Electrum - Bitcoin client for the common users (friendly and instant)

[splat44]

My questions were pretty clear!

I did provided you link to multibit showing you that it can run from an USB drive.
https://multibit.org/help_runFromUSBDrive.html

My question were:
Is it possible run electrum via USB drive similar to multibit? Yes or no?

Reasons:
- So my system drive wouldn't be used
- Benefit in having electrum all file store locally (USB drive)

Instructions for a portable Electrum on Windows:

• Download the 'Standalone Executable' for Windows -> http://electrum.org/download.html
• Create a shortcut and go to the properties, add a space and -w portable.dat, after the default in the destination field
• Use the shortcut to run Electrum portable, you'll need to carry the shortcut, the portable.dat and the Standalone exe files in the same directory in your USB drive

Thanks and all is running from USB without fail! Will get back with other questions if I have to!

[ThomasV]

Thomas - has anyone drawn your attention to the fact that Electrum is re-using change addresses in the latest release.  It keeps creating new ones but seems to re-use the same one (until restarted I think).  Hence several change addresses have no transactions, and several have more than one.

it has nothing to do with restarting the client.
the new thing is that it waits until a change address has a few confirmations before creating the next one.
this is in order to avoid gaps that could be caused by reorgs

[Tungsten]

Hi ThomasV,

First, thank much for your great effort.

How hard (or how much money) would it take to accomplish this: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/170
(task described more here)

I looked at merchant.py - but i don't think it helps much to do what i want.

I need single, standalone, self-contained function (with all the glorious math included) to generate bitcoin addresses from master public key.

[zebedee]

Thomas - has anyone drawn your attention to the fact that Electrum is re-using change addresses in the latest release.  It keeps creating new ones but seems to re-use the same one (until restarted I think).  Hence several change addresses have no transactions, and several have more than one.

it has nothing to do with restarting the client.
the new thing is that it waits until a change address has a few confirmations before creating the next one.
this is in order to avoid gaps that could be caused by reorgs

How come I have several unused change addresses?  Is that intended? Seems weird to me.

[qrs]

after few errors

qrs@localhost:~$ electrum
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/electrum", line 120, in <module>
    wallet.read()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/electrum/wallet.py", line 729, in read
    self.update_tx_history()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/electrum/wallet.py", line 900, in update_tx_history
    self.update_tx_labels()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/electrum/wallet.py", line 905, in update_tx_labels
    if tx['value']<0:
KeyError: 'value'

now I can say "wow! Electrum is amazing and... beautiful"

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/5586/20130411224750.jpg
my first bitcoin on it.

Extra: to help other users =>

qrs@localhost:~/Pulpit$ sudo pip install http://electrum.bitcoin.cz/download/Electrum-1.6.0.tar.gz#md5=b884fd0bb870a323083e05166004b8c3
Downloading/unpacking http://electrum.bitcoin.cz/download/Electrum-1.6.0.tar.gz
  Downloading Electrum-1.6.0.tar.gz (317Kb): 317Kb downloaded
  Running setup.py egg_info for package from http://electrum.bitcoin.cz/download/Electrum-1.6.0.tar.gz
    Including all files
   
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): slowaes in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from Electrum==1.6.0)
Requirement already satisfied (use --upgrade to upgrade): ecdsa in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (from Electrum==1.6.0)
Installing collected packages: Electrum
  Running setup.py install for Electrum
    Including all files
    changing mode of build/scripts-2.7/electrum from 644 to 755
   
    changing mode of /usr/local/bin/electrum to 755
Successfully installed Electrum
Cleaning up...
qrs@localhost:~/Pulpit$

[Tachikoma]

Where did you find that old version if you just installed it?

[btcven]

Where did you find that old version if you just installed it?

I was going to tell him to update already when saw the 1.6.0

I think it is from Nightly Builds

[nycjosh]

my electrum litecoin 0.61 for mac osx is not connecting, any help?

[Seth Otterstad]

How do I fix this?  Linux noob here and I can't figure out how to install electrum.  Ubuntu 12.04 on a flash drive.

this@this:~$ sudo apt-get install python-qt4 python-pip
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package python-pip

It is there:
http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=python-pip&searchon=names&suite=precise&section=all

Check in /etc/apt/sources.list if the universe repo is enabled.

See if this helps:

Code:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get install python-qt4

Thanks!  All set now.  Might want to add this info to the electrum download page to help ubuntu noobs.

I am scared to death to use the satoshi client on windows with no deterministic wallet or easy paper backup because I have lost so many coins before.

Can I create my own wallet seed?  When it asks to restore, can I enter 12 words of my choosing?  What list of words does it use?  I ask because certain words electrum chooses are hard for me to memorize.

How can I do this without connecting to the internet?  Is it reasonably safe to boot off a flash drive, connect to the internet to install install python and electrum, make a new wallet, write down the seed and an address, and then shut down and boot back into windoze?

[Tachikoma]

my electrum litecoin 0.61 for mac osx is not connecting, any help?

I would try to update to a version that's not an year old

[tnkflx]

my electrum litecoin 0.61 for mac osx is not connecting, any help?

Litecoin is not supported...

[btcven]

my electrum litecoin 0.61 for mac osx is not connecting, any help?

Litecoin is not supported...

loop ('Litecoin is not supported')

[SebastianJu]

Im not sure why but since yesterday my electrum doesnt work anymore. I used electrum 1.7.2 portable and it didnt connect. Because it claimed there is a new version i thought maybe something changed and i need the new version. So im now using the version 1.7.3.

The problem is, that it doesnt connect. When i go into the list of servers there is the list, but only the names, nothing filled in at Limit and the dropdown for SSL and so on only shows grayed out options.

After a restart i was able to chose ecdsa.org with TCP and submitted. It claimed synchronizing but didnt come to an end. When i go back into options it says ecdsa.org with SSL. And all options are grayed out. TCP, HTTP, SSL and HTTPS. I cant chose it at any server.
I then restarted and my list of transactions was empty. It says Synchronizing but nothing happens at the end.

I would like to keep all my labels and would prefer not to kill all infos with a new electrum.dat. I mean i had this problem some time ago too and i cant always fill in the infos again.

[Tachikoma]

Im not sure why but since yesterday my electrum doesnt work anymore. I used electrum 1.7.2 portable and it didnt connect. Because it claimed there is a new version i thought maybe something changed and i need the new version. So im now using the version 1.7.3.

The problem is, that it doesnt connect. When i go into the list of servers there is the list, but only the names, nothing filled in at Limit and the dropdown for SSL and so on only shows grayed out options.

After a restart i was able to chose ecdsa.org with TCP and submitted. It claimed synchronizing but didnt come to an end. When i go back into options it says ecdsa.org with SSL. And all options are grayed out. TCP, HTTP, SSL and HTTPS. I cant chose it at any server.
I then restarted and my list of transactions was empty. It says Synchronizing but nothing happens at the end.

I would like to keep all my labels and would prefer not to kill all infos with a new electrum.dat. I mean i had this problem some time ago too and i cant always fill in the infos again.

Can you manually try a server? Try electrum.bysh.me for instance.

If you are afraid of losing your labels you could always use the 'labels' plugin to keep those synced between installations and computers.

[SebastianJu]

I can chose this server but i cant chose a connection type. SSL is chosen but i guess its gray in reality. When i click ok then nothing changes. It remains at the status it was before. That is Not connected at the moment. I appears after minutes claiming to synchronize.

Im not sure about the label plugin. Labels are not encrypted but transactions and addresses? The website on the other hand claims everything is encrypted. I now used a junkmail to register and hope not too many infos can be connected through it.

I would prefer its not needed to store data on more places. So ill check if i have a backup of electrum.dat. Maybe its corrupted somehow.

Edit: I solved it... i made a backup of blockchain and electrum.dat to replace it. Then i first checked deleting the blockchain and start... and it worked... The Timestamp was gone but i could chose a server with SSL, the option were back again, it loaded the timestamps and all is fine again. So the blockchain was broken probably.

[Tachikoma]

Im not sure about the label plugin. Labels are not encrypted but transactions and addresses? The website on the other hand claims everything is encrypted. I now used a junkmail to register and hope not too many infos can be connected through it.

Only the initial version of the plugin the labels were not encrypted. Right now every data associated with Electrum is encrypted.

[BkkCoins]

Seems blockchain.info hasn't been updating their price info. It's still showing as around $91, so wallet balance in USD is way out.

edit:
What is the new "limit" value in the servers list and what happened to P and F?
(I checked the release notes but no mention there of this change)

[SebastianJu]

edit:
What is the new "limit" value in the servers list and what happened to P and F?
(I checked the release notes but no mention there of this change)

Maybe its the number of transactions stored? I had a wallet restored from a pruned server and he only give me some last transactions. So i guess the number is the transactionnumbers given. Minus/0 probably means without limit.

Only the initial version of the plugin the labels were not encrypted. Right now every data associated with Electrum is encrypted.

Good to know. But my concern is more about the servers hosting and so on. I case bitcoin would become illegl government could get some infos from that server if the owner has to work with them maybe. But one could use a proxy and junkmail to access and register the site.
For now i think i will remain with backups and hope that i can recreate my wallet with the backups.

[Tachikoma]

edit:
What is the new "limit" value in the servers list and what happened to P and F?
(I checked the release notes but no mention there of this change)

Maybe its the number of transactions stored? I had a wallet restored from a pruned server and he only give me some last transactions. So i guess the number is the transactionnumbers given. Minus/0 probably means without limit.

The server-side got rewritten and Abe support is being dropped. This means that every new server will most likely be a pruning server but using a high limit basically means that it acts as an old full server. The limit is the history limit for a given address.

[BkkCoins]

edit:
What is the new "limit" value in the servers list and what happened to P and F?
(I checked the release notes but no mention there of this change)

Maybe its the number of transactions stored? I had a wallet restored from a pruned server and he only give me some last transactions. So i guess the number is the transactionnumbers given. Minus/0 probably means without limit.

The server-side got rewritten and Abe support is being dropped. This means that every new server will most likely be a pruning server but using a high limit basically means that it acts as an old full server. The limit is the history limit for a given address.

Thanks for that. I eventually went looking in the server source git to find out.

On another front I sent some bitcoin this morning and have restarted Electrum several times now trying to get it to sync properly. Still shows only 1 confirm even though blockchain shows 34, and it's been 5 hours. Something odd is happening as I've seen a few reports of this. I'm using ecdsa.org but have tried a couple others. When I switch server it no longer syncs after about 5 seconds. I don't know how long it waits now as I gave up and switched back.