Old Wallet.dat into new Bitcoin Core Wallet - Locked and zero balance/history

[btctbots.com]

I put some BTC on an old bitcoin core wallet which was on an external USB drive back in 2015. I then encrypted and locked it with a password. I now want to retrieve the coins but when I attached the drive to my current laptop, I am seeing zero balance and no transaction history. I spent about a week downloading the entire blockchain again, now up to date but it is still showing zero.

However, the password I noted is not working and the wallet is locked. Should the bitcoin core wallet show the balance when the wallet is locked, or do I need to put in the password first? I thought the password was only required to send. I really want to see the balance, so that if there is something there (I really thought there was, and if it's empty why would I have locked it in the first place).

I can't export the private key without the passphrase. I also tried the dumpwallet keys.txt command in the console but unfortunately I get met with:

Error: Please enter the wallet passphrase with walletpassphrase first. (code -13)

I'm assuming that as the wallet.dat has been moved to a new client, it wont show me anything at all until I unlock the wallet.

Before I start launching into btcrecovery to try and crack my own password, is there any way I can see my balance or any public keys from the wallet.dat ? I would rather not go through it all and then find the balance really is zero.

thanks for any help

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[racquemis]

If you want to see your balance and know your (old) bitcoin address you could just use blockchain.info:

https://blockchain.info/address/YOURBITCOINADDRESSHERE

Hope this helps.

[btctbots.com]

Unfortunately I don't know any of the public addresses and cannot get to them without the password

[HCP]

You shouldn't need the passphrase to just open and view the wallet. The passphrase is only required for actions that deal with private keys (signing messages/transactions or exporting etc).

Have you tried rescanning? Shut Bitcoin coin down... Then make sure your "old" wallet.dat is the one in the Bitcoin data directory... Then start Bitcoin Core with the -rescan option.

This will force it to rescan the blockchain looking for transactions that involve the addresses in your wallet.

[btctbots.com]

I got in, all sorted! It was human error, mistake on my part - thanks for all replies.