(Not) Hacked and can not recover (solved)

[FreeMoney]

Shut down bitcoin and go to:

Users/Appdata/Roaming/Bitcoin

you might have to unhide the folder

drag the wallet file to some other place

restart bitcoin and tell us what you see

[1714679236]

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[mobile4ever]

You Bitcoin wallet is not under Program Files/Bitcoin. You can delete that as many times as you want and you will not delete your wallet. I will tell you where your wallet is, but first calm down and listen to the others.

Your bitcoin client changes your address pretty frequently (at least once a month). I think it's a dumb feature, because it seems to cause more confusion like this, but you are not hacked. All your addresses sit in the same wallet and your coins should all be there. If you have verified that you have actually lost coins (the balance has gone down), then you should do something about your wallet. First thing to do would be to post your old address here (you can find it under the Receive Coins tab in you client) and maybe someone can look a little more into it.

Then you can shut down you client software and go to
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Bitcoin
and RENAME your wallet.dat to wallet.bad.date

Restart your client and you will get a new address.

This:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Bitcoin


is not the folder sequence in my computer. This is Vista ( if that makes a difference ).

[mobile4ever]

Shut down bitcoin and go to:

Users/Appdata/Roaming/Bitcoin

you might have to unhide the folder

drag the wallet file to some other place

restart bitcoin and tell us what you see

You are the genius.

When you said "you might have to unhide the folder". There it is.


I deleted the wrong thing. Its not fun being an ignorant fool.

Let me see what happens. I have to download again.
Thanks.

[jwzguy]

Ok, but do you understand you weren't hacked?

The client generates new addresses automatically. It's going to do that regardless of whether you get a new wallet or not.

The bitcoins you currently own are in the original wallet file that was in that directory. So do not delete or lose that file.

[mobile4ever]

Ok, but do you understand you weren't hacked?

The client generates new addresses automatically. It's going to do that regardless of whether you get a new wallet or not.

The bitcoins you currently own are in the original wallet file that was in that directory. So do not delete or lose that file.

No. I have been involved with BTC for a while and never heard of a wallet changing its address. My question remains... how do people know where to send money to me ( or anyone else ) if the address is changing?

I looked in the blockchain... and there is no connection with the new address.

[mobile4ever]

restart bitcoin and tell us what you see

It just loaded up the history, about five blocks. Nothing changed. The transaction history is gone, but it was gone when the new address popped in.

[greyhawk]

Did you start it with -rescan ?

[kjj]

Ok, but do you understand you weren't hacked?

The client generates new addresses automatically. It's going to do that regardless of whether you get a new wallet or not.

The bitcoins you currently own are in the original wallet file that was in that directory. So do not delete or lose that file.

No. I have been involved with BTC for a while and never heard of a wallet changing its address. My question remains... how do people know where to send money to me ( or anyone else ) if the address is changing?

I looked in the blockchain... and there is no connection with the new address.

What you see is a fresh new address that has never been used.  If someone wants to send you money, give them that address, and you'll get another one.  The cool thing is that all of your old addresses are stored in the wallet database, and any money sent to those addresses at any time in the future will be yours, as long as you keep your wallet.dat safe.

[JoelKatz]

No. I have been involved with BTC for a while and never heard of a wallet changing its address. My question remains... how do people know where to send money to me ( or anyone else ) if the address is changing?

If you had to tell two different people to send coins to you, you would not want to give them both the same address. If you did, each one could see every coin the other sent to you. So the address that you tell other people to send coins to changes constantly. This has no effect on your ability to receive coins.

[mobile4ever]

Did you start it with -rescan ?

No, what is that?

[JoelKatz]

Did you start it with -rescan ?

No, what is that?

If you change the wallet file, you need to use "-rescan" or the client won't credit your balance with coins from transactions it had already downloaded before you changed the wallet file. The coins are still safe, you just can't see or spend them.

[mobile4ever]

Ok, but do you understand you weren't hacked?

The client generates new addresses automatically. It's going to do that regardless of whether you get a new wallet or not.

The bitcoins you currently own are in the original wallet file that was in that directory. So do not delete or lose that file.

No. I have been involved with BTC for a while and never heard of a wallet changing its address. My question remains... how do people know where to send money to me ( or anyone else ) if the address is changing?

I looked in the blockchain... and there is no connection with the new address.

What you see is a fresh new address that has never been used.  If someone wants to send you money, give them that address, and you'll get another one.  The cool thing is that all of your old addresses are stored in the wallet database, and any money sent to those addresses at any time in the future will be yours, as long as you keep your wallet.dat safe.

What you see is a fresh new address that has never been used.

First time ever. Why is there no connection online at the blockchain.info site?

[greyhawk]

That adress was never involved in a transaction tracked in the blockchain.

Blockchain.info only sees what is transcribed in the blockchain.

To simplify, the new adress only exists in your client right now. Only when someone assigns coins to it, will it be visible in the blockchain.

[SgtSpike]

I think this thread would be an excellent basis for a "FAQ" of Bitcoin for newbies.

- How to delete a wallet
- How to start up the Bitcoin client with -rescan
- Why Bitcoin addresses change
- Etc...

[greyhawk]

I think this thread would be an excellent basis for a "FAQ" of Bitcoin for newbies.

- How to delete a wallet
- How to start up the Bitcoin client with -rescan
- Why Bitcoin addresses change
- Etc...

Stuff like this NEEDS to be explained/made more clear in the client itself, e.g. have a pop up when the adress changes with some info on why this happened.

[mobile4ever]

Did you start it with -rescan ?

No, what is that?

If you change the wallet file, you need to use "-rescan" or the client won't credit your balance with coins from transactions it had already downloaded before you changed the wallet file. The coins are still safe, you just can't see or spend them.

What I did was reload everything, including from the user's folder. I re-downloaded Bitcoin and put the old wallet.dat file in the place of the new one that was just downloaded. I happened to look at the wallet address before I placed the old wallet.dat file there. It was different. (Thanks guys!)

Now the computer is downloading thousands of blocks anew.

[mobile4ever]

That adress was never involved in a transaction tracked in the blockchain.

Blockchain.info only sees what is transcribed in the blockchain.

To simplify, the new adress only exists in your client right now. Only when someone assigns coins to it, will it be visible in the blockchain.

That adress was never involved in a transaction tracked in the blockchain.

I knew that it had not had any transactions on it yet because I checked out the blockchain.info site.
 I wondered where the address came from. I checked out the blockchain.info site and when there was no connection to the previous address there, I thought someone had hacked me. When I could not change the address, I thought he/she had placed another file on my computer that prevented me from getting rid of the "bogus" bitcoin address. It turned out to be a valid address.

I suppose the older versions of bitcoin did not change around like that.

Thanks.

[mobile4ever]

No. I have been involved with BTC for a while and never heard of a wallet changing its address. My question remains... how do people know where to send money to me ( or anyone else ) if the address is changing?

If you had to tell two different people to send coins to you, you would not want to give them both the same address. If you did, each one could see every coin the other sent to you. So the address that you tell other people to send coins to changes constantly. This has no effect on your ability to receive coins.

If you had to tell two different people to send coins to you, you would not want to give them both the same address.

All they would see would be each other's address and that they had more or less paid the same guy at the same time. They would have to verify it with me, what was going on, unless the guys knew each other's addresses and could connect the address personally to the "other" guy.


My other address has never changed.

[Gabi]

Did you start it with -rescan ?

No, what is that?

If you change the wallet file, you need to use "-rescan" or the client won't credit your balance with coins from transactions it had already downloaded before you changed the wallet file. The coins are still safe, you just can't see or spend them.

This is not true for months

If you change the wallet.dat and then you start bitcoin it will automatically rescan it and shows all the btc and transactions of that wallet.

[JoelKatz]

All they would see would be each other's address and that they had more or less paid the same guy at the same time. They would have to verify it with me, what was going on, unless the guys knew each other's addresses and could connect the address personally to the "other" guy.

That's more than enough. Consider:

1) Some guy on the Internet owes me 2 Bitcoins for a Steam game. I give him my address. He knows my forum identity which leads him to my real name and address.

2) I sell my house for 15,000 Bitcoins. I give the buyer my address.

3) The guy on the Internet now knows I control 15,000 Bitcoins and he knows I haven't yet spent them. He has two tough guys show up at my real address with a wrench. Once they compel me to transfer the Bitcoins, chances of recovery are near zero. And I can't even really link the tough guys to the guy who bought the Steam game.

Re-use addresses at your own risk.