Yeah... it's looking more and more likely that there are either multiple wallet files or multiple seeds... You can't actually select the derivation path when you create a wallet, only when you are restoring it. So, you would not have been able to get a weird derivation path unless you used the seed to restore the wallet before you even attempted to use it.

And you only get to specify the derivation path if you use a BIP39 seed anyway... with an Electrum seed, it is automatically detected.

My guesses are:
- Multiple Seeds
- Multiple wallet files
- File corruption bug

The first one, you'd have to go through all your notes etc and make sure you are 100% using the correct seed and don't have any other seeds recorded anywhere.

The second and third... well, you'd likely need to have access to the drive media and be able to do a file recovery to see if you could recover the original wallet files... which you don't

The current version (0.96.5) works perfectly fine and syncs all the way up to the current block height:



If you are having issues with Armory 0.96.5 and it is only syncing up to 447219, then there is something wrong with your setup... either Bitcoin Core hasn't actually synced past that block (out of diskspace etc) so the data isn't available for Armory to scan or it could be that you have corrupted blockchain data and it is causing Armory to crash.


If you'd like assistance getting your Armory synced up properly, then I would suggest that you start a new thread, describe your issue as best as you can and make sure that you post your armory logs (ie. armorylog.txt and dblog.txt) to https://pastebin.com/ and copy/paste the generated pastebin links in your thread.

Probably not the best board to be trying to bring up topics like this, tbh. These boards are more aimed at supporting users with technical problems associated with their wallets or discussions of specific wallet apps/software etc... not so much just general chitchat or stories etc.

You'd probably be better off posting in "Bitcoin Discussion" or possibly "Off-Topic"...

Incredible to think this is still going on today... some 3.5 years after it was initially highlighted by the OP.

I wonder if something is using "random" chunks of data from the actual blockchain data, which is why occasionally we see addresses, txids and blockhashes being used. It's certainly an interesting mystery.

the -salvagewallet command was removed from Bitcoinqt.exe... as it was moved to the bitcoin-wallet.exe tool

You should find that in the "C:\Program Files\Bitcoin\daemon" folder... and the command was also renamed to just salvage

Don't mind them... they're getting a little cynical in their old age

Seriously tho, there have been numerous threads in recent times of people seeking assistance to crack wallet.dat passwords... it happens every time there is a surge in Bitcoin price. Lot's of people think they're onto a big score buying wallet.dat's from scammers and thinking they're going to get rich.

This instance looks nothing like that... but instead is just a "i think i might have had some BTC on a broken hdd" type thread. I hope it works out for you. Please keep us informed of your progress after you get the PCB fixed.

What is the current contents of your bitcoin.conf? Specifically, what settings did you use to enable the RPC server?

It'll most likely be an incorrect setting in your conf, or it'll be some weird firewall issue... note that you would need to check OS, router, VPS and/or ISP firewall setups as any of those could be filtering the connections to that port.

I don't think it would be the "file corruption bug"... as that would have required that you had (at least attempted to create) multiple wallets/seeds... and you seem very adamant that you did not have multiple seeds/wallets etc.

So, either you did have multiple wallets setup... in which case that makes things like using the wrong wallet possible, in addition to the "file corruption bug"... or you didn't have multiple wallets setup... in which case the file corruption bug is not possible.


The curious thing is that you're sure you had previously used the seed to restore the wallet (at least once)... and that you could see the transaction etc... but the wallet was always "offline"?

That isn't possible... if you had restored the wallet, it would have had to have been online at some point to be able to see the transaction... All wallets are created empty, and need to be online to retrieve the transaction data.

Or am I misunderstanding and you're saying you restored the wallet once (prior to updating etc) and it showed the "lost" address, but not the transaction data?

I'm still a little confused about your setup...
So, you were using the "experimental feature" in Ledger Live that syncs all the data through your local Bitcoin Core? If so, then any wallet.dat you have from your Bitcoin Core is probably empty/useless.

That feature is essentially a "privacy" feature... it means Ledger Live sends/receives it's data from your local node, rather than querying Ledger servers. It does not interact with the wallet.dat in any way.


Or are you referring to using the HWI module to use the Ledger with Bitcoin Core?

Did you try any data recovery tools? Or did you just make an image of the drive and search through the image?

Sorry, I forgot to link through to the descriptor documentation in my original post... You might want to have a read of the docs here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/descriptors.md

They will do a much better job of explaining all the syntax of the various descriptors and how they work. Feel free to ask if you need any further clarification.

Just ran through this guide on a "clean" Ubuntu 20.04 VM... starting at the "When your Ubuntu OS is up and running" section.

Worked perfectly! Nice job.

I concur with ETFbitcoin... Umbrel seems to be the only "all in one" for x64 based hardware (ie. PCs)... However even the devs don't recommend using it with this sort of configuration and advise that it is very much in beta.

You're probably be better off with a lightweight Linux distro... and just setup Bitcoin Core and one of the lightning nodes like LND... you can then use a nice GUI like Zap to "manage" the LND node.

But the trade off is that this is more of a "hands on" approach.


If you really want the "one-click" option, you're probably going to have to invest in a Raspberry Pi etc so you can just install the RaspiBlitz or Umbrel images etc.

Firstly, your assumption is wrong. Whether you generate the seed online or offline makes exactly zero difference to how the seed is generated... and unless the version of Electrum that you used in Tails was very very very old (ie. pre version 2), then chances are that the version you used will have made no difference either.

Assuming the same seed words are used, then the differences between wallets are caused by the selections that are made when generating the wallet... that is to say:
- Selecting "Legacy" or "Segwit"
- Modifying the deriviation path
- "extending the seed with custom words"

Electrum has a "Seed version" system, which should prevent issues with #1... as it will automatically detect if the seed is "Legacy" or "Seed". It will also default to a specific derivation path based on that "seed version". However, this does not stop you from manually changing the derivation path (whether it is done on purpose or by accident)... Note that it's not exactly "difficult" to accidentally change the derivation path.

Also, if the seed is extended with custom words, there is zero indication that this is the case... you cannot tell if a wallet was created from an extended seed. It's much more difficult to do this "accidentally" as you have to click through the "options" button, tick the "Extend seed" checkbox and then put in the custom words in a later dialog box.


Now... I would say that one of the following are the likely causes for this whole scenario (in order of probability):

1. Accidentally using a secondary/different wallet that wasn't created using the seed you wrote down
2. Accidental modification of derivation path during initial wallet creation
3. Seeds mixed up during wallet creation
4. "forgotten" Seed Extension
5. Some hitherto unknown bug in Electrum

Unfortunately, pretty much all of these scenarios end up in the same place... ie. it's going to be incredibly difficult to recover. Especially given that all the original files on Tails were deleted

It is now pretty much impossible to check for #1... it's effectively just speculation at this point, but I've seen it happen before. A user creates multiple wallets, saves the seed for one, and then accidentally uses a receiving address from one of the others.


If you want to experiment with #2, the derivation path theory, then I would recommend downloading and running this tool offline: https://github.com/FarCanary/ElectrumSeedTester

It's basically a modified version of IanColeman's BIP39 tool that works with Electrum seeds. It also allows you to put in "custom seed extensions" (ie. a BIP39 passphrase but for Electrum seeds).

#3 seems quite unlikely, it's sort of a variation of #1 but it's a difficult thing to do given that you have to re-enter the seed to actually create the wallet. #4 also doesn't seem likely given that it requires a number of very explicit steps on behalf of the user, which you are sure that you didn't do... and as for #5, that's almost impossible to prove/disprove unless someone finds something reproducible and the devs can investigate/identify the issue.


I guess at this point, the derivation path is your best hope, so give the modified seed tool a go... but I would caution that you don't raise your hopes too high... the chances of this being the cause of all this are probably slim to none

Best of luck.

This is going to be a problem. It looks like your client has created the transaction, but it is only stored locally in your wallet file. It has not been broadcast (or it was rejected when your client attempted to broadcast it), nor is it in the mempool of your local node waiting to be broadcast. It's possible that it's been invalidated by inputs being used/double spent in other transactions.

Did you receive some sort of error message when you attempted to send this transaction?

In Bitcoin Core, if you goto the console ("Window -> Console") and use the following commands:

This should output a big long string of hex characters... then you want to use:

What is the output from the sendrawtransaction command?

You might want to have a read of this thread, starting from this post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5333765.msg56938441#msg56938441

I did some investigation into whether it was possible to "manually" extract and decrypt the master key (assuming you know the wallet passphrase) and then use that mkey to decrypt individual private keys from a wallet.dat. Posts further down that thread have links to scripts/code that will assist with extracting the mkey from a wallet.dat and then decrypting it... and then you can use the decrypted mkey to decrypt individual private keys.

There is already one... (two in actual fact):

Best one: https://github.com/FarCanary/ElectrumSeedTester
- basically a port of Ian Coleman's tool that will also check the seed validity. Refer: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5121443.0


and my hack version: https://github.com/HardCorePawn/electrumBIP39
(NOTE: does not do checksum validation)

Wait until OP finds out about BIP39 passphrases that can be use with BIP39 mnemonics that allow you to use *any* password and get a completely different wallet!

What a *HUGE* backdoor!

Seriously tho, hopefully this has been an educational experience for the OP... just because the 12/24 word seed looks exceptionally "simple", doesn't mean that it is easy for a bot to simply generate every wallet ever used. The math doesn't lie!

No. The coins from the coinjoin will have been setup to be directed back to a specific address within in Wasabi. So, all you have done is spent unconfirmed funds. At worst, your funds will stay unconfirmed in both Wasabi and Electrum until the coinjoin (and then the Wasabi -> Electrum) transaction is confirmed.

I would advise that at this point, you stop trying to do anything with the Wasabi or Electrum coins until they're all confirmed to avoid any other issues... unless you're going to attempt a CPFP for the Electrum funds (which is likely to get very costly very quickly, as trying to cover the fees for 3 transactions is going to get very expensive, very quickly.)

Newer versions of Bitcoin Core enable you to open multiple wallets at once...

Just put copies of all your wallet.dat files into the Bitcoin Core datadir... you'll obviously need to give them all unique names. Then start Bitcoin Core and use the "File -> Open Wallet" command on each wallet.dat.

It'll need to rescan each and every wallet as you do this, so that could take a while if the wallets haven't been used in a while. You could also potentially use the -wallet commandline option to specify them all at once on startup.

Once you've scanned them all, you'll easily be able to see which ones have funds and which ones dont... and then you can worry about consolidating the funds etc.