Labels of receiving addresses lost

[mjb]

I used dumpprivkey in the satoshi client to export a private key and saved it into a text file with a .key extension.

Import into MultiBit 0.5.11 worked fine. There was a message stating re-scan from origin block or similar. However, all labels of receiving addresses were lost in the process!

Is there a more straightforward way to transfer keys that does not cause loss of labels? Can I restore them somehow?

[jim618]

There isn't a way at the moment no.

At the Bitcoin conference Pieter Wuille and I discussed an enhanced format for the private key export files that also includes the labels so that would enable the labels to be recovered.

The labels are actually stored in the "wallet name".info files in plain text.
If you add a single label and then close MultiBit down you'll be able to see the format.
If you have a few that might be quicker than doing it on the user interface.

[mjb]

Sorry, I have to clarify:
All labels of the existing MultiBit addresses were lost in the process of importing a single private key. I think this is a bug...

The text file contained only the private key (from dumpprivkey) and had a .key extension.

[jim618]

Yeah, that sounds like a bug.
If ou could mail me your log files to jim@multibit.org I will have a look.

[mjb]

Yeah, that sounds like a bug.
If ou could mail me your log files to jim@multibit.org I will have a look.

Sorry, I restored a backup of the MultiBit directory. Will remember next time to keep the log files!
BTW, only the time is logged but not the date.

[jim618]

Ok no problem.

Re: only time being logged - when multibit starts up it logs the current local time + date so you can work it out (plus the time zone the user is in )
The logs roll over every 24 hours so you get a separate log for each day.