Damn you're good.

It was indeed a litcoin-qt wallet that I used.

And the reason why opening the file in the wallet didn't work the first time was because I hadn't downloaded the blockchain, after seeing someone say I didn't need to. They were probably referring to an electrum wallet. It also helped that I had not encrypted the file.

So the issue was that i originally didn't use an electrum wallet at all and ended up confusing myself by renaming the original file litecoins.dat

Steps taken:

1. downloaded the litecoin-qt wallet

2. downloaded the blockchain which took about 8 hours

3. went to /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Litecoin/

4. replaced the wallet.dat file they had with my own wallet.dat

5. closed out litecoin-qt

6. reopened it with all of them there still

Thanks so much for all your help. Hopefully sheds some light for somebody in the future.

@hexafraction: Thanks for explaining what JSON is. I opened it up and it doesn't look like what you describe for JSON, so I guess its possible, a good chance that its not electrum...hmmm.

@hcp:    There are indeed a bunch of random characters and it looks like alien code or something. Possibly litecoin core wallet? dont know... will look into it further on litecoin forums. but can't say that I remember downloading the entire network in the past... but maybe i did .. who knows.

I just know one thing and that is its a real issue that i cant open this file, when i never encrypted this wallet and saved it on to a local external drive. Electrum should have warned us a little more visibly on their website that this could've been an issue in the future.

a big part of it is my fault for not saving the private keys, which was a class-a stupid thing to do, but i did test it after saving and opened it right up, so i figured, it would be fine in the future. I wouldn't have ever imagined this being an issue.

oh well... live and learn

@nerioseole
The .dat file was originally called litecoins.dat, and I remember when I saved it changing the name that was given to me and naming it litecoins.dat

I only changed it to wallet.dat yesterday after reading a few posts on this forum where users had similar problems and they needed to change it

to wallet.dat, .. but I didn't realize this was an electrum-btc or if it even mattered what client I used to open litecoins...thats how new I am to this :-//   learning as I go.


@Abdussamad:
What is json code and what do you mean? Will identifying this code help in some way?

kolloh:

im talking about litecoins. it was 4 years ago so maybe i downloaded the litecoin wallet, i cant remember. most likely since everyone here says its impossible to have litecoins in a bitcoin wallet..... its been a while since ive been active in this space


HCP Link:
Thank you, I'll ask in the LTC forums.



nerioseole:
I'm on a Mac
I'm asking for litecoins

I've transferred the wallet.dat file to the .electrum-ltc and it still won't open.


Didn't save my seed and IF I saved the private key (big if, since I could've assumed the file would just work, like an amateur), I'd have to look in all my hiding spots and sift through all the fake decoy keys laying around my house I made at the time.

If this doesn't work, I'm counting on the Litecoin forums, maybe they know something

Thanks for the tip. didnt know electrum made a litecoin wallet.

it still doesn't work at all. I open the file and absolutely nothing happens.

I tested it by saving another test wallet and opening up and it works just as it should

but for my wallet.dat file.....nothing.

i cant understand it

in december of 2013, did electrum have a litecoin wallet?

I know I used electrum to save those litecoins. thats the only wallet I used at the time since it was the only lite weight i knew of.

if that update from electrum saying its not backwards compatible is accurate, then i and anyone who updated, not knowing this issue, could be totally screwed here.

I didnt save my pw seed and assumed just by saving these litecoins in a non-password encrypted file, that they would just be open to access in

the future

thats weird because i remember specifically saving these litecoins with electrum and i wouldn't have changed the file extension. too paranoid i'd screw something up.

either ways, downloaded litecoin - qt .. tried opening and still nothing.

do i have to wait for it to sync with the network?

it looks like it'll take hours

Hi,

I saved some litecoins on a .dat file locally on an external hard drive without any passwords so it should be easy to retrieve.

I've been trying to open them but its just not possible.

i tried inserting it into: Go > Go to folder > typing: ~/.electrum

but it still wont open.

I have no idea how to open this at all

looking to shed some light on this. any help appreciated. thank you