the wiki, this place is basically owned and operated by Theymos since 2010 (and to a lesser extent by the mods)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcointalk

You could probably just use coinb.in to create an unsigned transaction...

Click "Advanced Options", and make sure that the "Clear existing inputs when new inputs are loaded." option is UNCHECKED. You can then enter in an address or redeem script and it will find all the current UTXOs that exist... delete the ones you don't want to include in your transaction, then enter next address/redeem script and repeat until you have all the inputs you want.

Then on the outputs page, setup the outputs you want... and TRIPLE check the value shown as "Transaction Fee"

Click submit and you'll get unsigned raw TX... transfer this to your offline PC... sign it with the appropriate keys using signrawtransaction command... and then transfer the signedTX back to your online PC and broadcast.

You definitely won't be able to connect until you upgrade to latest version... so you should definitely do that ASAP. You don't have to worry about losing your BTC if you have your 12 word seed mnemonic safely and securely written down.

If you don't have that seed... you should open Electrum, then goto "Wallet -> Seed"... and then write those 12 words down and put them somewhere safe! (NOTE: you don't need to update to be able to do this) DO NOT make a screenshot or email these words to yourself or store them in a text file on your computer... keep them OFFLINE!

Once you have your seed, update... download from here: https://electrum.org/#download and then check the digital signatures of the downloaded file!

Seems to be working fine for me ... 2019-04-09 03:22 UTC

Granted, it took a few minutes to finish syncing, but it definitely connected and synced up OK... I just created a new copy of Ledger Hardware wallet (following OS reinstall).