cant open an old elecrum.dat file

[coffeelunatic]

Hi,

I saved some litecoins on a .dat file locally on an external hard drive without any passwords so it should be easy to retrieve.

I've been trying to open them but its just not possible.

i tried inserting it into: Go > Go to folder > typing: ~/.electrum

but it still wont open.

I have no idea how to open this at all

looking to shed some light on this. any help appreciated. thank you

[hexafraction]

Electrum doesn't use .dat files, unless you happened to specifically give your wallet file a name with .dat

You can just open Electrum for Litecoin, go to File -> Open, and navigate to the file on your external hard disk, and then select the file. It it doesn't open, it's probably the litecoin-qt format (judging by the .dat extension). Install the Litecoin-qt client and put this file in its data directory, calling it wallet.dat.

If you need further assistance just reply or send a PM.

[coffeelunatic]

thats weird because i remember specifically saving these litecoins with electrum and i wouldn't have changed the file extension. too paranoid i'd screw something up.

either ways, downloaded litecoin - qt .. tried opening and still nothing.

do i have to wait for it to sync with the network?

it looks like it'll take hours

[hexafraction]

Yes, you'll have to sync to see them in litecoin-qt. However, if you've restored the wallet file correctly, you should be able to see some addresses in your addresses panel; you can search those addresses at https://live.blockcypher.com/ltc/ to see their balance.

[HCP]

Just to clarify... you're actually using the Litecoin version of Electrum from here: https://electrum-ltc.org/

You can't take a LTC wallet and put it into the BTC version of Electrum

Also, seems the wallet format got updated:

The wallet file format has been upgraded. This upgrade is not backward compatible, which means that a wallet upgraded to the 2.8 format will not be readable by earlier versions of Electrum. Multiple accounts inside the same wallet are not supported in the new format; the Qt GUI will propose to split any wallet that has several accounts. Make sure that you have saved your seed phrase before you upgrade Electrum.

[hexafraction]

The wallet file format has been upgraded. This upgrade is not backward compatible, which means that a wallet upgraded to the 2.8 format will not be readable by earlier versions of Electrum. Multiple accounts inside the same wallet are not supported in the new format; the Qt GUI will propose to split any wallet that has several accounts. Make sure that you have saved your seed phrase before you upgrade Electrum.

That update shouldn't cause any issues; new versions of Electrum can still open (and migrate) older formats, if they are actually Electrum wallets. Same should go for Electrum-LTC.

[coffeelunatic]

Thanks for the tip. didnt know electrum made a litecoin wallet.

it still doesn't work at all. I open the file and absolutely nothing happens.

I tested it by saving another test wallet and opening up and it works just as it should

but for my wallet.dat file.....nothing.

i cant understand it

in december of 2013, did electrum have a litecoin wallet?

I know I used electrum to save those litecoins. thats the only wallet I used at the time since it was the only lite weight i knew of.

if that update from electrum saying its not backwards compatible is accurate, then i and anyone who updated, not knowing this issue, could be totally screwed here.

I didnt save my pw seed and assumed just by saving these litecoins in a non-password encrypted file, that they would just be open to access in

the future

[kolloh]

Thanks for the tip. didnt know electrum made a litecoin wallet.

it still doesn't work at all. I open the file and absolutely nothing happens.

I tested it by saving another test wallet and opening up and it works just as it should

but for my wallet.dat file.....nothing.

i cant understand it

in december of 2013, did electrum have a litecoin wallet?

I know I used electrum to save those litecoins. thats the only wallet I used at the time since it was the only lite weight i knew of.

if that update from electrum saying its not backwards compatible is accurate, then i and anyone who updated, not knowing this issue, could be totally screwed here.

I didnt save my pw seed and assumed just by saving these litecoins in a non-password encrypted file, that they would just be open to access in

the future

Are you talking about Bitcoins or Litecoins? You mention Litecoins and Electrum, but then state that you didn't know Electrum had a Litecoin wallet so I am confused.

https://electrum-ltc.org/ appears to be the site for the Electrum Litecoin (LTC) wallet.

[Renji Abarai]

I think it is corrupted or not supported already. I hope you have still the private keys to used to open that wallet as a possible backup whenever there is problem with wallet.dat file. AFAIK you can find the wallet folder here  c:\\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\Local\Electrum .

[HCP]

I know I used electrum to save those litecoins. thats the only wallet I used at the time since it was the only lite weight i knew of.

Well that isn't possible. Litecoin and Bitcoin addresses are different and incompatible. You can't have sent litecoins to a (non litecoin) Electrum wallet. That just wouldn't have worked.

Looking at Github, the version that was around in Dec 2013 was Electrum-LTC v1.9.5.

Maybe try asking for help at the litecointalk forums?: http://litecointalk.org/c/technical-support

[coffeelunatic]

kolloh:

im talking about litecoins. it was 4 years ago so maybe i downloaded the litecoin wallet, i cant remember. most likely since everyone here says its impossible to have litecoins in a bitcoin wallet..... its been a while since ive been active in this space


HCP Link:
Thank you, I'll ask in the LTC forums.



nerioseole:
I'm on a Mac
I'm asking for litecoins

I've transferred the wallet.dat file to the .electrum-ltc and it still won't open.


Didn't save my seed and IF I saved the private key (big if, since I could've assumed the file would just work, like an amateur), I'd have to look in all my hiding spots and sift through all the fake decoy keys laying around my house I made at the time.

If this doesn't work, I'm counting on the Litecoin forums, maybe they know something

[Abdussamad]

@OP this is the forum for the bitcoin version of electrum. you won't get good answers for your litecoin version. however the contents of electrum wallet files is human readable so see if opening the file in a text editor yields json like code. google what json looks like if you are not sure.

@nerioseole old versions of electrum used to call the wallet wallet.dat. OP has stated above that he is using an old version. 

[coffeelunatic]

@nerioseole
The .dat file was originally called litecoins.dat, and I remember when I saved it changing the name that was given to me and naming it litecoins.dat

I only changed it to wallet.dat yesterday after reading a few posts on this forum where users had similar problems and they needed to change it

to wallet.dat, .. but I didn't realize this was an electrum-btc or if it even mattered what client I used to open litecoins...thats how new I am to this :-//   learning as I go.


@Abdussamad:
What is json code and what do you mean? Will identifying this code help in some way?

[hexafraction]

@nerioseole
The .dat file was originally called litecoins.dat, and I remember when I saved it changing the name that was given to me and naming it litecoins.dat

I only changed it to wallet.dat yesterday after reading a few posts on this forum where users had similar problems and they needed to change it

to wallet.dat, .. but I didn't realize this was an electrum-btc or if it even mattered what client I used to open litecoins...thats how new I am to this :-//   learning as I go.


@Abdussamad:
What is json code and what do you mean? Will identifying this code help in some way?

JSON is human-readable text. If you open it in a text editor it looks sort of like:

Code:

{
    "addr_history": {
        "1xxxxxxxxxxxxxrzxxxxxxxNtqX": [
            [
                "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx", 
                433332
            ], 
            [
                "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxc", 
                433331
            ]
        ]
    }, 
    "addresses": [
        "1xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxNtqX"
    ], 
    "pruned_txo": {}, 
    "seed_version": 13, 
    "stored_height": 433330, 

(of course, actual content and even names of entries would differ, since this is a sample of a wallet created with Bitcoin for BTC (and a newer version, at that), and I've replaced some private info with xxxxxx, but the general structure and symbols you'll see will be similar. If it's not JSON it will probably look like garbage with random specks of readable text within. If it looks like JSON it's probably an Electrum wallet.

[HCP]

Have you tried just opening the .dat file in a text editor to see if you can see anything "readable"... ie. plaintext.... something like this (you may need to scroll down past a list of bitcoin addresses):


if however you see something like this with a jumble of random letters and numbers, it is likely to be encrypted:


if you see something REALLY random and weird like strange characters like this, it might be a Litecoin Core wallet:

[coffeelunatic]

@hexafraction: Thanks for explaining what JSON is. I opened it up and it doesn't look like what you describe for JSON, so I guess its possible, a good chance that its not electrum...hmmm.

@hcp:    There are indeed a bunch of random characters and it looks like alien code or something. Possibly litecoin core wallet? dont know... will look into it further on litecoin forums. but can't say that I remember downloading the entire network in the past... but maybe i did .. who knows.

I just know one thing and that is its a real issue that i cant open this file, when i never encrypted this wallet and saved it on to a local external drive. Electrum should have warned us a little more visibly on their website that this could've been an issue in the future.

a big part of it is my fault for not saving the private keys, which was a class-a stupid thing to do, but i did test it after saving and opened it right up, so i figured, it would be fine in the future. I wouldn't have ever imagined this being an issue.

oh well... live and learn

[Abdussamad]

@hexafraction: Thanks for explaining what JSON is. I opened it up and it doesn't look like what you describe for JSON, so I guess its possible, a good chance that its not electrum...hmmm.

@hcp:    There are indeed a bunch of random characters and it looks like alien code or something. Possibly litecoin core wallet? dont know... will look into it further on litecoin forums. but can't say that I remember downloading the entire network in the past... but maybe i did .. who knows.

I just know one thing and that is its a real issue that i cant open this file, when i never encrypted this wallet and saved it on to a local external drive. Electrum should have warned us a little more visibly on their website that this could've been an issue in the future.

a big part of it is my fault for not saving the private keys, which was a class-a stupid thing to do, but i did test it after saving and opened it right up, so i figured, it would be fine in the future. I wouldn't have ever imagined this being an issue.

oh well... live and learn

It is not an electrum wallet so stop dissing electrum. Electrum wallets were human readable json like code. It didn't offer full wallet encryption back in 2013 so that does not apply to your situation.

[hexafraction]

It is not an electrum wallet so stop dissing electrum. Electrum wallets were human readable json like code. It didn't offer full wallet encryption back in 2013 so that does not apply to your situation.

OP should install Litecoin Core and report back.

[coffeelunatic]

Damn you're good.

It was indeed a litcoin-qt wallet that I used.

And the reason why opening the file in the wallet didn't work the first time was because I hadn't downloaded the blockchain, after seeing someone say I didn't need to. They were probably referring to an electrum wallet. It also helped that I had not encrypted the file.

So the issue was that i originally didn't use an electrum wallet at all and ended up confusing myself by renaming the original file litecoins.dat

Steps taken:

1. downloaded the litecoin-qt wallet

2. downloaded the blockchain which took about 8 hours

3. went to /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Litecoin/

4. replaced the wallet.dat file they had with my own wallet.dat

5. closed out litecoin-qt

6. reopened it with all of them there still

Thanks so much for all your help. Hopefully sheds some light for somebody in the future.