Please Help!!! Trapped bitcoin & watch wallet issue

[Matt01061983]

I am really hoping someone can help me.

Last year I decided to start buying some bitcoin.  I chose the electrum platform after researching and hearing of its ease of use given I am not overly technical.  I created a standard default wallet on electrum but don’t recall being presented with any phrase or password at the time of creation.  I bought a small amount of bitcoin from Bittylicious to test that the wallet was working.  Once confirmed, given the risk to security, I decided to follow the advice of a web article and create  a watch wallet.  I did so using the master public key from my default wallet.  The watch wallet was created instantly after inputting the master public key, again I don’t recall any passwords or phrases being presented to me

Over the last year I have been adding bitcoin to my watch wallet using the receive address form my watch wallet.  I started to become concerned when the transactions being shown in my watch wallet weren’t appearing in my default account.  Upon further reading online I am now hearing I need to present ‘seed phrases’ to access and spend my bitcoin in my watch wallet.

I don’t recall ever seeing any phrases in either the setup of either the default or watch wallet and don't know what this is.   Can someone help me understand what options I have.  I am really worried I may never be able to access my bitcoin again and have lost a years worth of saving

Please help!  Thanks in advance

Kind regards,
Matt

[kolloh]

I am really hoping someone can help me.

Last year I decided to start buying some bitcoin.  I chose the electrum platform after researching and hearing of its ease of use given I am not overly technical.  I created a standard default wallet on electrum but don’t recall being presented with any phrase or password at the time of creation.  I bought a small amount of bitcoin from Bittylicious to test that the wallet was working.  Once confirmed, given the risk to security, I decided to follow the advice of a web article and create  a watch wallet.  I did so using the master public key from my default wallet.  The watch wallet was created instantly after inputting the master public key, again I don’t recall any passwords or phrases being presented to me

Over the last year I have been adding bitcoin to my watch wallet using the receive address form my watch wallet.  I started to become concerned when the transactions being shown in my watch wallet weren’t appearing in my default account.  Upon further reading online I am now hearing I need to present ‘seed phrases’ to access and spend my bitcoin in my watch wallet.

I don’t recall ever seeing any phrases in either the setup of either the default or watch wallet and don't know what this is.   Can someone help me understand what options I have.  I am really worried I may never be able to access my bitcoin again and have lost a years worth of saving

Please help!  Thanks in advance

Kind regards,
Matt

Electrum gives you seed words which are used to generate your wallet. This is a 12 or 13 word phrase. It forces you to confirm these seed words in order to create the wallet. Try to create a new wallet and you will see what this looks like.

Do you also have your other wallet setup or only the watch wallet setup? Without the seed words or private keys for the wallet, you would be unable to spend the coins.

[Coin-Keeper]

I started to become concerned when the transactions being shown in my watch wallet weren’t appearing in my default account.

Where is your default wallet located?  I mean the one from which you originally copied the MPK to create your online watching wallet.  Even if you failed to maintain a copy of your SEED, the original default wallet will contain them.  Since you never (according to your post) setup a passphrase on the wallet you will be able to clearly see the SEED by using Electrum via the pulldown menu items.  If you have it available open the original default wallet and go to the menu where you can select to view the SEED.  Its there plain as day IF you didn't use a password, which by the way is a terrible idea!

[Bitcoinsummoner]

I am really hoping someone can help me.

Last year I decided to start buying some bitcoin.  I chose the electrum platform after researching and hearing of its ease of use given I am not overly technical.  I created a standard default wallet on electrum but don’t recall being presented with any phrase or password at the time of creation.  I bought a small amount of bitcoin from Bittylicious to test that the wallet was working.  Once confirmed, given the risk to security, I decided to follow the advice of a web article and create  a watch wallet.  I did so using the master public key from my default wallet.  The watch wallet was created instantly after inputting the master public key, again I don’t recall any passwords or phrases being presented to me

Over the last year I have been adding bitcoin to my watch wallet using the receive address form my watch wallet.  I started to become concerned when the transactions being shown in my watch wallet weren’t appearing in my default account.  Upon further reading online I am now hearing I need to present ‘seed phrases’ to access and spend my bitcoin in my watch wallet.

I don’t recall ever seeing any phrases in either the setup of either the default or watch wallet and don't know what this is.   Can someone help me understand what options I have.  I am really worried I may never be able to access my bitcoin again and have lost a years worth of saving

Please help!  Thanks in advance

Kind regards,
Matt

Do you have any other backup except for master key? Like wallet.dat or private keys?
Let me ask if your wallet electrum you install before still in your in your present pc or laptop? If yes try to make a new account in electrum after that try to click file then open find you old wallet here C:\Users\admin\AppData\Roaming\Electrum\wallets
and choose the old wallet and transfer your funds into new wallet which is you already backup your seeds.. into notepad.

[HI-TEC99]

If you never deleted your wallet file from your computer it should still be in a folder that windows hides by default. If you are running windows try using these instructions to open your wallet file's folder.

If you have a windows start button on your version of windows then click it, then copy and paste the line of text below into the search box. Afterwards press the "enter" key on your keyboard and the folder containing your electrum wallets should open.

%appdata%\Electrum\wallets

This is what the search box should look like after you paste the line of text into it.

If you open your wallet file in notepad the seed should be written in plain text (provided you didn't password protect it. As Bitcoinsummoner says you can also open it using electrum to access your coins.

[Matt01061983]

Thanks to all you you for replying - appreciated

Coin-Keeper - the default wallet is still on my laptop (mac) - I have gone on to the wallet and viewed the drop down boxes.  under wallet the change password and Master Public Keys are available to select but seed is greyed out?!

Bitcoinsummoner - Yes I have still got the electrum installed on my laptop - I am not quite following how I do this.  to be  clear - should I open a new electrum wallet?  how do I then transfer my bitcoin across?

for reference - I have the master public key starting xpub - can I not use this at all to restore?

I have searched my house up side down for a written srting of words and I cant find anything 

Matt

[Matt01061983]

Thank you HI-TEC99

I have unlocked my hidden files on the mac and can see the plain text - I cant see what are the seeds though - it shows me receiving keys and "xpubs"  "accounts expanded" "master private keys"  "master public keys" but I cant see any seed

Also my default wallet doesn't show the transactions whereas my watch wallet does - can you explain why this would be?

thanks again
Matt

[Matt01061983]

lastly, even if there is no safe way to spend bitcoin - how is it technically possible for hackers to break into accounts and steal bitcoin if it is only possible to spend via the seed phrase?  if it is possible to hack surely I can find a way to access?  I cant believe I have a years savings in a wallet that potentially will sit there for all of eternity without me getting access.....Im so upset.

[Matt01061983]

Great news!  I found my original default wallet on a separate hardrive....the reason the wallet in my above description wasn't showing all my bitcoin was that it wasn't the wallet that was linked to the  watching wallet!.....

I can now see all my bitcoin transactions that mirror my watching wallet and the default wallet is live.   I now have a new problem, when I go to the wallet menu option and select seed or private keys it asks for my password which I dont have (and genuinely dont remember setting).  Is there anyway I can setup a transfer my coins out without the  password now I have the default wallet live?  

As per HI-TEC99 comment, I have now located a line of code in the plain text of the wallet file called "seed" starting with kKeQ - this isn't a seed phrase but I was wondering if I could use this somehow to regenerate the password or send the coins?

Thanks in advance
Mat

[pooya87]

Is there anyway I can setup a transfer my coins out without the  password now I have the default wallet live? 

no, the password is there to prevent exactly this. so unless you either have the password to enter or the seed to recover from scratch, there is nothing you can do.

As per HI-TEC99 comment, I have now located a line of code in the plain text of the wallet file called "seed" starting with kKeQ - this isn't a seed phrase but I was wondering if I could use this somehow to regenerate the password or send the coins?

if you found this:
"keystore": {
        "seed": "kKeQ.......",
        "type":

then and in front of seed you are reading a long string of random letters instead of real words, then it is encrypted and there is nothing you can do if you don't have the password.

i say nothing you can do, but there are password recovery tools but if your password was strong and you don't remember anything about it, they won't work.

[HCP]

If Electrum isn't asking for a password when you open the "default wallet"... and you can view the text in the wallet file, it sounds like your wallet isn't encrypted... however the "seed" and "xprv" that you can see in the wallet file are encrypted using the password for the wallet... That is why it asks for your password when you want to view the seed or private keys.

If you do not have the 12 seed words that Electrum forces you to write down and re-enter when creating a wallet, then you're probably not going to be able to regenerate the wallet. If you don't have your password, getting access to the private keys or the ability to send coins is going to be very difficult.

You may want to try using btcrecover or one of the password recovery services that are offered here on btctalk to try to find the password.

I assume you have already tried your "normal" passwords or passwords that you think you may have used around the time you created the wallet?

[Matt01061983]

Yes, unfortunately I have tried all usual passwords.  I use the same couple of passwords for everything which also adds to my suspicion that I didn't set it l.  If I had it would be one of my normal ones.  

Does electrum lock your wallet of you have a certain amount of failed password attempts?  Ie can I keep guessing without fearing locking the account?   and is it possible electrum could have applied a default password?

[HCP]

Yes, unfortunately I have tried all usual passwords.  I use the same couple of passwords for everything which also adds to my suspicion that I didn't set it l.  If I had it would be one of my normal ones.   

Does electrum lock your wallet of you have a certain amount of failed password attempts?  Ie can I keep guessing without fearing locking the account?   and is it possible electrum could have applied a default password?

Short answer: No, Yes and No

It won't lock you out. Also, as the wallet is not encrypted, you can also try running one of the password recovery scripts on it... so, no need to worry about it being locked out. If you're concerned, just make a backup of the wallet file somewhere.

Electrum will not have set a default password. It doesn't do that. You will have had to have entered something twice to get it to generate the wallet. It doesn't enforce any rules on password length or complexity, so you could have just put 1234 or abc or password or even just a space.

[Coin-Keeper]

You confirmed what several of us suspected, that being that the wallet you were calling "default" was not the one matching the watching wallet.  I am glad you got that sorted out.  Now as to the unknown password that is unfortunate.  Electrum is quite secure and you won't crack it without being able to "crack" your passphrase.  There are several services mentioned here but using them depends upon the coin count you are trying to recover.  I don't expect you to reveal that here, but if its a small fraction of a coin it won't be worth it to them.  If its "substantial" (you define that) it would be worth contacting them because lacking passphrase discovery your coins are stuck without the SEED.  Good luck.

[Liquid1]

sorry no idea am struggling myself I have a 13-word code for my wallet  have not used in ages was saving the bitcoin there for old age but now have tried opening the downloaded wallet its not opening with the damned seed have a good few coins in there and its started to get on head as updated wallet spanked me out of over 20 coins? or is there a way to open it?

[Liquid1]

please help

[HCP]

The new wallet should accept an old Electrum seed no problem. Did you get version 3.0.3 from here: https://electrum.org/#download or did you download it from somewhere else?

File -> New\Restore -> Standard Wallet -> I already have a seed, Put the seed in, and it SHOULD say Type: "old"

If the "next" button stays greyed out... I suggest you check that your words exist in the wordlist and that you have written them down correctly, there are a LOT of similar words and spelling mistakes can be made easily.

More info about Electrum seeds here: https://bitcoinelectrum.com/frequently-asked-questions/#why-wont-electrum-accept-my-seed-when-i-attempt-to-restore-my-wallet-from-it
The wordlist for Electrum 2.0+ seeds is here: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/lib/wordlist/english.txt