Transaction change sent to address not controllable by my blockchain.info wallet

[rdmunt]

 
Description of Problem:
Recently I sold 0.7 BTC from my blockchain.info wallet. The input to the transaction was 2.44513144 BTC of which 0.7 BTC was correctly sent to the intended address.
The change 1.74433366 BTC which should have been returned to my wallet was sent to an address (see below) which I cannot control / does not belong to my wallet and
I am left with an empty wallet. I can import the change address but it shows as 'watch only' and have not found a way to spend from it.

I have contacted support at blockchain.info but the answer (copied below) does not really help me:

"
Change addresses are generated and stored within the wallet, but can not be viewed.  Funds contained on them can still be spent the same as Used addresses containing funds within the wallet.
Jade | Blockchain.info Support
"

Can anybody explain what went wrong here or what I can do get control over my change.


Addresses: In particular the change address of the transaction below: 1EdnVtypEM4MC3d8tkzhuQwUTtikCsELzQ
Transaction IDs: https://blockchain.info/tx/38f84a02e1b916257d7f7cd6883d7f6ed2855a0010992a226b6d89e4d010611a

Bitcoin Client: Wallet at blockchain.info

Regards
rdmunt.

[achow101]

If the balance of your wallet is correct, then the change address is already in your blockchain.info wallet. How it works is that the change address is generated by your wallet and stored by your wallet. However these addresses will not be shown to you as they are internal and you really should not be tracking your wallet balance by looking at addresses in a block explorer.

[Salmen]

That's weird. Have you tried to use another browser or cleared your cookies/cache (using STRG + F5)?  If this does not help, please import your wallet to Electrum with the provided private keys or the seed.

[rdmunt]

I have tried other browsers and cleared  caches/cookies but that did not help. I will follow up on your suggestion to load into another wallet.

[jackg]

I have tried other browsers and cleared  caches/cookies but that did not help. I will follow up on your suggestion to load into another wallet.

If you can get the private key for that address, get it an import it into a wallet that is a light wallet such as electrum: downlaodable from www.electrum.org/#download.

If you can't, try sending 1.74433366BTC to your main account address and see if that helps you in getting your coins back. Otherwise, there are ways to export your entire wallet and import it to bitcoin core to use it in there.

[rdmunt]

Thank you all for the suggestions.

I have tried (or had tried already) them but unfortunately without success:

Importing the wallet into Electrum:
in 'watch only' mode with the xpub.....  :  key I see the transactions but my balance is still reported as zero,
In this case the problematic transaction 38f84a02e1b916257d7f7cd6883d7f6ed2855a0010992a226b6d89e4d010611a
is recognized as relating to the imported wallet

when importing with he corresponding xprv....  key, I do not see any transactions at all. Moreover
the problematic transaction 38f84a02e1b916257d7f7cd6883d7f6ed2855a0010992a226b6d89e4d010611a is reported
not to belong to this wallet.

All in all I am utterly confused. The questions still remain:
1) Am I completely missing something?
2) Did I something stupid when transferring the 0.7 key
3) Is it possible that the software (possibly tampered with) which created the above transaction which  managed to
sneak in a change address which does not belong to my wallet

Regards
rdmunt

[jackg]

Thank you all for the suggestions.

I have tried (or had tried already) them but unfortunately without success:

Importing the wallet into Electrum:
in 'watch only' mode with the xpub.....  :  key I see the transactions but my balance is still reported as zero,
In this case the problematic transaction 38f84a02e1b916257d7f7cd6883d7f6ed2855a0010992a226b6d89e4d010611a
is recognized as relating to the imported wallet

when importing with he corresponding xprv....  key, I do not see any transactions at all. Moreover
the problematic transaction 38f84a02e1b916257d7f7cd6883d7f6ed2855a0010992a226b6d89e4d010611a is reported
not to belong to this wallet.

All in all I am utterly confused. The questions still remain:
1) Am I completely missing something?
2) Did I something stupid when transferring the 0.7 key
3) Is it possible that the software (possibly tampered with) which created the above transaction which  managed to
sneak in a change address which does not belong to my wallet

Regards
rdmunt

As far as I understand this, your xpub and xprv are for the main part of your wallet. They are not what store the change addresses as they have different paths. I'm not sure the electrum wallet us designed to handle XPRV keys as it doesn't produce them in its software.
Could you post the PUBLIC KEY (xpub) here. Do NOT post the XPRV.

[rdmunt]

my xpub key:

xpub6CqnKsGyh1gqFTimeghB2aNh53Nzp1CCtpyoMK6GdyVcNXZutYqmG9C2Ju2pmELU8v7wZMzGY2A Nyry6RSUJTj8UXjbWsqkjKquoLuMj1Dt

Regards

[jackg]

my xpub key:

xpub6CqnKsGyh1gqFTimeghB2aNh53Nzp1CCtpyoMK6GdyVcNXZutYqmG9C2Ju2pmELU8v7wZMzGY2A Nyry6RSUJTj8UXjbWsqkjKquoLuMj1Dt

Regards

Ah, as i suspected, the change address is in a different location than the addresses the xpub and xprv control.
Can you contact their support and ask them to send you pour private key, (preferably encrypted) from that part of the wallet. I assume you have two passwords on that wallet anyway considering the amount (one for logging in and one for signing transactions/addresses).

[rdmunt]

That is exactly my problem. I already contacted blockchain.info support and got the followiing not very helpful responses:

"Change addresses are generated and stored within the wallet, but can not be viewed.  Funds contained on them can still be spent the same as Used addresses containing funds within the wallet. "

"If you imported a public key into your wallet, but don't have the private key, then this address will show up as a "Watch Only" address. We have no way of knowing private keys and no way of recovering them.
If you import a public address that was generated within your Blockchain.info wallet then you will also see it appear as "Watch Only." This is strongly discouraged and may cause errors within your wallet. Please archive the address."

It seems that there is no hope to recover the lost change, still i would like to know:
Did I something wrong/stupid or did the blockchain.info software create a corrupt transaction or does their support now know what they are talking about.


Regards
rdmunt

[jackg]

That is exactly my problem. I already contacted blockchain.info support and got the followiing not very helpful responses:

"Change addresses are generated and stored within the wallet, but can not be viewed.  Funds contained on them can still be spent the same as Used addresses containing funds within the wallet. "

"If you imported a public key into your wallet, but don't have the private key, then this address will show up as a "Watch Only" address. We have no way of knowing private keys and no way of recovering them.
If you import a public address that was generated within your Blockchain.info wallet then you will also see it appear as "Watch Only." This is strongly discouraged and may cause errors within your wallet. Please archive the address."

It seems that there is no hope to recover the lost change, still i would like to know:
Did I something wrong/stupid or did the blockchain.info software create a corrupt transaction or does their support now know what they are talking about.


Regards
rdmunt

I'm not sure what client they are running but I know there are users that have persued their support until they gave them access to their addresses.

If you go on to export all of your private keys, download a wallet like electrum and try importing them (on startup you'll hit "standard wallet" and then "import public or private keys". And see if that works. (As I recall there should be an export function in that wallet).

[achow101]

That is exactly my problem. I already contacted blockchain.info support and got the followiing not very helpful responses:

"Change addresses are generated and stored within the wallet, but can not be viewed.  Funds contained on them can still be spent the same as Used addresses containing funds within the wallet. "

"If you imported a public key into your wallet, but don't have the private key, then this address will show up as a "Watch Only" address. We have no way of knowing private keys and no way of recovering them.
If you import a public address that was generated within your Blockchain.info wallet then you will also see it appear as "Watch Only." This is strongly discouraged and may cause errors within your wallet. Please archive the address."

It seems that there is no hope to recover the lost change, still i would like to know:
Did I something wrong/stupid or did the blockchain.info software create a corrupt transaction or does their support now know what they are talking about.


Regards
rdmunt

Again, do you see the balance that you expect in your wallet? If so, then there is nothing to worry about. As their support tells you, the change addresses are a wallet internal thing (which is what most wallets do) and you cannot view them. Even if you can't see the address in your wallet, if your balance is correct, then the change is not lost and you can still spend from that change address.

[rdmunt]

The whole problem is that the balance is zero. It is shown as zero and I cannot do the smallest ransaction.so really zero.

[HCP]

I'm wondering if this is related to the issue that b.info has where it gives out compressed WIF keys for uncompressed addresses (or vice versa) when you export private keys. Is it possible that their system has sent the change to an uncompressed change address, but the wallet is using compressed addresses/private keys?

Given that you have an xpub and xprv, you appear to have an HD wallet with blockchain.info... so I'm guessing you should also have the 12 word recovery backup as well, correct?

If so, you could try using the BIP39 Mnemonic Code Converter (https://iancoleman.github.io/bip39/ - create offline copy etc), put in your seed, click the BIP44 tab... and see if it creates your addresses... if you see your "receive" address(es), try changing the "External/Internal" value to 1 (BIP44 derivation path: m/44'/0'/0'/1)... that should then generate your "change" addresses...

[Janju]

I'm wondering if this is related to the issue that b.info has where it gives out compressed WIF keys for uncompressed addresses (or vice versa) when you export private keys. Is it possible that their system has sent the change to an uncompressed change address, but the wallet is using compressed addresses/private keys?

Given that you have an xpub and xprv, you appear to have an HD wallet with blockchain.info... so I'm guessing you should also have the 12 word recovery backup as well, correct?

If so, you could try using the BIP39 Mnemonic Code Converter (https://iancoleman.github.io/bip39/ - create offline copy etc), put in your seed, click the BIP44 tab... and see if it creates your addresses... if you see your "receive" address(es), try changing the "External/Internal" value to 1 (BIP44 derivation path: m/44'/0'/0'/1)... that should then generate your "change" addresses...

Same problem here!

I keep my BTCs in a cold wallet, which I enter the PK in the option of importing addresses from Blockchain.info, and transfer the desired amount to the exchange, moving the rest to another cold wallet that I create in bitaddress, I've been doing this for a while and I've never had problems.

To track the balance, I always enter the public key in blockchain.info (Watch Address), this time I saw that there was a 'Private Key' field on the screen below the Watch Address, allowing me to move my bitcoins right there, without having to import them.

I entered the private key in the field below the public key, put the exchange address and the value, imagining that the remaining balance would go to the main wallet.

However, the balance that was in the paper wallet: https://blockchain.info/en/address/1AXXCct4QATf2UdX92piw1AA2As8AoZaoM, was moved to change address: https://blockchain.info/en/address/1KfTVrLG376B7SYb1bA6NnY7KyK825T72B, which had 2 outputs, one for the exchange (1PjcZKMFR8wkFjoMAE2aoVfSeB5xHwVLdu) and another for herself.

But, this address does not have a private key (1KfTVrLG376B7SYb1bA6NnY7KyK825T72B), is appearing as Watch Only in Blockchain, I understand that it
would be a main wallet address containing change funds.

I have already tried to use the tool: https://iancoleman.github.io/bip39/, but the address 1KfTVrLG376B7SYb1bA6NnY7KyK825T72B are not there.

I tried to email them through the request address, but I do not think they'll respond there, what channel you used for this?

The value is low but it's all my savings, thank you for all your help.