1 BTC reward - Did Bitcoin Core eat my bitcoins?

[AlexanderScott]

The person that helps the most in getting me my bitcoins back will get 1 bitcoin reward.

I have a wallet in Bitcoin core.
I think I upgraded to core 12.1 maybe 9 months ago, and my wallet is older than that. I haven't used core very much, but decided to receive bitcoins to core wallet some time ago, which of course I expected to work.

I know I know, I shouldn't have used a wallet that didn't have the 12 words that will keep my private keys forever, but I knew that I had multiple backups of the wallet so I thought it couldn't be that risky to use Bitcoin Core.

However, now my core wallet doesn't work. I's saying that the password is wrong. I don't remember changing the password, and why would I do that anyway, because I had a nice system on it. But I cannot sign messages or send the bitcoins. It's as if the wallet file is corrupted or something, and now I cannot unlock the private keys. I've tried all kinds of password, but they don't work. The original password I set on the wallet is not working.
If I didn't know any better, I'd suggest that Core has changed the way it stores or retrieves the private keys in a way that's not working properly with the old way the keys were stored. So after upgrading maybe the new keys are not compatible with the wallet? I don't know.

I have backup of the core wallet with a known password that can sign messages, but when I use those wallets, they don't generate the same bitcoin addresses.

I thought even core stored at least 100 addresses in the wallet file, but it seems these addresses are all generated on the spot, with no memory of what's happened before and no seed for the random generator.

Any help in any direction is appreciated, because we're talking quite a few bitcoins.


If nobody can help, maybe we could hard fork bitcoin if I made a mistake, it's just a few months ago that this happened.

Joke aside, I know there's a guy in the bitcoin community that helps people with these kinds of things, and he has a reputation for doing a good job and being an honest person. I don't remember his name. Anyone know who I'm talking about?

[achow101]

The person that helps the most in getting me my bitcoins back will get 1 bitcoin reward.

I have a wallet in Bitcoin core.
I think I upgraded to core 12.1 maybe 9 months ago, and my wallet is older than that.

0.12.1 was not released 9 months ago. It's much newer than that.

I haven't used core very much, but decided to receive bitcoins to core wallet some time ago, which of course I expected to work.

I know I know, I shouldn't have used a wallet that didn't have the 12 words that will keep my private keys forever, but I knew that I had multiple backups of the wallet so I thought it couldn't be that risky to use Bitcoin Core.

However, now my core wallet doesn't work. I's saying that the password is wrong. I don't remember changing the password, and why would I do that anyway, because I had a nice system on it. But I cannot sign messages or send the bitcoins. It's as if the wallet file is corrupted or something, and now I cannot unlock the private keys. I've tried all kinds of password, but they don't work. The original password I set on the wallet is not working.

Are you sure you are using the correct wallet file? Is the correct file in the correct data directory?

If I didn't know any better, I'd suggest that Core has changed the way it stores or retrieves the private keys in a way that's not working properly with the old way the keys were stored. So after upgrading maybe the new keys are not compatible with the wallet? I don't know.

No, nothing of that sort has changed.

I have backup of the core wallet with a known password that can sign messages, but when I use those wallets, they don't generate the same bitcoin addresses.

I thought even core stored at least 100 addresses in the wallet file, but it seems these addresses are all generated on the spot, with no memory of what's happened before and no seed for the random generator.

No, you're wrong. Bitcoin Core does pregenerate 100 addresses and those are in fact stored in the wallet file.

Joke aside, I know there's a guy in the bitcoin community that helps people with these kinds of things, and he has a reputation for doing a good job and being an honest person. I don't remember his name. Anyone know who I'm talking about?

Dave at wallet recovery services? If that's who you are thinking of (he brute forces wallets), he probably can't help if you have no idea what the password is.


I highly suspect that you either have the wrong wallet.dat file or the wrong data directory. Go to Help > Debug Window and look at the line labeled Datadir. Does it show you the data directory that you have been putting wallet files into?

[Naoko]

have you tried reinstalling core? try to reinstall it and use the wallet.file again. sometimes it fixes password error things and that might help you on this case. otherwise let us wait for some members to help you here. goodluck

[AlexanderScott]

0.12.1 was not released 9 months ago. It's much newer than that.

You're right. Going through the debug.log, I see I was probably on version 10.2.
The log only goes back so far. According to log I was on version 0.12.1 much later.

Are you sure you are using the correct wallet file? Is the correct file in the correct data directory?

Using Windows for the moment, I keep the wallet file in C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin.
That's the default directory.

I've been switching between different wallet files and restarting bitcoin when I do that.
I have not kept a repository on the wallet files, something I realize in hindsight I should have done.

No, you're wrong. Bitcoin Core does pregenerate 100 addresses and those are in fact stored in the wallet file.

OK, that's good to hear. As long as it's my mistake I might figure it out.

[later]

All right!

I got it back!

Most helpful was achow101. Please PM me a bitcoin address for your reward. It's too much for so little work, but I stand by my word.

The mistake I made was to assume that it was one wallet, while it really was another.
What I did was restore an old version of the wallet, which had a known password, and just as you said it had the 100 addresses buffered.

I tested to sign a message, and it works smoothly. I also sent a transaction for testing, and it works as well.

[shinohai]

0.12.1 was not released 9 months ago. It's much newer than that.

You're right. Going through the debug.log, I see I was probably on version 10.2.
The log only goes back so far. According to log I was on version 0.12.1 much later.

Are you sure you are using the correct wallet file? Is the correct file in the correct data directory?

Using Windows for the moment, I keep the wallet file in C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin.
That's the default directory.

I've been switching between different wallet files and restarting bitcoin when I do that.
I have not kept a repository on the wallet files, something I realize in hindsight I should have done.

No, you're wrong. Bitcoin Core does pregenerate 100 addresses and those are in fact stored in the wallet file.

OK, that's good to hear. As long as it's my mistake I might figure it out.

[later]

All right!

I got it back!

Most helpful was achow101. Please PM me a bitcoin address for your reward. It's too much for so little work, but I stand by my word.

The mistake I made was to assume that it was one wallet, while it really was another.
What I did was restore an old version of the wallet, which had a known password, and just as you said it had the 100 addresses buffered.

I tested to sign a message, and it works smoothly. I also sent a transaction for testing, and it works as well.

Glad to see you recovered your funds. This is a good opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of frequent backups, I save a new copy of my wallet.dat for every ~100 tx's.

[cr1776]

...

Glad to see you recovered your funds. This is a good opportunity to remind everyone of the importance of frequent backups, I save a new copy of my wallet.dat for every ~100
...

Or upgrade to 0.13.0 and then migrate to a HD wallet - but keep a backup of your old wallet.dat(s) just in case.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

0.12.1 was not released 9 months ago. It's much newer than that.

You're right. Going through the debug.log, I see I was probably on version 10.2.
The log only goes back so far. According to log I was on version 0.12.1 much later.

Are you sure you are using the correct wallet file? Is the correct file in the correct data directory?

Using Windows for the moment, I keep the wallet file in C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin.
That's the default directory.

I've been switching between different wallet files and restarting bitcoin when I do that.
I have not kept a repository on the wallet files, something I realize in hindsight I should have done.

No, you're wrong. Bitcoin Core does pregenerate 100 addresses and those are in fact stored in the wallet file.

OK, that's good to hear. As long as it's my mistake I might figure it out.

[later]

All right!

I got it back!

Most helpful was achow101. Please PM me a bitcoin address for your reward. It's too much for so little work, but I stand by my word.

The mistake I made was to assume that it was one wallet, while it really was another.
What I did was restore an old version of the wallet, which had a known password, and just as you said it had the 100 addresses buffered.

I tested to sign a message, and it works smoothly. I also sent a transaction for testing, and it works as well.

1 bitcoin reward is a lot, I wonder if he ever sent it? achow101 has helped me with an issue before, he's one of the most knowledgable posters here.