Electrum 1.98 not connecting

[Colly55]

Hi - It's been 18 months since I used my Electrum wallet.  I've just opened it so i can transact again, but Electrum is not connecting.  I've tried using different servers to connect on, but no joy.  My mac version is old 10.8.5 - as the laptop is old, I'm unable to upgrade to the latest version.

Any ideas?  I have some bitcoin left in my wallet that I don't want to lose!!

[xdrpx]

First, don't worry about your coins being lost. As long as you have either your master private key which is your Electrum wallet's seed or your wallet.dat file or all the privat keys for all the address in your wallet, you're good to go.

About the server connection issue: First about your server connection issue, click on the 'red' icon towards the bottom right and find a server and select anyone and connect to it manually. Make sure if it's set to automatically connect, uncheck it (I can't recall how it was in 1.9.8 ) and then select a server manually. This should get electrum to synchronize with the block headers and it should be completed soon.

If this doesn't work, I suggest you check if your firewall or anti-virus is blocking connections to electrum servers and to allow them atleast temporarily. The other easy way is if you have electrum on android, you can easily input your seed and check your funds on your phone as well.

Now, I suggest you to backup your seed and private keys just incase you would want to import them later safely without worrying about losing your funds:

1) In Electrum click on 'Wallet' in the menu bar and then click seed --> type your wallet's password --> and then write down that seed on a piece of paper and safguard it forever.

2) If your wallet doesn't have a seed, then go to 'Wallet' from menu bar --> Private keys --> Export (Safeguard this and I suggest you create a new electrum wallet and transfer these funds to your new wallet so that you can make use of your new wallet's seed instead of relying on private keys)

[Colly55]

Hi - thanks very much for your response.

I unchecked the auto-connect server and tried multiple different servers, but still no joy.

I also checked my firewall and it's not running.  Likewise with anti-virus.

I have my seed written down.

Am I best to re-install the latest version of Electrum on a more up-to-date laptop and use the seed i have from my wallet?

[xdrpx]

Hi - thanks very much for your response.

I unchecked the auto-connect server and tried multiple different servers, but still no joy.

I also checked my firewall and it's not running.  Likewise with anti-virus.

I have my seed written down.

Am I best to re-install the latest version of Electrum on a more up-to-date laptop and use the seed i have from my wallet?

Yes, if you install the latest version of electrum and create a new wallet with your seed, then you're good to go! If you're using a standard wallet with addresses that start with '1' then you can just restore them by selecting standard wallet -> I have a seed -> paste your seed and click next. If you have a multi-sig wallet with addresses starting with '3' then restore using the multi-sig option.

About you not being able to connect to electrum servers. I digged through the electrum github and found someone who raised a similar issue which you could refer to - https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/536

[Colly55]

Thanks very much for confirming!

I've done that - downloaded Electrum 3.03 on a different laptop and used my existing seed.  It's connected but has been synchronizing for around 12 hours now (and still not finished).  Is that amount of synchronisation time normal/expected?

I can see the blockchain_headers file being updated periodically during that time.

Thanks.

[xdrpx]

Thanks very much for confirming!

I've done that - downloaded Electrum 3.03 on a different laptop and used my existing seed.  It's connected but has been synchronizing for around 12 hours now (and still not finished).  Is that amount of synchronisation time normal/expected?

I can see the blockchain_headers file being updated periodically during that time.

Thanks.

12 hours seems certainly strange and very very long and it might have been stuck during synchronization. It should barely take about 5-10 minutes to synchronize at max depending on the number of transactions you've made (I have transactions from back in 2014 and it seems to synch from scratch in about 3 minutes). This is because electrum is an SPV wallet which doesn't download the entire blockchain, but only the headers from an electrum server that it connects to. Here's few things you can do:

1) Exit and reopen electrum and wait for it to synchronize again.
2) If it doesn't synchronize within 5-10 minutes again, try switching servers and make sure the 'Use Proxy' and 'Use TOR proxy on 9050 port' settings are unchecked. Check my screenshots below from a demo / test wallet that I created and try the same after restarting electrum.

[vikar27]

Hi - thanks very much for your response.

I unchecked the auto-connect server and tried multiple different servers, but still no joy.

I also checked my firewall and it's not running.  Likewise with anti-virus.

I have my seed written down.

Am I best to re-install the latest version of Electrum on a more up-to-date laptop and use the seed i have from my wallet?

Yes, if you install the latest version of electrum and create a new wallet with your seed, then you're good to go! If you're using a standard wallet with addresses that start with '1' then you can just restore them by selecting standard wallet -> I have a seed -> paste your seed and click next. If you have a multi-sig wallet with addresses starting with '3' then restore using the multi-sig option.

About you not being able to connect to electrum servers. I digged through the electrum github and found someone who raised a similar issue which you could refer to - https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/536

hey im having a similar issue with restoring a 1.9.8 wallet, i cant send funds from it and i cant seem to restore it to a newer version. would you have any suggesetions? thanks!

[Colly55]

Thanks so much for all your help.  The simple restart worked and it synced in no time.

I'm up & running again!

Thank you!

[Abdussamad]

hey im having a similar issue with restoring a 1.9.8 wallet, i cant send funds from it and i cant seem to restore it to a newer version. would you have any suggesetions? thanks!

you only have to restore it if electrum didn't automatically upgrade your wallet file. So the question is did electrum fail to upgrade your wallet file or not? And if it did then what happens during the restore from seed process? Just saying it doesn't work is insufficient information for us to help you.

[BitMaxz]

Hi - thanks very much for your response.

I unchecked the auto-connect server and tried multiple different servers, but still no joy.

I also checked my firewall and it's not running.  Likewise with anti-virus.

I have my seed written down.

Am I best to re-install the latest version of Electrum on a more up-to-date laptop and use the seed i have from my wallet?

Yes, if you install the latest version of electrum and create a new wallet with your seed, then you're good to go! If you're using a standard wallet with addresses that start with '1' then you can just restore them by selecting standard wallet -> I have a seed -> paste your seed and click next. If you have a multi-sig wallet with addresses starting with '3' then restore using the multi-sig option.

About you not being able to connect to electrum servers. I digged through the electrum github and found someone who raised a similar issue which you could refer to - https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/536

hey im having a similar issue with restoring a 1.9.8 wallet, i cant send funds from it and i cant seem to restore it to a newer version. would you have any suggesetions? thanks!

You can try to upgrade your wallet version to the recent version of electrum but first backup all of your electrum wallet before you do it
You can follow the electrum upgrade method here from 1.x to 2.x version or the latest version of electrum.
Also they are changing some files from your old electrum.
Here follow the guide http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html?highlight=upgrade

Thanks so much for all your help.  The simple restart worked and it synced in no time.

I'm up & running again!

Thank you!

What was the last method you do? since you have the seed phrase i think you can just recover your wallet but just wait for syncing after recovering it with recent version of electrum..