Bitcoin has vanished from wallet!!

[crojet]

Hey

Hopefully someone will have an answer for this as I'm at a complete loss. I bought 0.14BTC about 3 years ago and used the Bitcore client to store it on my mac. I recently switched to PC and copied over my wallet.dat file onto my new system and once all the blocks had loaded it found my BTC fine. All was fine until the other day when i opened up Bitcoin Core to discover the client now says 0 with no transaction. Bitcon Core has been acting up lately, and sometimes hangs,  has anyone come across this problem before? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Chris

Bitcoin Client Software and Version Number: Bitcoin Core v0.14.0 (64bit)

Operating System: Windows 10

System Hardware Specs: Intel i7, 8GB RAM

Description of Problem: Please see above

Any Related Addresses: NA

Any Related Transaction IDs: NA

Screenshot of the problem: NA

Log Files from the Bitcoin Client: NA

[vh]

Check the address on blockchain.info to make sure a virus didn't take your money.   If it is still there, start up bitcoin core with the rescan option to sync the wallet with the blockchain.

[unholycactus]

If there are no transactions, you probably still control the coins if you have a proper backup of your wallet.dat file.
Make sure Bitcoin Core is using the right file, make sure Core is fully and properly synced.

[HCP]

Chances are that one of your block files is corrupted. Can you post your debug.log? (Preferably paste it to pastebin.com and provide a link)...

Alternatively, try shutting down Bitcoin Core and then running it with the -rescan option to force it to resync... note: this make take a while depending on your internet connection and/or PC hardware

[crojet]

Thanks for all your replies, I'm going to try a re-scan, fingers crossed it works.

Cheers

Chris

[crojet]

Chances are that one of your block files is corrupted. Can you post your debug.log? (Preferably paste it to pastebin.com and provide a link)...

Alternatively, try shutting down Bitcoin Core and then running it with the -rescan option to force it to resync... note: this make take a while depending on your internet connection and/or PC hardware

Hi HCP

So I tried the rescan and I re downloaded the whole blockchain again, but my bitcoin is still missing. I tried to paste my debug file to paste bin but it's too large. Is there anything I should be looking out for in the debug file? I just don't understand how it can just vanish one day, if i have got a virus and someones stole it, there's no evidence of that. I bit worrying tbh, was only 0.14BTC so not a huge amount of money but considering i bought in 3 years ago, its more than doubled in value

Again any help would be amazing

Thanks

Chris

[crojet]

UPDATE

So i found an email and it looks like it used Bittylicious to purchase the btc, when i logged into Bittylicious I can see my payment history and the btc adrdress which still has the btc associated with it. Is there a way to resend this to a new wallet?

Thanks

Chris

[HCP]

Only if you still have the private key for the address that the 0.14 BTC is currently attached to.

In Bitcoin Core, if you goto "File -> Receiving Addresses"... do you see the btc address with the coins? Alternatively, if you use the "dumpprivkey" command from the debug console ("Help -> Debug Window -> Console")... does it output the private key for that address?

If it doesn't, then there is a chance that you no longer have that private key in your current wallet.dat file. Do you still have a copy of the original wallet.dat file backed up?

[crojet]

Only if you still have the private key for the address that the 0.14 BTC is currently attached to.

In Bitcoin Core, if you goto "File -> Receiving Addresses"... do you see the btc address with the coins? Alternatively, if you use the "dumpprivkey" command from the debug console ("Help -> Debug Window -> Console")... does it output the private key for that address?

If it doesn't, then there is a chance that you no longer have that private key in your current wallet.dat file. Do you still have a copy of the original wallet.dat file backed up?

I tried the dumpprivkey command but again no luck. Yes, I had a backup but again its not showing up, from what i read this shouldn't be able to happen, so its very concerning that it has. Bitcoin Core started playing up just before it happened, which has probably caused it, but still dont understand how it could wipe the privatekey. Anyway, thanks for your help with this, if you have any other suggestions i'd love to hear them, but I'm very aware that its probably gone forever now.

Thanks again

Chris

[HCP]

If you still have the original version of the wallet.dat file that you copied over from your Mac, (ie. it hasn't been opened in Bitcoin Core) then there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to recover the coins.

The only way you are likely to have lost the coins was if your wallet was an old style non-HD wallet (ie. created before Bitcoin Coin v0.13)... and you created a transaction that resulted in change being placed into a new generated change address that was beyond the limits of the original 100 pool addresses... and then you lost that updated wallet.dat.

So when you check the address on blockchain.info it is still showing your 0.14 btc balance correct? All you should really need to do is let Bitcoin Core fully sync up and then shut it down. Make a backup of whatever wallet.dat you currently have in the Core data directory (on windows this defaults to %appdata%\Bitcoin unless you set a custom directory during install/setup). After you have backed up the exisiting wallet.dat, make a copy of the wallet.dat from your mac and place this copy into the Core data directory and then restart Bitcoin Core.

It should start up and you should then be able to see the transactions/addresses and coins from that wallet.dat. If you get nothing, then you'd definitely need to post up the debug.log contents... it really shouldn't be so big that it can't fit on pastebin... if it is, just copy the entries from the bottom of the file dated when you try and use the imported wallet.