Bitcoin-QT encrypted wallet hacked and all bitcoins stolen

[quarbit]

I was robbed last weekend of about 4.7 BTC's.  My bitcoin client was corrupted when I opened it after a weekend away and would not sync.  After repeated efforts to re install it it still would not sync.  Finally I was able to install a new version on a different user on my computer and download the entire blockchain again and then open my backup.dat only to find a 0.00 balance.  I'm done with bitcoin. 

[CIYAM]

When you say "open my backup.dat" what exactly did you do?

[trigeek]

I was robbed last weekend of about 4.7 BTC's.  My bitcoin client was corrupted when I opened it after a weekend away and would not sync.  After repeated efforts to re install it it still would not sync.  Finally I was able to install a new version on a different user on my computer and download the entire blockchain again and then open my backup.dat only to find a 0.00 balance.  I'm done with bitcoin. 

A wallet can have multiple addresses in it, and all of the coins aren't necessarily stored in your main bitcoin address.  When you send coins, it will sometimes send the remainder back to you at a new hidden address that is stored in your wallet but not shown in the client.  If you still have a backup of your old wallet.dat, there are ways to recover it.  If you want some help, I can show you what you need to do to check it out.

[quarbit]

I was robbed last weekend of about 4.7 BTC's.  My bitcoin client was corrupted when I opened it after a weekend away and would not sync.  After repeated efforts to re install it it still would not sync.  Finally I was able to install a new version on a different user on my computer and download the entire blockchain again and then open my backup.dat only to find a 0.00 balance.  I'm done with bitcoin. 

A wallet can have multiple addresses in it, and all of the coins aren't necessarily stored in your main bitcoin address.  When you send coins, it will sometimes send the remainder back to you at a new hidden address that is stored in your wallet but not shown in the client.  If you still have a backup of your old wallet.dat, there are ways to recover it.  If you want some help, I can show you what you need to do to check it out.

Now I am realizing that they may not have been stolen afterall.  I have been searching the blockchain trying to track down all of the transactions that went through.  For some reason blockchain.info won't let me enter an address anymore and search the transactions.  That's a side issue though.  When I say that I opened the wallet.dat file in the new client I mean that I clicked on it and opened it in the new with Bitcoin qt client.  Is there something else I am supposed to do?  Help would be appreciated. 

[quarbit]

When you say "open my backup.dat" what exactly did you do?

I am getting this message on my original qt client  "Warning: Displayed transactions may not be correct!  You may need to upgrade, or other nodes may need to upgrade."  I don't know what that means and the original client is frozen.  It will not sync.  So what I did was I switched users on my computer to administrator and installed a new client and downloaded the entire blockchain again.  Then I opened my wallet.dat file using the new qt client and it says 0.00 balance.  Maybe it can not find those coins on the backup?  I don't know.  Help would be appreciated. 

[CIYAM]

Sorry but "opened my wallet.dat file using the new qt client" isn't making much sense - you don't *open* a wallet instead the software creates a new one if one does not exist (for the user).

I am guessing you just need to replace your new wallet.dat (the one that has zero balance) with the old one and then do a "rescan".

Also be sure you keep backups of all files that you are playing with.

[quarbit]

How do you rescan?  When I say I opened it I clicked on wallet.dat and chose qt as default program to open. 

[quarbit]

Now my qt is not connecting to the internet.  What is going on?  I have an internet connection why would qt not connect?

[CIYAM]

How do you rescan?  When I say I opened it I clicked on wallet.dat and chose qt as default program to open. 

It doesn't work like that - you can't treat a wallet as a "document".

Don't worry about the internet connection - now if you have been able to "find" your new wallet then can you also "find" your old one?

If so then please:

1) make backup copies of both wallet files and give them appropriate names (e.g. wallet.dat.new and wallet.dat.old)
2) *replace* you new wallet with your old one

Now start Bitcoin (and don't do that by double clicking on a wallet as that makes no sense).

[pjheinz]

if u send coins and it nvr goes thru like is seen by 1 peer only after many days.. how do u try again?..if that makes sence

[FenixRD]

Now my qt is not connecting to the internet.  What is going on?  I have an internet connection why would qt not connect?

Holy jesus, man. Let's see if we can get your coins back, maybe, but it is apparent from this and your previous statements in this thread that unfortunately, you are not computer-literate enough for bitcoin. I do not mean this rudely; my fiancee is the same way. She's very smart otherwise, but any time she touches a piece of electronics, you'd swear she was retarded.

So, if we get them back, yeah, I in fact recommend that you never touch bitcoin again. Or, that you ONLY use something really user-friendly like blockchain.info... and that may be stretching it. The use of bitcoin makes some presumptions of a certain level of literacy. This is an acknowledged weakness of the current system becoming widespread. It will be overcome eventually, but it will come at the price of security: If you don't fully comprehend the system, at some level, you are dependent on trusting something that makes it easy for you to use. Blockchain.info is an example of this. It does the heavy lifting and is fairly dummy-proof.

Back to your issue then: Lets assume that there is no way that your "encrypted wallet" was hacked (assuming also that it was indeed encrypted; and further assuming that you aren't so unlucky as to have been taken by a keylogger or something for 4.7 BTC). Therefore your coins exist and you don't know the first thing about getting them back. FYI, no, you cannot simply choose QT as the program for opening the wallet.dat file. It doesn't work anything remotely like that.

Questions:

(1) Are you 100% sure that you have the backup wallet.dat?
(2) How many transactions have you done with bitcoin? I'm guessing not many. If it's only a few, then we can ignore the possibility of needing to scan more than the up-to-100 default addresses.

Actions:

(1) Restart your computer. You are almost certainly on windows.
(2) Start the bitcoin client (if that doesn't happen automatically for you).
(3) Inform us of the progress of the client syncing with the network.

We'll go from there...

[quarbit]

Now my qt is not connecting to the internet.  What is going on?  I have an internet connection why would qt not connect?

Holy jesus, man. Let's see if we can get your coins back, maybe, but it is apparent from this and your previous statements in this thread that unfortunately, you are not computer-literate enough for bitcoin. I do not mean this rudely; my fiancee is the same way. She's very smart otherwise, but any time she touches a piece of electronics, you'd swear she was retarded.

So, if we get them back, yeah, I in fact recommend that you never touch bitcoin again. Or, that you ONLY use something really user-friendly like blockchain.info... and that may be stretching it. The use of bitcoin makes some presumptions of a certain level of literacy. This is an acknowledged weakness of the current system becoming widespread. It will be overcome eventually, but it will come at the price of security: If you don't fully comprehend the system, at some level, you are dependent on trusting something that makes it easy for you to use. Blockchain.info is an example of this. It does the heavy lifting and is fairly dummy-proof.

Back to your issue then: Lets assume that there is no way that your "encrypted wallet" was hacked (assuming also that it was indeed encrypted; and further assuming that you aren't so unlucky as to have been taken by a keylogger or something for 4.7 BTC). Therefore your coins exist and you don't know the first thing about getting them back. FYI, no, you cannot simply choose QT as the program for opening the wallet.dat file. It doesn't work anything remotely like that.

Questions:

(1) Are you 100% sure that you have the backup wallet.dat?
(2) How many transactions have you done with bitcoin? I'm guessing not many. If it's only a few, then we can ignore the possibility of needing to scan more than the up-to-100 default addresses.

Actions:

(1) Restart your computer. You are almost certainly on windows.
(2) Start the bitcoin client (if that doesn't happen automatically for you).
(3) Inform us of the progress of the client syncing with the network.

We'll go from there...

Now it is not syncing

[FenixRD]

Now it is not syncing

Devs, QT has become sentient and is refusing to follow commands!

...Okay, let's be serious. "Not syncing" is not very descriptive. I don't know what you expect anyone to do for you with this level of detail. You think there is exactly one cause of "not syncing" and someone is going to go, "Not syncing you say?? Jiggle the yellow cable that connects the flux capacitor to the merkle tree!"

On startup, QT will do the following if behaving normally:
(1) Splash screen with a wallet-looking thing and the Bitcoin "B-dollar" stamped. It will say technical things like verifying the database and stuff that you don't understand.
(2) Client actually pops up after a few seconds (more if your computer is a POS), defaulting to the "Overview" screen.
(3) At the top it will say Wallet (out of sync).
(4) Directing your attention to the bottom right you will see some icons. Inspecting those icons further, hover the mouse pointer over them and read the text (this is called a "tooltip" in windowsland). There are bars, like on a cellphone (else there are two black boxes for zero) representing active connections to the network. The right will be either a green checkmark or something else (I don't remember because mine is in sync). Hovering over it will tell you sync details. Mine currently at sync has "processed 235589 blocks of transaction history".

Feel free to fill us in on what YOU see in YOUR client.

Also feel free to answer the questions I previously asked; tell us whether you did the actions I recommended, and then describe the above #4 for your client. You are testing the limits of my patience and ability to help you.

[cp1]

Can you just decrypt the wallet and import it into electrum or multibit?