Trouble importing private keys to Electrum 2.8.3:

[Vic UC]

When I select

wallet>private keys>sweep

Window opens & I paste private key from paper wallet - but the "sweep" button does not highlight, stays inactive. Assumed private key was incorrect, but I tried four different ones, several times, and still nothing. Has this function been removed from this version?

If so, how to?

[achow101]

Are you sure you have entered the private key correctly? Make sure that you are not missing any characters and you don't have any extra characters (e.g. non-breaking spaces) in the private key that you entered. You can also try a different wallet and see if that wallet recognizes the private key.

[HI-TEC99]

Is your paper wallet encrypted (does it have a password)? If it has a password it's encrypted and needs decrypting before electrum will let you import/sweep it.

The software a paper wallet is created with is usually able to decrypt it.

[kolloh]

When I select

wallet>private keys>sweep

Window opens & I paste private key from paper wallet - but the "sweep" button does not highlight, stays inactive. Assumed private key was incorrect, but I tried four different ones, several times, and still nothing. Has this function been removed from this version?

If so, how to?

Where are you trying to sweep a key from? If its from blockchain.info, you should take a look at the following post:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1970345.msg19609200#msg19609200

You may need to convert your private key before importing it in the manner described in that post.

[Abdussamad]

The private key needs to be in wallet import format:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Private_key#Base58_Wallet_Import_format

[Vic UC]

You are so right, thank you for the link. The Private Key needed to be uncompressed, and in fact Electrum recognized it; however the problem is the HD wallet does not support Sweeping so I'll have to create a non-HD Standard wallet to complete the procedure.

Thanks for the tip! Keep up the good path!

[kolloh]

You are so right, thank you for the link. The Private Key needed to be uncompressed, and in fact Electrum recognized it; however the problem is the HD wallet does not support Sweeping so I'll have to create a non-HD Standard wallet to complete the procedure.

Thanks for the tip! Keep up the good path!

HD wallets should be able to sweep as that should just be moving the coins to your current wallet. You can't directly import the address unless you have a non-HD wallet, but you should be able to sweep regardless.