Here is what happened:
1) I generated a keypair using vanitygen. The public address is:
1RRAVeh1FpUCoyUZh44DzxQaeh3XZKwwc2) I imported the private key into my Blockchain.info wallet
3) It showed up in my addresses list as expected
4) At this point there was a brief pop up, something about saving the wallet (not sure of exact text)
5) I sent a small payment to the address in order to "claim" it and the firstbits
1rrave (transaction).
6) I then tried to make a payment from the address to prove to myself everything was working
7) The Blockchain.info wallet reported back that it did not send the BTC back because it was trying to add a 0.0005 miner fee
Eight) At this point I went and did something else for a while and the wallet automatically logged me out
9) Later I came back and opened my wallet and sent another 0.0005 BTC to the address so I could send from it
(transaction)10) It suddenly dawned on me that I had not received my expected automatic back up of my wallet in my email - I was expecting it due to the private key import
11) I went to spend the BTC and the
key pair no longer shows up in my wallet. It is gone.12) I had closed the vanitygen session so I no longer have the private key
13) I requested a backup of the wallet by email and got it, but I never got the backup due to the import
It appears that there was a glitch somewhere. The imported key did show up in my wallet and was available until it automatically logged me off. But somehow there was an error and it did not get saved. The next time I logged in the key was no longer in my wallet. It has not and I expect will not reappear.
Unless someone can think of something these 0.00051234 BTC are gone for good.
I was just lucky I did not send more to the address. You can bet you ass I will keep a copy of the private key at least until I see the wallet backup in my email from now on!
Be careful out there.
