I suspect that both of those utilities (Pywallet and JohnTheRipper) might be quite old and may not have been updated for a while. You'll find that wallet files generated with the newer versions of Bitcoin Core cause these errors because of the extra data fields that they contain.

btcrecover is probably your best bet... It should be just as capable of johntheripper to generate passwords to try. It's just a matter of creating a token file that generate the passwords that match your ideas.

The issue will be that using the "wildcard" tokens too much will increase the number of possible passwords to test (and possible testing) time by a significant amount.

Seeds? Why would you have multiple seeds? You still don't seem to understand how a single BIP39 seed and use of passphrases work for being able to hide your coins in totally invisibile, undetectable, hidden wallets...

It goes more like this:

Hacker: Hey, gimme your seed. And we have our computer standing by to validate the seed on the spot.
Victim: Okay, here you go. Have my seed... all 24 words of it...
Hacker: <Enters seed and discovers default wallet with only 5 BTC in it> Is that everything?
Victim: Yep... that's all my coins!
Hacker: <Unable to prove existence of any other wallets> Well, thanks for the coins... wooo $20K, I'm rich! you're free to go
Victim: Phew... good thing they didn't know about the hidden wallets/addresses containing my other 20 BTC generated from that seed + my personal private passphrase(s) that only I know about... BECAUSE THERE IS NO EVIDENCE ANYWHERE THAT THIS HIDDEN WALLET EXISTS... I'd best go regenerate my hidden wallet and move my coins to a new seed (+passphrase) using one of the freely available desktop wallets or buy another hardware wallet and restore it or use something like the opensource BIP39 mnemonic code converter websites to get the keys and sweep them.

compared with say:
Hacker: Hey, we hacked your email/cloud storage... we found these 5 encrypted files... give us the password(s) to decrypt the files. And we have our computer standing by to validate the passwords on the spot.
Victim: Okay, here you go. Have my password(s)... Please let me go now.
Hacker: <Enters passwords and decrypts all 5 files, each one containing a private key with 5 BTC on it>Thanks for the 25 BTC... wooo $100K, we're superrich!... you're free to go
Victim: Damn... that was ALL my coins, now I'm broke

Do you see my concern with storing encrypted keys now? It leaves traces/evidence behind. It has to, as these encrypted files need to exist somewhere for me to be able to decrypt them to get my keys out. Sure, you could try and hide all your keys around multiple email accounts... or stored on different encrypted devices in different locations... but there is still tangible/physical evidence that these devices/files exist and that means they could be discovered. It also completely negates the "convenience" of your method, having stuff spread everywhere.

With a seed (+ passphrase)... I can store it encrypted, and if my email/cloud backup is hacked, and they find my encrypted seed, I can hand over the password to decrypt the seed... The seed on it's own will generate a valid wallet and valid addresses that I can put some coins in as a decoy (or even for use as a relatively secure hot wallet).  However, my main stash of coins can be hidden using the SAME seed in combination with a passphrase. This will generate a completely different wallet with completely different addresses.

Now the hackers might be smart and be like... "Ok, buster we know all about passphrases... hand it over!"... but you can say "I don't bother using one it's too hard to remember these things!"... and they simply cannot prove that you have a passphrase. There is NO evidence anywhere of this hidden wallet existing... but it can be generated at anytime by using the seed+passphrase... Can you recreate an encrypted file containing your private key(s) from 24 words written on a piece of paper and a passphrase?

No one is denying that securing the seed is the weak link in the hardware wallet chain. However, you can encrypt the seed and put it in various places like emails/cloud storage... and even if these are compromised by a hacker, you can still be protected by having your hidden wallet as outlined above, whereas a simple encrypted file only has 1 layer of protection...


You don't need to remember this... you just need to store it securely.


Yeah... 4-6 digit numbers that you get to choose are so hard to memorise...


Yes, just like your encryption password for your encrypted keys


Yep... so that's one extra password I need to remember...


Seriously? Encrypt my pin? and why would you encrypt your passphrase? It is the same thing as remembering your encryption password AND it potentially leaves evidence that your passphrase exists

In total... you only need to remember 2 passwords/passphrases... One is the encryption password for the secure backup of your seed... and the other is the passphrase that protects your hidden wallet.


1 passphrase vs 2. Technically, yes it is more convenient... but it certainly isn't "far more" convenient.


Why do you need a 2nd computer? Hardware wallets allow you to use any computer/device you like... as they don't expose the keys to the device. That's the whole point. You don't need to be using an "offline" computer to set them up or use them.

That is what happens when you send to an address that uses the same underlying technology to represent private/public keys and addresses... You aren't sending from a BTC address to a BCC address... you are simply sending from AddressA to AddressB on whatever network you do the transaction on.

Example:
Let's pretend you NEVER used BTC... you only ever used BCC... and you had a BCC wallet that generated an address "1bccAddressLeGaulois"...
You then say "Hey HCP, can you send me 1 coin"... and because I'm an idiot... I fire up my BTC wallet... and enter the address "1bccAddressLeGaulois"...

Because BTC and BCC use identical methods for generating private/public keys and addresses... it is possible to use the same private key/address pair on BOTH the BTC and BCC networks... so my wallet happily accepts "1bccAddressLeGaulois" as a valid BTC address and sends off 1 BTC to this address on the BTC network.

Meanwhile, your "1bccAddressLeGaulois" address in your BCC wallet remains empty... because no BCC transaction has occurred on the BCC network.

What you could then do, (because private/public keys and addresses are valid on both networks) is use the private key from your BCC wallet... and import that into a BTC wallet... and it would allow you to spend the 1 BTC that I sent to "1bccAddressLeGaulois"... on the BTC network.


Calling it "crosschain" is a bit of misnomer... you're not sending a transaction from one network to another... you're just getting the addresses mixed up and potentially sending the wrong coins to the wrong people

I'm not sure what "Real source" you are referring to... The Fyookball IS the real source... linked from the official ElectronCash.org website... why can you not see those links? Seriously, go to the website and look at the URLs linked for "Explore Source Code" and "You can find signatures and checksum hashes for all files here."

They link to the Fyookball github... not some random github that was created 1 day ago with broken source code.

Also you missed two of your posts:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2059213.msg20844002#msg20844002
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2085139.msg20838897#msg20838897

As per the "signrawtransaction" documentation... you need to provide the appropriate input information if it is not contained within your wallet file. Your offline version of Bitcoin Core has no record of the transactions that create the UTXOs that you are trying to spend as it does not have the blocks. So you provide them when you execute the "signrawtransaction" command... this is so your offline wallet knows which private key it needs to be using to sign the transaction, as per the signdemo.txt:

https://people.xiph.org/~greg/signdemo.txt
and
https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-examples#offline-signing

The top sections in signdemo.txt show how to get the txid(s), vout(s) and scriptPubKey(s) that you need. Basically, use "getrawtransaction" on your ONLINE machine with the txid for the transaction(s) that generated the UTXOs that you're spending. You'll get something like:


Note the TXID, the "n" value and the "ScriptPubKey" hex value for the VOUT that you are spending in your new transaction. In this example we have:
txid: a9d4599e15b53f3eb531608ddb31f48c695c3d0b3538a6bda871e8b34f2f430c
vout: 0
scriptpubkey: 76a914dd40dedd8f7e37466624c4dacc6362d8e7be23dd88ac

Then you give these values as parameters on the OFFLINE machine when you use the "signrawtransaction" command:


Be careful with the "'s and {'s and ['s etc  Also, you will probably need to unlock your offline wallet first using "walletpassphrase" command before you can use the "signrawtransaction" command.

It *might* also be possible to copy your blocks folder from your online machine to your offline machine (if the offline machine has sufficient storage space)... and allow the offline machine to reindex those blocks which will bring your offline machine up to date with all the inputs etc... but I've never tried that, so I'm not sure if it will work or if it is advisable from a security point of view.

If you rightclick on the "Blocks" folder and select "properties"... is the size of the folder around 135 gigs? If so, then that is definitely the storage for your Bitcoin Core install.

In the debug window in Bitcoin Core, what is the "Current number of blocks" that it shows?

EDIT: User has messaged me saying that they have removed all links, claiming they "didn't know".

I'm still a little bit suspicious due to the timing of the posts being so close to the creation of the fake GitHubs... And also the hiding of the fake link behind the official link using URL tags in one post...

Will set my trust to Neutral


What happened:
The user mayback1980 has been spamming all the threads in the Electrum subforum claiming that the official ElectronCash github (https://github.com/fyookball/electrum) is fake... and claiming that some random github repo (https://github[dot]com/electroncash/windows-linux) is the only trusted source. The repo they are spamming was only created on 12 August!

In addition, the latest commit to this repo effectively breaks the entire codebase by changing all the '.' characters to ','

The binaries are most likely backdoored or malware designed to steal seeds/keys and/or coins off users attempting to get their BCH coins.


Scammers Profile Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=559474

Reference Link:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2059213.msg20844002#msg20844002
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2062016.msg20844024#msg20844024 - EDIT: Post Removed
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2077793.msg20844060#msg20844060 - EDIT: Post Removed
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2082563.msg20844106#msg20844106 - EDIT: Post Removed
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2085691.msg20844229#msg20844229 - EDIT: Post Modified

Here you can see a quote of scammers original message that was trying to hide the scam link BEHIND the url for the official ElectronCash client.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2085139.msg20839738#msg20839738


Amount Scammed: Unknown
Additional Notes:
Link to fake repo: https://github.com/electroncash/windows-linux <-- NOTE: THIS IS FAKE - BEWARE!
Original fake repo: https://github.com/electrumcash/windows-linux <-- NOTE: THIS IS FAKE - BEWARE!

OP also attemped to hide this fake repo BEHIND the fyookball URL in another thread... He has since deleted a lot of his original messages and edited his post to show the fake repo link now... but had already been quoted by PollysCracker

The repo is fake, the source is broken... and the binaries that are available to download are probably malware or backdoored and designed to steal seeds/keys and/or coins.

The repo he is promoting is like a day old... whereas the fyookball github is weeks old and has all the commits/fixes and discussion of the OFFICIAL ElectronCash.

That IS NOT the official link... And it certainly IS NOT a trusted source.

The fyookball GitHub is the one that is linked from the OFFICIAL website at https://www.electroncash.org

I have no idea where you got that link from... Perhaps you are "TheBlueMatt" and trying to promote your scam? But that entire repo that you are spamming all over the board is only like 1 day old and full of errors (all the '.' characters are changed to ',' )... ElectronCash has been around for 2+ weeks...

Stop spreading fake links!

You cannot send 1 BTC to "BTH" address... you can only send 1 BTC to "BTC" address... it can look like the same address (same characters), but is on a different network. BTC transactions are only valid on BTC network... and BTH transactions are only valid on BTH network...

Example Address: 1CC3X2gu58d6wXUWMffpuzN9JAfTUWu4Kj

This address exists on both the BTC and BTH networks (because they use the same underlying technology to represent private keys, public keys and addresses) So, if I send 1 BTC to this address, then 1CC3X2gu58d6wXUWMffpuzN9JAfTUWu4Kj has 1 BTC on BTC network... and 0 BTH on BTH network..

No.

BTC addressA = 0 BTC
BTH addressA = 0 BTH

you send 1 BTC to addressA on BTC network... now:
BTC addressA = 1 BTC
BTH addressA = 0 BTH

If you try and sweep BTC from addressA... you get 1 BTC
If you try and sweep BTH from addressA... you get 0 BTH

You may find that you need to "tidy up" the 'line' variable before passing it to sha256()... it is quite possible that when you read it from the file, it is including a carriage return/line feed/new line type character(s) at the end of the line... that character will change the sha256 value

Try stripping all whitespace from the end... somethine like:

That's a MultiSig address... you can't just export the key for that address... as there are multiple private keys required for this address... You need to restore your wallet from seed in Electron Cash to be able to use this wallet... is it a 2FA wallet? because that will also cause problems... as TrustedCoin don't support BCH...


I hope you didn't click his link... it is likely that this is A SCAM!!!! he hid it behind the fyookball github url and has been spamming this URL all over the Electrum threads!! The repo was only made like 24 hours ago... it can't possibly be the official github!

If you clicked his link... and downloaded from that website... you should consider ALL your keys and coins as compromised!! you need to act FAST!

Make sure your ElectronCash is pointing to the right blockchain... when you goto the network settings... what is the current block count? If it is higher than 480,000 then your ElectronCash is most likely connected to BTC servers...

Also, did your Electrum address start with a "1" or a "3"?

Trusted sources??? hahahah initial commit = 22 hrs ago... Score on the "Is it legit?" scale?... about a -10

If you're after ElectronCash... goto www.electroncash.org or https://github.com/fyookball/electrum

Be VERY CAREFUL with this link... the official ElectronCash site is www.electroncash.org and their github is: https://github.com/fyookball/electrum

This electrumcash link looks like it could be a scam... it was only created 22hrs ago??!? 

That's great... but not terribly useful... Are you able to explain how you managed to solve your issue so that others might be able to solve the problem if they have similar issues in the future?

Can I ask why you consider Bitcoin ABC to be OK, but Electron Cash to be potentially "risky"? I don't really see any solid evidence that either of these wallet is "safer" than the other... especially when it comes to using binaries.

NOTE: I don't really see anything wrong with the ElectronCash sources... the modifications after the fork from Electrum look "OK"... however I can't comment on the "trustworthiness" of the binaries though.

What does the datadir value say in Bitcoin Core? that is where your blocks should be... if it says the AppData directory tree, you may not be able to see it as by default it is a "hidden" directory. Google "show hidden folders windows" to get instructions for how to get  hidden folders to show in explorer.

I've no idea why you would create a wallet like that...

There is absolutely no reason to setup a MultiSig wallet that requires the keys of the people you're receiving money from... but at the end of the day, if you used their keys, then you need at least one of them to sign any transaction spending from that wallet

You should also be aware that if they hold 2 of the 3 keys, they can spend the money from the wallet without you.

Did they suggest that you create the wallet like this? If so, it could have been a possible scam attempt. Are you sure the coins are still in the address?