Hi, got a new computer (Windows 10) and tried to import private keys into MultiBit 0.5.18
It worked fine, then I sent all my funds to a new wallet with new addresses since I lost Byteball wallet.
That worked fine and I backed up my private keys.
Now whenever I start MultiBit the wallet does not load. If I try to load a wallet file I get "null."
I have to import private keys every single time.
What the hell is wrong with this software? I tried deleting everything and installing MultiBit 0.5.19. Same thing. Import private keys, everything looks great. Close the program, next time I start it there is no wallet and can't load my wallet.
What's wrong with MultiBit? It's very old and outdated and is no longer maintained. In addition the fee system is problematic as it does not allow for fees higher than 0.0005 BTC/kB (around 50 sats/byte) which can prove very problematic when fees are 300+ sats/byte
Even MultiBit HD seems to be no longer maintained. It has some serious problems with the "password did not unlock the wallet" issue which has been waiting for a fix since April!!?! And I suspect this issue can also affect MultiBit classic, and that might be the reason you get the "null" error, but you'd have to post the error logs to be certain. If you do want to post logs, please use pastebin.com
Is there any decent software left that let's you make .key backups and not the stupid seed phrase?
I'm still not sure why you are so adverse to the whole "Seed" concept? It is a far more reliable backup method being able to recreate your entire HD wallet from a seed phrase than trying to manage backups of digital files and/or "random" private keys and remembering to do so whenever you generate a new address. If you receive coins to a new address, forget to backup your keys/wallet... and your system dies... those coins are gone. With and HD Wallet (ie. using the seed)... all you need is the seed and all your addresses can be recovered at any time.
Thank you very much. The problem is my keys are encrypted and apparently Electrum can't handle that.
I could always create an unencrypted backup with MultiBit but that scares me.
Well obviously you have to import unencrypted keys. There is no "standard" that is used for encrypting keys, so there is no way for any given wallet to know how a key has been encrypted by some other program and how it should go about unencrypting it.
If you're worried about creating unencrypted key files... then do it in an "offline" environment like a virtual machine using Virtual Box... or turn off all the networking features of your PC while you generate the keys and import them into Electrum... ensuring your set a wallet password and make sure the "Encrypt File" box is checked.
