Electrum for Litecoin - Private key sweeping problem

[jmsm2]

I have a Litecoin paper wallet (i.e. private-key and public-key pair printed out on paper) and am trying to get the private-key into Electrum-LTC 2.6.4.2 so that I can transfer it.

First I created a new standard Electrum wallet but when I go to Wallet/Private keys/Sweep--and paste the private key into the box-- basically nothing happens--can't continue from there because the "sweep" button stays grayed out -- and have to cancel to get out !

What am I doing wrong?

[mocacinno]

I have a Litecoin paper wallet (i.e. private-key and public-key pair printed out on paper) and am trying to get the private-key into Electrum-LTC 2.6.4.2 so that I can transfer it.

First I created a new standard Electrum wallet but when I go to Wallet/Private keys/Sweep--and paste the private key into the box-- basically nothing happens--can't continue from there because the "sweep" button stays grayed out -- and have to cancel to get out !

What am I doing wrong?

I have never tried to sweep a litecoin paper wallet into electrum, but i do know that if you try to sweep a bip38 encrypted bitcoin private key (paper wallet) into the desktop version of electrum for bitcoin, it won't work.
The symptoms are exactly the same: the button just stays greyed out when trying to sweep an encrypted private key.

Is your private key bip38 encrypted? If so, you can try to decrypt it before sweeping, if this is the issue, decrypting should solve it.

[jmsm2]

Dear Mocacinno,

Thank you for the quick and helpful response. That makes perfect sense.

Yes, it was BIP38 encrypted and I have the Passphrase which was also printed out. But how do I decrypt it?    Can I use Electrum's Encrypt/Decrypt function under it's "Tools" menu ?  If so, what should I enter in the 3 boxes that come up (these are labeled as: message, public key, Encrypted)? 

[avaughn]

The Electrum wallets will only sweep keys in WIF format (I think).

You can go to https://walletgenerator.net or liteaddress.org

once there skip through there generator and click on Wallet Details.

Paste you private key in there and it will return you the WIF format of your private key. It should start with a "6"

Then go into Electrum and sweep that.

If you don't trust the only services I think you can download their source and run them in an air gaped environment.

[jmsm2]

Dear Avaughn, Your suggestion worked perfectly....thank you so much.....you're a star !   

[avaughn]

Happy to help!