I think i've made a terrible mess of my cold storage...

[rustbucket]

Could do with some help from someone out there!!!

I've been running version 1.9.8 for a couple of years with no issues and decided to update to 2.6.4.

I keep two wallets on an online laptop, one of which has a small amount for spending and the other of which is a watching-only wallet for my cold storage wallet. I keep various printouts of my seed around so I always have that as a backup.

This cold storage wallet is on a wifi-disabled laptop running ubuntu 14.04. I decided to update this one first, so I downloaded the .tar file onto a stick and transferred it to the cold storage laptop. There I first copied the 1.9.8 directory and then unzipped the tar file.

At this point I should mention that I am a complete and utter Linux/Ubuntu noob, truly. Many years ago I had some exposure to Unix so I know some general principles but even that may be overstating my knowledge.

I tried various commands to install 2.6.4, firstly "python electrum" from the folder itself, which opened the familiar interface but this time as version 2.6.4 - great, I thought, it worked. But this only runs the wallet from the directory it doesn't install it (am I right?). I checked the seed and the seed is the same as for the previous wallet so it appears to have done something right, but that's still not an installation. Then I tried installing it with "sudo python setup.py install" but nothing appeared to happen. I tried opening a console and entering the command "sudo apt-get install electrum-2.6.4.tar.gz" but received an error message relating to "jsonrtclib" (??spelling??).

I then tried to look for the installations using apt-cache search electrum. This returned the results:
"electrum - Easy to use bitcoin client
python-electrum - Easy to use bitcoin client - python module
text live-fonts-extra - TeXLive: Additional fonts"

So I thought it might make sense to try uninstall the 1.9.8 installation first but when I entered "apt-get remove python-electrum", or "sudo apt-get remove electrum" I received a message telling me that there were no instances installed.

I then capitulated and went briefly online with the cold storage laptop to install directly from the Electrum website but when I tried that I received the following error log:
------------------------------------------------------------
/usr/bin/pip run on Sat Jun 18 18:09:38 2016
Downloading/unpacking https://download.electrum.org/2.6.4/Electrum-2.6.4.tar.gz
Cleaning up...
  Removing temporary dir /tmp/pip_build_root...
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/basecommand.py", line 122, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/commands/install.py", line 278, in run
    requirement_set.prepare_files(finder, force_root_egg_info=self.bundle, bundle=self.bundle)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/req.py", line 1197, in prepare_files
    do_download,
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/req.py", line 1375, in unpack_url
    self.session,
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/download.py", line 546, in unpack_http_url
    resp = session.get(target_url, stream=True)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 395, in get
    return self.request('GET', url, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/download.py", line 237, in request
    return super(PipSession, self).request(method, url, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 383, in request
    resp = self.send(prep, **send_kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 486, in send
    r = adapter.send(request, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/requests/adapters.py", line 378, in send
    raise ConnectionError(e)
ConnectionError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='download.electrum.org', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /2.6.4/Electrum-2.6.4.tar.gz (Caused by <class 'socket.gaierror'>: [Errno -2] Name or service not known)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And still I appear to have no installation!! Then I tried re-installing 1.9.8 through a console and although that appeared to work with no errors I can't actually open it b clicking on the icon!!!!

I'm despairing a little here and would greatly, greatly appreciate some help!

Thank you in advance,
Adrian

UPDATE: I've tried again from the console to "sudo python setup.py install" and it goes fine until I get the error "Could not find suitable distribution for Requirement.parse(jsonrpclib)". Can anyone help tell me where I can find it??

FURTHER UPDATE: I've managed successfully to find a bunch of dependencies that appear to be missing but necessary for the 2.6.4 installation, but I have a new question - how can so many dependencies be missing from the installer package? What am I doing wrong? Surely I shouldn't need to download and install so many individual packages??

Final Update: OK, I don't get it - I downloaded what appeared to be the last of the dependencies- at least there were no further error messages - but it still won't work. What the hell am I doing wrong???!?

[1714127778]

1714127778

[402blownstroker]

why did you not upgrade for years?  sorry to not be a help... but this is likely your issue..

[rustbucket]

Thanks for the reply, but do you think you could you be a little more specific? Why is the sudden upgrade from 1.9.8 to 2.6.4 my problem? Would the installer nevertheless not contain all of the dependencies that I would need? Is it a problem with my OS Lubuntu 14.04?

I didn't upgrade because I didn't see the need to alter a running system, didn't need Trezor support, MultiSig etc.

I could still do with some help!

Thanks,
Adrian


- Or perhaps someone could help me out on this: would it always be an option to just re-install my OS on the cold storage laptop and then recreate my cold storage wallet from the seed?

[racezefi]

First of all, don't worry, as long as you have the seed, you can install 1.9.8 and get access to your funds.
If not on this machine, on a virtual, so don't worry about that.

Name or service not known)

That's a DNS issue. Can you ping google.com from console?
Can you ping 8.8.8.8?
Do you have anything at /etc/resolv.conf (that's where you configure DNS in Linux).

If you DO have DNS right and it's not that, try installing manually:

Code:

wget https://download.electrum.org/2.6.4/Electrum-2.6.4.tar.gz
tar -zxvf data.tar.gz
cd electrumFullPathHere
python ./electrum.py

Regarding your issue about Electrum not launching, try MOVING, NOT DELETING, your Electrum's data directory at /home/UserName/.electrum.

Probably the different versions install different files there that break compatibility if you launch one after having the other one.

[rustbucket]

Thanks for your help - I decided the best route was to re-install ubuntu. Haven't yet re-created the wallet but I appreciate your help. Thanks!

One thing - if I go ahead and install directly 2.6.4 instead of 1.9.8 will it make any difference, considering that my public key and seed are from a .9.8 wallet?

Thanks again,
Adrian

[shorena]

Thanks for your help - I decided the best route was to re-install ubuntu. Haven't yet re-created the wallet but I appreciate your help. Thanks!

One thing - if I go ahead and install directly 2.6.4 instead of 1.9.8 will it make any difference, considering that my public key and seed are from a .9.8 wallet?

Thanks again,
Adrian

No, the seeds work for both versions (1.x and 2.x). In the spirit of a true cold wallet you might want to create a new one regardless and transfer the funds.

why did you not upgrade for years?  sorry to not be a help... but this is likely your issue..

Its an offline system and as such intended to stay offline. An update however requires the system to be online or data to be transfered to the online system and executed. Its good practice to keep online systems updated, but its a bit different for offline systems as each update might compromise the offline state.