Can't recreate my wallet with the seed phrase

[fairlynewtothis]

I created my wallet in Sept 2016.  I haven't used it in a while, and went to send coin, but dont' remembehr the pin code to sell.

I have the seed phrase, and when i try to recreate the wallet on either a new machine or android phone, the "nexT" button doesn't light up after typing in the full 12 words.  I read that the seed format/standard/etc changed and now i have to somehow specify what version the seed was created with, but i coudln't find anything explaining how to do that within the app.

Help!

[jackg]

I created my wallet in Sept 2016.  I haven't used it in a while, and went to send coin, but dont' remembehr the pin code to sell.

I have the seed phrase, and when i try to recreate the wallet on either a new machine or android phone, the "nexT" button doesn't light up after typing in the full 12 words.  I read that the seed format/standard/etc changed and now i have to somehow specify what version the seed was created with, but i coudln't find anything explaining how to do that within the app.

Help!

The seed has always been the same format. It still functions from the bip39 equivilant seed it used to with the same derivation path. I think the public key format changed from a MPK to XPUB but I'm not sure that affected anythin.

Are there any spelling errors you can see in the seed? I found that I spelled one of my words wrong which though out everything.
If it is the format issue, you can go to electrum.org/#download and look under the link of "previous versions" and download an older version of it (in fact, there may have been a change since the release of the betch32+segwit compatable electrum wallet, so try an older version of say 2.9.3 just to test it isn't that before going for a really old one).

[pooya87]

The seed has always been the same format. It still functions from the bip39 equivilant seed it used to with the same derivation path.

well, seed has changed quite a bit actually. BIP39 was not available when Electrum came out (2 years) so there was a specific way of getting the seed.
all the versions before 2.0 have been using this method and they all have 12 words instead of the new 13.

If it is the format issue, you can go to electrum.org/#download and look under the link of "previous versions" and download an older version of it (in fact, there may have been a change since the release of the betch32+segwit compatable electrum wallet, so try an older version of say 2.9.3 just to test it isn't that before going for a really old one).

there is no need. wallets are backward compatible meaning he can use his old seed in the new versions and the wallet will still recognize and generate all his keys.

the issue as you said is most probably with spelling.
here is the wordlist:
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/lib/wordlist/english.txt
check to see which word you are getting wrong.

[fairlynewtothis]

Thank you!  I used the list of words and got tot he bottom of it.  I couldn't read my writing, and i had one word wrong (spelled correctly, but it isn't on the list of words).  

Now, to get the BTC to show up in the recreated one instead of the original default, LOL

[Westeros]

Just restored my wallet from the seed phrase, because my OS crashed. It took a while to sync, which panicked me a little because it first showed 0 btc.

Just thought it might help someone to wait a little for synchronizing after restoring..

[Abdussamad]

What version of electrum did you use to create this wallet? Because from version 2.0 to 2.6.4 electrum generated 13 word seeds. So if you used one of those versions then you are missing a word in your seed. Version 2.7.0, which is the first version after 2.6.4, was released in Oct 2016 and standardized seeds to 12 words: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES .

Pre 2.0 versions also used 12 word seeds. If you used a pre 2.0 version of electrum then the wordlist that applies to you is here: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/lib/old_mnemonic.py and is different from the one linked to before by pooya87 which only applies to post 2.0 versions of electrum.

[beentherebefore]

This is my first post - please excuse me if it's in the wrong thread. My computer crashed and I had to restore my  electrum wallet (I had installed v 2.9.0).  I downloaded the latest version, chose "restore", entered my seed words, entered my password, and it shows the wallet empty (there had been a bit of btc in it). Should I have entered a new password? Now every time that I try to restore the wallet, I don't get the option to restore - it just opens up the (now empty) wallet. Thanks for your help.

[pooya87]

This is my first post - please excuse me if it's in the wrong thread. My computer crashed and I had to restore my  electrum wallet (I had installed v 2.9.0).  I downloaded the latest version, chose "restore", entered my seed words, entered my password, and it shows the wallet empty (there had been a bit of btc in it). Should I have entered a new password? Now every time that I try to restore the wallet, I don't get the option to restore - it just opens up the (now empty) wallet. Thanks for your help.

no you don't have to enter password to see your balance.
but make sure you are connected to the internet, your Electrum is not being blocked by your firewall, and make sure you are fully synced with the network.
in order to check the last one click on the circle at the bottom right corner of your wallet window to open the Network and see if it shows this number (currently 496633). there is a known issue that the first time you sync, Electrum does not show any balances until you sync (download about 40 MB data = blockchain headers and your transaction details)