SOLVED: restore of 12 word seed in Electrum 2.8.2 NOT POSSIBLE

[Kryptowerk]

Hey guys,

I am currently experiencing a strange error: I tried to restore a seed I created with electrum about 8, max. 10 months ago.
It consists of 12 (I counted it 7 times now, lol!) words, all exisitent in this list: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/lib/wordlist/english.txt
But I CANNOT click the "next" button to restore the seeds (it stays greyed out).
Trust me, I checked spelling 10 times now, also as I said I checked every word on the list from github.

Any idea what is wrong or what to do??!

Thanks,
KW

PS: I am running Electrum 2.8.2, I tried the standalone version and the installer version on Windows 10.
Just to be sure I created a new wallet, wrote down the seed words and tried the restore option: It worked for that seed. :s

[ThatRandom8543]

Hey guys,

I am currently experiencing a strange error: I tried to restore a seed I created with electrum about 8, max. 10 months ago.
It consists of 12 (I counted it 7 times now, lol!) words, all exisitent in this list: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/lib/wordlist/english.txt
But I CANNOT click the "next" button to restore the seeds (it stays greyed out).
Trust me, I checked spelling 10 times now, also as I said I checked every word on the list from github.

Any idea what is wrong or what to do??!

Thanks,
KW

PS: I am running Electrum 2.8.2, I tried the standalone version and the installer version on Windows 10.
Just to be sure I created a new wallet, wrote down the seed words and tried the restore option: It worked for that seed. :s

Select "Option" and make sure that BIP39 is selected.

[Kryptowerk]

When I do that, my Balance is empty with no tracked txs.
I checked every word on the list for similar ones. There was only one that could actually be an other one, I replaced it, still didn't work. Very strange.

[BitMaxz]

Hey guys,

I am currently experiencing a strange error: I tried to restore a seed I created with electrum about 8, max. 10 months ago.
It consists of 12 (I counted it 7 times now, lol!) words, all exisitent in this list: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/lib/wordlist/english.txt
But I CANNOT click the "next" button to restore the seeds (it stays greyed out).
Trust me, I checked spelling 10 times now, also as I said I checked every word on the list from github.

Any idea what is wrong or what to do??!

Thanks,
KW

PS: I am running Electrum 2.8.2, I tried the standalone version and the installer version on Windows 10.
Just to be sure I created a new wallet, wrote down the seed words and tried the restore option: It worked for that seed. :s

Select "Option" and make sure that BIP39 is selected.

Where i can see the BIP39 i can not seen even in preferences .. because i have my old seeds that i want to recover before. but not accepted because the electrum is asking for 12 words and the button is always invisible..
Can you give a screen shot for this so that we can see where to see BIP39 to be enable..

I am just trying to find the solution in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1012475.0
And maybe it can be also help to look at it..

[Chris!]

Not really a solution for electrum here, but have you tried to restore the seed in another client? I've had success in mycelium a few times before so that's the extent of my experience. At the very least it would get you access to your wallet (hopefully).

[ThatRandom8543]

Check https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1895725.msg18822373#msg18822373

[jonald_fyookball]

Hey guys,
i
I am currently experiencing a strange error: I tried to restore a seed I created with electrum about 8, max. 10 months ago.
It consists of 12 (I counted it 7 times now, lol!) words, all exisitent in this list: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/lib/wordlist/english.txt
But I CANNOT click the "next" button to restore the seeds (it stays greyed out).
Trust me, I checked spelling 10 times now, also as I said I checked every word on the list from github.

Any idea what is wrong or what to do??!

Thanks,
KW

PS: I am running Electrum 2.8.2, I tried the standalone version and the installer version on Windows 10.
Just to be sure I created a new wallet, wrote down the seed words and tried the restore option: It worked for that seed. :s

double check the word list again, make sure you don't have 'woman' vs 'women' etc... I think greyed out means not all words are valid.

also you can try my python script for address generation.

[pooya87]

also you can try my python script for address generation.

why is it that i always see you on this board talking about your "python script" and i have never seen a link.
so where is it? is it peer reviewed? is it safe (bug-free)? is it even out there on github or something?

[NeuroticFish]

GitHub is not a guarantee nowadays. Not long ago someone used a "recovery" program from GitHub (for MultiBit) and he lost his wallet and his Poloniex money too (allegedly).
So please, extra careful with 3rd party software.

Back on subject: did you try with Android version of Electrum?

[kolloh]

When I do that, my Balance is empty with no tracked txs.
I checked every word on the list for similar ones. There was only one that could actually be an other one, I replaced it, still didn't work. Very strange.

Do you know one of the addresses that should be in the wallet ? If so, try going to the console tab and running

Code:

ismine("ADDRESS")

If it says true you have the correct wallet and perhaps you might need to adjust the gap limit or something.

If you are unsure of one of the seed words, it should be possible to brute force it pretty easily if its only 1 of the words.

[pooya87]

GitHub is not a guarantee nowadays. Not long ago someone used a "recovery" program from GitHub (for MultiBit) and he lost his wallet and his Poloniex money too (allegedly).
So please, extra careful with 3rd party software.

why do you mean "GitHub is not a guarantee"!
GitHub is a place to share open source code, and when you use a code from GitHub you do the following:
1- check to see how old the repo is and how many stars, forks, etc it has and check to see how many people have contributed, search to see if it is trusted, peer reviewed,...
2- you use your own coding knowledge to go through the code and check it, specially if it is a small code.
3- you run it on an offline OS even if 1&2 are true, for example a live linux distro without persistence while offline. that way even if it is malicious nothing is going to happen to you! because what is going to do? find your password and telepathically send it to the scammer

[NeuroticFish]

why do you mean "GitHub is not a guarantee"!
GitHub is a place to share open source code, and when you use a code from GitHub you do the following:
1- check to see how old the repo is and how many stars, forks, etc it has and check to see how many people have contributed, search to see if it is trusted, peer reviewed,...
2- you use your own coding knowledge to go through the code and check it, specially if it is a small code.
3- you run it on an offline OS even if 1&2 are true, for example a live linux distro without persistence while offline. that way even if it is malicious nothing is going to happen to you! because what is going to do? find your password and telepathically send it to the scammer

Not everybody knows programming. And I got to see people that think that if some code is uploaded to GitHub it's automatically clean, nice and safe.
So I wanted to make sure people don't just jump for GitHub code.

Yes, GitHub is a free place (a pretty good one actually) ; yes, people should use their knowledge and yes, they should test unknown code on offline virtual machine or live linux distro. But many don't do this. Unfortunately.

[jonald_fyookball]

also you can try my python script for address generation.

why is it that i always see you on this board talking about your "python script" and i have never seen a link.
so where is it? is it peer reviewed? is it safe (bug-free)? is it even out there on github or something?

I wrote a few scripts but they are for the older electrum seeds

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=612143.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=694521.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=922987.0

[Abdussamad]

Hey guys,

I am currently experiencing a strange error: I tried to restore a seed I created with electrum about 8, max. 10 months ago.
It consists of 12 (I counted it 7 times now, lol!) ...
But I CANNOT click the "next" button to restore the seeds (it stays greyed out).

The next button stays greyed out because the seed isn't valid. It doesn't pass the checksum. I think you are missing one word in your seed. You see for versions 2.0 - 2.6.4 created 13 word seeds.

2.7.0 was released in Oct 2016 and it standardized seeds to 12 words.

So what version did you use to create this wallet of yours? This is the most important question.

The good news is that since you have all but one word in your seed you should be able to run a bruteforce program to get the remaining word.

[Kryptowerk]

Hey guys,

I am currently experiencing a strange error: I tried to restore a seed I created with electrum about 8, max. 10 months ago.
It consists of 12 (I counted it 7 times now, lol!) ...
But I CANNOT click the "next" button to restore the seeds (it stays greyed out).

The next button stays greyed out because the seed isn't valid. It doesn't pass the checksum. I think you are missing one word in your seed. You see for versions 2.0 - 2.6.4 created 13 word seeds.

2.7.0 was released in Oct 2016 and it standardized seeds to 12 words.

So what version did you use to create this wallet of yours? This is the most important question.

The good news is that since you have all but one word in your seed you should be able to run a bruteforce program to get the remaining word.

Thank you!
What I have is a hand-written copy of my hand written seed backup. In one to two days I will be able to check my original seed backup, maybe I just missed a word. If it turns out that it is also only 12 words long, I'll get back to you about brute forcing.
I am pretty sure I created this wallet before OCT 2016, probably in June or July when I first started out with bitcoin. So your assumption that one word is missing is probably correct.

[jonald_fyookball]

also make sure you are comparing the right word list.  the word list changed at some point , I think when electrum converted over to bip32 HD.

[Abdussamad]

also make sure you are comparing the right word list.  the word list changed at some point , I think when electrum converted over to bip32 HD.

That was version 2.0 which was released in March 2015 which is well before the OP says he created his wallet.

[Kryptowerk]

I am sorry, it was entirely my mistake, I just missed one word of the 13 words. Works fine now.
Usually I have a high standard of triple-checking these things, but in this case it was just a temporary extra copy of my seed and I didn't pay enough attention.
Thanks for everyone trying to help.