Import bitcoin-qt wallet?

[2048-bit]

I am switching from bitcoin-qt to Electrum. How do I import my existing wallet?

[1715400470]

1715400470

[1715400470]

1715400470

[btcven]

You better send all the funds of your -qt wallet to one of the addresses on your Electrum. This way you'll have all your coins secured with your seed.

[2048-bit]

So there's no way to 'empty out' my old wallet, bypassing a fee?

[Tachikoma]

You could import the private keys from the qt client but the problem is that you will have to keep a backup of these keys seperately. They won't become part of your Electrum seed.

[2048-bit]

It's probably best then to send the bitcoins to my Electrum wallet, then.

[2048-bit]

Where do I find my private keys at in bitcoin-qt? (in GNU/Linux)

[Tachikoma]

I know of one method:

Help->Debug Window->Console

dumpprivkey YOURADDRESSHERE

[Raoul Duke]

Where do I find my private keys at in bitcoin-qt? (in GNU/Linux)

In Bitcoin-qt you would only dump 1 key at a time. Use pywallet instead

Install pywallet dependencies(see: https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet)
Then:

Code:

mkdir pywallet
cd pywallet
wget --output-document=pywallet.py https://raw.github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet/master/pywallet.py
python pywallet.py --web

Next:
Open your browser and navigate to localhost:8989
Search the dump keys part and write only "sec" on the export format. Choose a dir/file where to save the dumped private keys. You can then batch import them into Electrum.

[simpic]

Hello,
I installed for the first time Electrum on my computer (Xubuntu) and i have imported 2 address belonging to Qt client that i stopped to use.
The import process went fine and the amount of my wallet is right.
But it imported only 8 transactions instead of 13 and some of them are wrong too (different date or different amount).

Please have a look a this image:



The red underlined transactions are the missing ones in Electrum (i have them on Qt but i don't have them on Electrum).
The circled amounts are wrong (see the original ones in Qt).

Why this happened? Could it be a bug?

Thank you.

[Raoul Duke]

Hello,
I installed for the first time Electrum on my computer (Xubuntu) and i have imported 2 address belonging to Qt client that i stopped to use.
The import process went fine and the amount of my wallet is right.
But it imported only 8 transactions instead of 13 and some of them are wrong too (different date or different amount).

Please have a look a this image:

http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/6020/9i3s.png

The red underlined transactions are the missing ones in Electrum (i have them on Qt but i don't have them on Electrum).
The circled amounts are wrong (see the original ones in Qt).

Why this happened? Could it be a bug?

Thank you.

Most probably it's because you didn't import the "change" addresses, hence the wrong values and missing transactions.

[simpic]

Most probably it's because you didn't import the "change" addresses, hence the wrong values and missing transactions.

What are change addresses? How to import them? Can i still fix this?

[Raoul Duke]

Most probably it's because you didn't import the "change" addresses, hence the wrong values and missing transactions.

What are change addresses? How to import them? Can i still fix this?

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Change

If you still have the original wallet.dat you'll need to dump all private keys and import them all. Unless you want to check all your transactions to see which addresses are missing.

[simpic]

Thank you for your reply, i understand more on Bitcoin transactions.
About my situation, i had 2 addresses (i verified it with "listreceivedbyaddress" command) in Qt client and i dumped both private keys and then imported them in Electrum.
So what's wrong? How to import change addresses?

[Raoul Duke]

How to import change addresses?

See here how to dump all private keys: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260621.msg2894530#msg2894530
Next you'll import them all into Electrum.
I can't say for sure it will solve the problem, but there is no harm in trying. The change addresses seem to be empty, anyway, given that you say your balance is correct. It's just a cosmetic problem.

[simpic]

How to import change addresses?

See here how to dump all private keys: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260621.msg2894530#msg2894530
Next you'll import them all into Electrum.
I can't say for sure it will solve the problem, but there is no harm in trying. The change addresses seem to be empty, anyway, given that you say your balance is correct. It's just a cosmetic problem.

I can't dump keys. I installed pywallet but when I click on "Dump Keys" i get "File not written" error.
Maybe it happens because .bitcoin directory is a symlink. So i tried to enter the right path, but the same error occurs.
Any other way to do the same?

[SnowDog2003]

I can't dump keys. I installed pywallet but when I click on "Dump Keys" i get "File not written" error.
Maybe it happens because .bitcoin directory is a symlink. So i tried to enter the right path, but the same error occurs.
Any other way to do the same?

Change Addresses are a pain. One of the things that I like about Electrum, is that you don't have to use them. Most wallets, however, create NEW addresses EVERY TIME you make a spend, and some of your bitcoins go into hidden 'change' addresses.

The best way to move money into a new wallet is to send the funds. Don't try to import the keys unless you know what you're doing.

If you want to check the actual balances on your individual addresses to determine the actual balance of the imported keys, then go to this webpage and enter your public keys of the addresses that you want to check.

www.btcbalance.net

[simpic]

I'm asking help here too.
There i have an expert on pywallet but he doesn't know Electrum; here i have expert in Electrum but not on pywallet use

I'm trying to figure out how to make this full import!

[SnowDog2003]

I'm asking help here too.
There i have an expert on pywallet but he doesn't know Electrum; here i have expert in Electrum but not on pywallet use

I'm trying to figure out how to make this full import!

I don't know pywallet, but here's another way to do it.

1) In bitcoin-qt, go to Help/Debug Window.

2) Choose the Console Tab.

3) In the text box, enter 'listaddressgroupings'.

This will bring up a list of 100 addresses. Your money could be in several addresses, but probably only in two or three. Look through the list. wherever you see some bitcoins, dump the private key of that address using, 'dumpprivkey <bitcoinaddress>'.

4) Import all of these private keys into Electrum, resync with an Electrum server, and your balances should match.

[simpic]

I do as you have said and there is still one gap.
A payment of 50 BTC that i sent is missing and now the balance is wrong!
In fact the balance now has 50 more BTC.

Why?

[SnowDog2003]

A wallet is composed of multiple individual addresses. The addresses are the items that actually hold the bitcoins. It's difficult to figure out if a total balance is correct when looking at the whole wallet. We need to check the balance in each address.

In electrum, bring up the Classic GUI, (if you're using the Lite GUI), by going to the View Menu and selecting Classic GUI.

Then go to the 'Receive' tab. On the 'Receive' tab, you should see a balance associated with each individual address. This should be the actual balance in each of those addresses. You can double check them by going to 'www.btcbalance.net', and entering the addresses into that web page, which will also show you the balances in each address. If the two balances match, the one in electrum, and the one in www.btcbalance.net, then you can be confident that the balance in that address is correct. If you find an address in Electrum which has a different amount of bitcoins in it than in www.btcbalance.net, then it's probably Electrum's fault.

Let us know.

[SnowDog2003]

Here's another thing you can try. If I were to guess, I would think that the server you're connecting to is probably not giving you the correct information.

Go to Classic GUI by selecting it from the 'View' menu, if you're using the Lite GUI.

Then in the lower right corner of the screen in the Classic GUI, you should see a green dot. Press the green dot. This will bring up a list of servers to connect to. Try connecting to different servers and see if they show you the same total balance.

[SnowDog2003]

A wallet is composed of multiple individual addresses. The addresses are the items that actually hold the bitcoins. It's difficult to figure out if a total balance is correct when looking at the whole wallet. We need to check the balance in each address.

In electrum, bring up the Classic GUI, (if you're using the Lite GUI), by going to the View Menu and selecting Classic GUI.

Then go to the 'Receive' tab. On the 'Receive' tab, you should see a balance associated with each individual address. This should be the actual balance in each of those addresses. You can double check them by going to 'www.btcbalance.net', and entering the addresses into that web page, which will also show you the balances in each address. If the two balances match, the one in electrum, and the one in www.btcbalance.net, then you can be confident that the balance in that address is correct. If you find an address in Electrum which has a different amount of bitcoins in it than in www.btcbalance.net, then it's probably Electrum's fault.

Let us know.

Actually, if you want to see individual address balances, then you not only have to use the Classic GUI, but you also have to put the program into 'Expert Mode' by Selecting 'Preferences' from the File Menu. Then checking the 'Expert Mode' checkbox on the Display Tab. Then you can close the Preferences box and select the Receive Tab, where you will see the individual balances on each address.

[simpic]

There isn't any associated balance to the address that i have in Receive tab. How to see it?

Anyway now it is just missing a transaction, the one underlined in red in my previous post.
Your procedure should be the best way to collect all addresses (including change ones) from the Bitcoin-Qt client.
...but it seems to skip something because it doesn't take over that transaction

PS: Have i to register one of the addresses on btcbalance?


EDIT: i solve the problem with pywallet. I follow the procedure you linked me last time:

In Bitcoin-qt you would only dump 1 key at a time. Use pywallet instead

Install pywallet dependencies(see: https://github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet)
Then:

Code:

mkdir pywallet
cd pywallet
wget --output-document=pywallet.py https://raw.github.com/jackjack-jj/pywallet/master/pywallet.py
python pywallet.py --web

Next:
Open your browser and navigate to localhost:8989
Search the dump keys part and write only "sec" on the export format. Choose a dir/file where to save the dumped private keys. You can then batch import them into Electrum.

And i obtained a file containing 110 private keys. I imported them to Electrum (about 10 private keys can't be imported, i don't know why), but the balance is still wrong and that transaction is still missing.
Why? Arghhhhhh


EDIT2: if i try to send a payment i get this message: "wallet not synchronized".

[SnowDog2003]

Which server are you connecting to? And have you tried connecting with other servers?

To connect with a server, switch to the Classic GUI and click on the Green Dot at the lower right corner of the window.

[simpic]

Which server are you connecting to? And have you tried connecting with other servers?

To connect with a server, switch to the Classic GUI and click on the Green Dot at the lower right corner of the window.

It was on random. Yes, i tried to connect to other servers, but nothing changed.

[SnowDog2003]

I don't know what could be wrong at this point.

However, if you use the Classic GUI and set the mode to 'Expert Mode' in the Preferences, then you can see the actual balance in each bitcoin address in your system by then selecting the 'Receive' tab on the main screen. You can compare these balances by using either btcbalance.net, or by checking each address using blockchain.info by adding the address to the end of this URL, like this:

http://blockchain.info/address/1GcKb752rgkeYC2w72dgpoCUQBpEmHAkYZ

Otherwise, there's no way to figure out the problem just by looking at wallet ledger entries.

[simpic]

I think the problem is the missing transaction.

If i import just the 2 receive address that i see in Bitcoin-Qt client, i get this (on the right is Electrum): http://img30.imageshack.us/img30/2313/k0z7.png
If i import the dump of all private keys (including change addresses' ones) i get this: http://img577.imageshack.us/img577/4480/fej1.png

So i think the problem is the red underlined transaction (in the second snapshot) that is missing:
http://blockchain.info/it/tx/72fcd689b3be3bcad086ebea3f9f43c2240fcb7e682905fde6122cec704a8873

What's wrong with it?

[SnowDog2003]

I came across a problem yesterday, with imported addresses, and I think it's the same problem you're seeing. I brought it to the attention of the devs and they produced a development version of the software which I think will fix this problem. However, it hasn't been released yet, but will be in version 1.9.

My problem was with an imported address which was used in a transaction. The transaction did not get recorded. To fix it, I had to erase my wallet, and then recreate it. Of course, this removed the imported addresses from the wallet, but when I reloaded them, they were correct.

Maybe you can try this, if you're interested, or wait until version 1.9 is released.

[simpic]

Thank you for your reply. Can make me get in touch with any dev? I want to show them my situation.
Thank you.

[jackjack]

So it would be a bug in Electrum?

[SnowDog2003]

So it would be a bug in Electrum?

With me, a transaction was somehow missed in the history, when I sent a payment from an imported address. It may be the same problem. If so, then yes, it would be a bug in Electrum. However, I don't exactly know what the poster's problem is, so I can't say for sure.

[simpic]

How to speak to a developer? How to submit a bug report?

[SnowDog2003]

How to speak to a developer? How to submit a bug report?

See:

http://electrum.org/community.html

[simpic]

How to speak to a developer? How to submit a bug report?

See:

http://electrum.org/community.html

Ehm... i have already seen this link, it says to ask here on this forum!
The other ways are IRC channel (i tried last week but nobody replied me) and GitHub site.
Now i open an issue on this, i hope they reply me.

Thank you for your help, i really appreciate it