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[bitterbug]

Hi,

I was in the process of investigating why my transactions keep getting stuck.

I had been told by a few people that it was my fault because the fee was too low. But I never had to set the fee manually before now... so I guess as a wallet user I should be constantly checking for upgrades. Is that correct? Should I be looking to upgrade Electrum as a matter of course?

Anyway, so I thought I'd check my preferences but then clicking on the preferences menu option doesn't respond at all. So even if I had wanted to manually set the fee.... no go.

Then I thought well, perhaps it's time to upgrade to a new version. I had a look and sure enough there is a new version that is out. So I'm happy to do so, unless there is some reason not to... I'm making assumptions here because the latest docs are not overly verbose about when an upgrade is necessary/advisable as opposed to when it is entirely optional.

Then I recalled that I have both kinds of wallets: a seed wallet and a seedless wallet (seedless, from when I imported a different client's private keys into electrum).

Before upgrading, the docs say make sure you write your seed down. Seems these are instructions for seed wallets only. Are there any instructions on backing up my seedless wallet? Should I export private keys? Should I make a copy of a certain folder? Should I treat these two wallets differently during the back-up/upgrade?

Just want to make absolutely sure I get this right, so any help will be much appreciated.

[Coin-Keeper]

What you want to do is possible.  We have a few threads around here where importing private keys causes Electrum to be more "overhead" on your end.  You may have solid reasons to maintain those older client private keys.  My thoughts, not knowing your situation, is to move the coins over to "regular" Electrum addresses where then only SEED is needed to make absolutely certain you never lose any coins.  Unless you just need to keep the profile you questioned about, consider going the safer route to 100% SEEDed Electrum.  Still, after thinking about it if you want to proceed there are a few threads down in this forum where this was discussed at length.

[HCP]

You haven't mentioned what version you are upgrading from. There were some upgrades in Electrum that changed the wallet file formats etc. so be wary if you are jumping several versions.

If you backup the wallet files for your seedless wallet, and have your backup seed, there isn't too much that can go wrong that you can't fix. You can just use the backup wallet file and seed to recover.

However, the ideal scenario, as mentioned by Coin-Keeper, would be to consolidate all your coins from the seedless to the seeded wallet. That way, all you require is your seed words backed up safely somewhere... In the event of total wallet loss (ie. your computer exploded and you had to buy a new one and reinstall everything from scratch), You just enter your seed words and all your addresses, transactions and coins would be recovered.

The wallet files (in Windows) end up in %APPDATA%\Electrum\wallets

%APPDATA% on Windows7/8/10 is usually something like C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming

Note: the AppData directory may be hidden by default in Windows Explorer.

[bitterbug]

Coinkeeper, and HCP,

I'm on 2.6.4, currently.

I don't necessarily need or want a seedless wallet, it's just that that was the only option available to me, that I knew of, to rescue my btc from a multibit wallet that was giving me problems.

So, please do advise me on/confirm how to move from seedless to seeded wallet. And whether this needs to happen before or after an upgrade.

I have already done a backup by copying my wallets folder to a different machine... so hopefully that is all that a backup consists of. Is that correct?

... move the coins over to "regular" Electrum addresses where then only SEED is needed to make absolutely certain you never lose any coins.

Yes, agreed. Will you help me to do this?

[kolloh]

Coinkeeper, and HCP,

I'm on 2.6.4, currently.

I don't necessarily need or want a seedless wallet, it's just that that was the only option available to me, that I knew of, to rescue my btc from a multibit wallet that was giving me problems.

So, please do advise me on/confirm how to move from seedless to seeded wallet. And whether this needs to happen before or after an upgrade.

I have already done a backup by copying my wallets folder to a different machine... so hopefully that is all that a backup consists of. Is that correct?

... move the coins over to "regular" Electrum addresses where then only SEED is needed to make absolutely certain you never lose any coins.

Yes, agreed. Will you help me to do this?

This can be done either before or after the upgrade. Probably would be best to upgrade first.

All you need to do is create a new wallet within Electrum and create a standard wallet that uses a seed. Electrum can have multiple wallets at the same time. Make sure to save a copy of the seed somewhere safe. Once you have the new wallet created, you can send the coins from the other wallet to your new wallet.

[bitterbug]

This can be done either before or after the upgrade. Probably would be best to upgrade first.

Thanks. Ok. And if I upgrade I need to do a backup first, right?

If I understand what it takes to back up a seedless wallet, I just need to make a copy of the 'wallets' folder(which contains both ) and moved it to a backup location. Is that sufficient to back up both my existing wallets? Or do I have to export private keys or do anything else?

All you need to do is create a new wallet within Electrum and create a standard wallet that uses a seed. Electrum can have multiple wallets at the same time. Make sure to save a copy of the seed somewhere safe. Once you have the new wallet created, you can send the coins from the other wallet to your new wallet.

Well, I have two wallets already, one seedless and one seeded.

Perhaps the better course of action is to first move the content of the seedless wallet over to the/a seeded wallet, before upgrading.

How would I send the content from my-seedless-wallet to my-seeded-wallet ?

[Abdussamad]

Hi,

I was in the process of investigating why my transactions keep getting stuck.

I had been told by a few people that it was my fault because the fee was too low. But I never had to set the fee manually before now... so I guess as a wallet user I should be constantly checking for upgrades. Is that correct? Should I be looking to upgrade Electrum as a matter of course?

Anyway, so I thought I'd check my preferences but then clicking on the preferences menu option doesn't respond at all. So even if I had wanted to manually set the fee.... no go.

Then I thought well, perhaps it's time to upgrade to a new version. I had a look and sure enough there is a new version that is out. So I'm happy to do so, unless there is some reason not to... I'm making assumptions here because the latest docs are not overly verbose about when an upgrade is necessary/advisable as opposed to when it is entirely optional.

Then I recalled that I have both kinds of wallets: a seed wallet and a seedless wallet (seedless, from when I imported a different client's private keys into electrum).

Before upgrading, the docs say make sure you write your seed down. Seems these are instructions for seed wallets only. Are there any instructions on backing up my seedless wallet? Should I export private keys? Should I make a copy of a certain folder? Should I treat these two wallets differently during the back-up/upgrade?

Just want to make absolutely sure I get this right, so any help will be much appreciated.

edited: please do read again.

You definitely should upgrade since 2.6.4 is quite old now and there have been improvements in the fee setting department. After you upgrade make sure you enable dynamic fees in preferences (hopefully preferences will show up once you upgrade)

A seedless wallet doesn't contain a seed or any private keys either (private keys are actually derived from the seed). What you have is  NOT a seedless wallet because it contains imported private keys. You can make a backup of this wallet using the option file menu > save copy.

For your seeded wallet make sure you write down the seed if you haven't done so already. You can also backup the wallet file using the file menu > save copy option if you like.

Electrum will pick up both your wallets and upgrade them to the new wallet file format. We recommend writing the seed down for your seeded wallets only as a precaution. Just download the latest electrum version installer and run it.

[kolloh]

A seedless wallet doesn't contain a seed or any private keys either (private keys are actually derived from the seed). What you have is  NOT a seedless wallet because it contains imported private keys. You can make a backup of this wallet using the option file menu > save copy.

By seedless, he is simply referring to an address that contains imported private keys. I would consider this a seedless wallet as there is no seed involved and it does have individual private keys for each of the addresses within it.

To backup those types of wallets, you either need to backup each individual private key or save a copy of the Electrum's wallet files.

Moving the funds to the seeded wallet isn't a bad idea, just be sure to double check your fee as older versions can use lower than optimal fees.

[Coin-Keeper]

bitterbug,

Electrum is very user friendly so relax.  Those copies you mentioned above are easy stuff.  Once you move your wallet(s) contents over to a normal SEED wallet you will be able to relax.  I know you specifically asked me for help but I believe the advice others posted ahead of me has answered your questions.  I hope so.

Next, and another thread is to pause and think about the security of your coins IF you are running a fully seeded wallet on an online computer.  Electrum is solidly coded and will not let you down, but malware residing on an online computer is something to be wary of.  Malware doesn't defeat Electrum but it does or can defeat a user by capturing keystrokes and similar.  I would suggest spending a little time reading about your options because Electrum accomodates cold wallets, hardware wallets, etc......

[HCP]

Well, I have two wallets already, one seedless and one seeded.

Perhaps the better course of action is to first move the content of the seedless wallet over to the/a seeded wallet, before upgrading.

How would I send the content from my-seedless-wallet to my-seeded-wallet ?

Yes, you are correct, no need to create a third wallet... just send the entire contents of "my-seedless-wallet" to an address contained in "my-seeded-wallet".

You can do this as a normal transaction. Just create a receiving address within my-seeded-wallet (or re-use an old one if you like)... then open my-seedless-wallet and send all the coins to that address. Just make sure to use a good fee!

[bitterbug]

Electrum will pick up both your wallets and upgrade them to the new wallet file format. We recommend writing the seed down for your seeded wallets only as a precaution. Just download the latest electrum version installer and run it.

Thanks, Abdussamad,

Followed your advice. But it seems I have two electrums installed now. On starting up 2.8.2, it's behaving as though the existing wallets don't exist.

So it's prompting me to create the default wallet, right now, saying 'this file does not exist. Press next, to create this wallet, or choose another file.

If I start 2.6.4, it behaves as before. I don't think simply installing it was enough. Seems like there is something missing, something else I should have paid attention to.

Any idea what that might be?

[bitterbug]

You can do this as a normal transaction. Just create a receiving address within my-seeded-wallet (or re-use an old one if you like)... then open my-seedless-wallet and send all the coins to that address. Just make sure to use a good fee!

Thanks, HCP, but don't forget my electrum wallet(2.6.4) is not setting the fee high enough and doesn't permit access to preferences.

Perhaps once I have managed to upgrade I'll be able to follow your advice. Thanks, again.

[bitterbug]

Ah,

It's working now. I just had to choose the original location of the wallets folder, even though it created a new, separate wallets space for the 2.8.2 install.

I should probably make a note to remember that for future reference. Can I move this folder around freely without causing the wallets to malfunction? Is it safe to change the location from which they are loaded?

I can access preferences, too, now. Great.

Also, I have a transaction which, due to the low fee from 2.6.4, is now showing a yellow hazard symbol with 'Low Fee' in the date column. Is there some way to clean my wallet of any such failures, if they are of no significance to my balance or history? It is in the seeded wallet.

(I think what I may also do is, instead of sending transaction from the seedless to the seeded wallet, I will simply spend from the seedless until it is empty, then back it up for auditing/record keeping purposes and remove the wallet instance from electrum 2.8.2.)

[HCP]

Also, I have a transaction which, due to the low fee from 2.6.4, is now showing a yellow hazard symbol with 'Low Fee' in the date column. Is there some way to clean my wallet of any such failures, if they are of no significance to my balance or history? It is in the seeded wallet.

(I think what I may also do is, instead of sending transaction from the seedless to the seeded wallet, I will simply spend from the seedless until it is empty, then back it up for auditing/record keeping purposes and remove the wallet instance from electrum 2.8.2.)

Glad to hear you got it all working... hopefully some of what I said helped and wasn't too confusing

I was under the impression that transactions with the yellow hazard symbols should only be showing if the transaction in question is still waiting for a confirmation and has not been dropped from the mempool. If it is still showing, then it might still be trying to confirm. How old is that transaction, and have you checked to see if it is still showing on block explorers like blockcypher or blockr? Any chance you can post the txid?

Finally, your idea to simply spend from the seedless wallet first should achieve the goal of eventually having all your coins contained within the seeded wallet... it might just take a bit longer

[Abdussamad]

You probably installed the portable version. If you download the windows installer it will use the default location for the wallet file:
http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html#where-is-my-wallet-file-located

[bitterbug]

Glad to hear you got it all working... hopefully some of what I said helped and wasn't too confusing

I was under the impression that transactions with the yellow hazard symbols should only be showing if the transaction in question is still waiting for a confirmation and has not been dropped from the mempool. If it is still showing, then it might still be trying to confirm. How old is that transaction, and have you checked to see if it is still showing on block explorers like blockcypher or blockr? Any chance you can post the txid?

Finally, your idea to simply spend from the seedless wallet first should achieve the goal of eventually having all your coins contained within the seeded wallet... it might just take a bit longer

HCP,

Originally the trx was broadcast on the 26th april 2017.

Then, this is the error msg I got yesterday from blockchain.info on entering the txid:

"Oops! We couldn’t find what you are looking for.
Transaction rejected by our node. Reason: Transaction was previously accepted but has been pruned from our database.. Please try searching for a transaction by entering a block height, address, block hash, transaction hash, hash 160 or ipv4 address. ..."

Now I see the transaction has been picked up again and has a date of today.

Electrum 2.8.2 still shows the mBTC amount as unconfirmed in the wallet status/balance bar at the bottom.

[bitterbug]

And confirmed.... and I see this was actually originated earlier than I thought.... it goes back to Monday 24th April.

So that is something I learned along the way.... a re-broadcast will change the date on the transaction. As it happens I didn't change the fee manually. The fee on confirmation was .50119mBTC/kb. If I recall correctly, that didn't change. So I got 'lucky' this time around, I guess.

Now I just have to follow up with the recipient to ensure they honor the purchase or refund me, since it's been so long since the order was placed.

Thanks, all, for your help.