My bitcoins disappeared after reopening Electrum

[El Conquistador]

I'm fairly new to this software so I may be overlooking something simple. I'm a little worried at the moment though.

I put some bitcoins in my wallet a few hours ago and then tried to send most of my balance somewhere else. I received them just fine but when I tried to send them, I got the error on this page and did what it suggests:

https://support.node40.com/hc/en-us/articles/115002838488-My-Electrum-Dash-wallet-will-not-send-a-transaction-after-the-update-to-12-1

After that, I tried to send and it got stuck saying, "Please wait." Eventually, I closed Electrum and reopened it and now it's saying my balance is zero. I know at least some of the addresses listed are the same so it's the same account but the money and history are gone. I have the seed and tried restoring it to another file but there's still no money. The network status light is green so it should be synced up. Even if the money did somehow send, it wasn't the entire balance of my account so I should have something there.

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[jonald_fyookball]

the link you posted says electrum dash. 

but you said bitcoins.  so im confused.

[El Conquistador]

I hadn't even noticed that nor do I really know what Dash is. However, I had the same issue and did the same thing and it at least stopped that particular error.

To be clear, I'm using Electrum 1.9.8 for bitcoins.

[jonald_fyookball]

in the main window you should see a list of transactions.  on each one you can right click and see on the blockchain.

what do you see?

[El Conquistador]

I'm guessing you mean in the history tab. It is completely empty.

I can go to blockchain.info and see where I had sent the money to my wallet. The destination address is still present in Electrum. At this point, I don't think I have a way of getting either address from when I attempted to send the money with my history wiped out.

[HI-TEC99]

To be clear, I'm using Electrum 1.9.8 for bitcoins.

You are using an extremely old version of electrum. The latest version is 2.8.2. Try upgrading to that and see if it fixes your problem.

The rules of Bitcoin network itself have changed since electrum 1.9.8. Your old wallet can produce transactions with high S values, which goes against the new Bitcoin network rules.

Old versions of Electrum (before 2.5.1) produce transactions with high S values.
These transactions are now nonstandard. This does not mean they will be rejecteed, they might still be accepted by a miner.
However, it is likely that you will not see them in the memory pool of most nodes.
So please upgrade Electrum to the latest version.

Someone else with a similar problem to yours solved it by renaming a corrupted blockchain_headers file, then letting his wallet resync. However you also need to upgrade to prevent the high S values problem.

What wallet version are you using, if you're on an older one, update to the latest one and see if the problem gets resolved. It happened with me once when my system got bsod (faulty ram) and I figured it might have corrupted the blockchain_headers file due to electrum not being closed properly, so here is what I did, you can try and see if these work for you.

Click the network icon in electrum (red/green light at the bottom), select Auto_Connect>OK, close electrum, go to the .electrum folder, you can find its location here: http://docs.electrum.org/en/latest/faq.html?highlight=location#where-is-my-wallet-file-located , rename the blockchain_headers file to OLD_blockchain_headers, restart electrum and let it run and sync for a while as it will download the blockchain headers file again and when its done, your history should appear back. Or you can simply, rename/move the .electrum folder somewhere else and then re-store your wallet from seed.

[jonald_fyookball]

if you had money before in your wallet but now history tab is completely empty, then something is wrong here...

do you only have 1 wallet file?  You could be in the wrong wallet.

Failing that, do you have your 12 word secret seed?  (dont post it online)
You can try restoring your wallet from seed.

[El Conquistador]

I was considering upgrading Electrum, but since I'm running Debian stable, that would be a fairly complicated thing to do with all the dependencies and such.

I had two wallet files, but I verified I was using the correct one. LocalBitcoins shows the address I sent the money to, and that address is still listed in Electrum, but with a 0 balance. I verified another address on another site as well.

I tried the restore thing as well. I made a third wallet file, put in my seed words, and it pulls up the same wallet, just without the signing addresses or labels.

[jonald_fyookball]

I was considering upgrading Electrum, but since I'm running Debian stable, that would be a fairly complicated thing to do with all the dependencies and such.

I had two wallet files, but I verified I was using the correct one. LocalBitcoins shows the address I sent the money to, and that address is still listed in Electrum, but with a 0 balance. I verified another address on another site as well.

I tried the restore thing as well. I made a third wallet file, put in my seed words, and it pulls up the same wallet, just without the signing addresses or labels.

You sent the money to yourself?  Still confused.

[jonald_fyookball]

if its an old wallet, you may need to increase gap limit to see old transactions.  try that on the restored one.

[HI-TEC99]

I was considering upgrading Electrum, but since I'm running Debian stable, that would be a fairly complicated thing to do with all the dependencies and such.

I had two wallet files, but I verified I was using the correct one. LocalBitcoins shows the address I sent the money to, and that address is still listed in Electrum, but with a 0 balance. I verified another address on another site as well.

I tried the restore thing as well. I made a third wallet file, put in my seed words, and it pulls up the same wallet, just without the signing addresses or labels.

Have you tried renaming your blockchain_headers file, then resyncing?

Sooner or later your old wallet is bound to make transactions with high S values that the network will reject. Choosing not to upgrade will create more problems than upgrading, even if it's a lot of work.

[kolloh]

Choosing not to upgrade will create more problems than upgrading, even if it's a lot of work.

Yeah, I definitely recommend you spend the effort to upgrade as you'll get all the new bug fixes and features. The new version should work quite a bit better so I definitely recommend trying to get it working.

[El Conquistador]

Okay, I went through the effort of installing a newer version. When I opened it, my balance was suddenly what it's supposed to be and my history has reappeared. I guess it was just a strange bug with the older one. Boy am I relieved, even though I still have a lot of work to do. I appreciate the assistance.