Pywallet 2.2: manage your wallet [Update required]

[jackjack]

Hi! I've tried to use pywallet (current jackjack-jj master) to delete some long unconfirmed transactions from my 0.8.1 wallet.dat, per the instructions at...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85689.msg944529#msg944529

After the deletions, the client no longer reports the transactions in 'listtransactions' or 'gettransaction'... so far so good. But, it doesn't seem to have rediscovered the still-unspent old outputs. A launch with '-rescan' didn't help.

Did I miss a step? Does something else about the 0.8.1 indexing need to be reset/rebuilt?

 

So you deleted the tx, you made the rescan, and after that the client still doesn't show the deleted unconfirmed transaction?
If so, the client should definitely count your unspent coins in your balance
Did you check on blockchain.info if the transaction really never broadcasted?

[HanSolo]

Hi! I've tried to use pywallet (current jackjack-jj master) to delete some long unconfirmed transactions from my 0.8.1 wallet.dat, per the instructions at...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85689.msg944529#msg944529

After the deletions, the client no longer reports the transactions in 'listtransactions' or 'gettransaction'... so far so good. But, it doesn't seem to have rediscovered the still-unspent old outputs. A launch with '-rescan' didn't help.

Did I miss a step? Does something else about the 0.8.1 indexing need to be reset/rebuilt?

 

So you deleted the tx, you made the rescan, and after that the client still doesn't show the deleted unconfirmed transaction?
If so, the client should definitely count your unspent coins in your balance
Did you check on blockchain.info if the transaction really never broadcasted?

Deleted the txns (several in a chain), allowed the rescan to complete. The client still shows the balance depleted, as if it still had the unconfirmed transactions. But, requesting the unconfirmed transaction by txid gives nothing.

I actually pushed the problem txns directly to blockchain.info, in the hopes that'd help them get mined... but over 16 hours later, no luck on any of the chain of 6+ txs (each dependent on the one before).

I've now also tried a full -reindex=1 -txindex=1 launch... still no luck. The needed prior output doesn't reappear in 'listunspent'... whatever pywallet did to delete the transaction didn't undo the record of that output being used... nor does -rescan, -reindex, etc.

I was hoping pywallet would leave things in a state where I could issue a fresh, higher-fee transaction as if the unconfirmed txns never existed... but now think I may have to do that with the raw txn api... and consider this wallet damaged by the pywallet txn-deletions.

[K1773R]

Hi! I've tried to use pywallet (current jackjack-jj master) to delete some long unconfirmed transactions from my 0.8.1 wallet.dat, per the instructions at...

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85689.msg944529#msg944529

After the deletions, the client no longer reports the transactions in 'listtransactions' or 'gettransaction'... so far so good. But, it doesn't seem to have rediscovered the still-unspent old outputs. A launch with '-rescan' didn't help.

Did I miss a step? Does something else about the 0.8.1 indexing need to be reset/rebuilt?

 

So you deleted the tx, you made the rescan, and after that the client still doesn't show the deleted unconfirmed transaction?
If so, the client should definitely count your unspent coins in your balance
Did you check on blockchain.info if the transaction really never broadcasted?

Deleted the txns (several in a chain), allowed the rescan to complete. The client still shows the balance depleted, as if it still had the unconfirmed transactions. But, requesting the unconfirmed transaction by txid gives nothing.

I actually pushed the problem txns directly to blockchain.info, in the hopes that'd help them get mined... but over 16 hours later, no luck on any of the chain of 6+ txs (each dependent on the one before).

I've now also tried a full -reindex=1 -txindex=1 launch... still no luck. The needed prior output doesn't reappear in 'listunspent'... whatever pywallet did to delete the transaction didn't undo the record of that output being used... nor does -rescan, -reindex, etc.

I was hoping pywallet would leave things in a state where I could issue a fresh, higher-fee transaction as if the unconfirmed txns never existed... but now think I may have to do that with the raw txn api... and consider this wallet damaged by the pywallet txn-deletions.

i had this problem too but luckily my tx got included some hours later. unfortunately i didnt find a way to fix it.

[kjj]

Deleting a transaction from your wallet does not remove it from the rest of the network.  If it is still floating around out there, your node will get it back from the network and put it back in your wallet.

For best results, you need to unplug your network cable before starting bitcoin after deleting the transaction.  Then you can create a new transaction.  Be absolutely sure that the new transaction uses at least one input used by the old transaction, or you'll end up paying double.

[jackjack]

1. Your wallet isn't corrupted.
2. Did you try deleting all the tx's?
3. Did you check on blockchain.info if your tx is shown?
4. Can you post the recipient address?

[HanSolo]

Deleting a transaction from your wallet does not remove it from the rest of the network.  If it is still floating around out there, your node will get it back from the network and put it back in your wallet.

For best results, you need to unplug your network cable before starting bitcoin after deleting the transaction.  Then you can create a new transaction.  Be absolutely sure that the new transaction uses at least one input used by the old transaction, or you'll end up paying double.

I'm guessing this is what happened... though I would have expected, if the txn was rediscovered from a peer, for it to show up in gettransaction/getrawtransaction probes, especially after doing the long txindex rebuild... but it did not. (I received an `error: {"code":-5,"message":"Invalid or non-wallet transaction id"}` for gettransaction.)

If I have to try this again, I'll keep the node off the network before testing... but that raises the question: is there a good way to do that, using just bitcoind/bitcoin-qt options? (Total network 'unplug' isn't possible for this particular wallet which i can only reach via the network.) It looks like a maxconnections of 0 will be ignored. Maybe a single 'connect' option to a known-bad address, with no addnodes, will leave a client started but unconnected?

1. Your wallet isn't corrupted.
2. Did you try deleting all the tx's?
3. Did you check on blockchain.info if your tx is shown?
4. Can you post the recipient address?

I didn't get around to trying a delete-all-txns. I'd pushed the unconfirmed transactions myself to blockchain.info -- so yes in fact they all appeared there. But after using pywallet to remove them locally, they would not return from my client via 'gettransaction', even though they were still effectively consuming earlier outputs.

I was able to craft a replacement double-spend transaction, via the bitcoind raw txns api, to compete with the 1st unconfirmed transaction. After issuing that, with a larger transaction fee, it was fairly quickly mined into a block, making the other 6+ txns orphans. My replacement transaction evacuated the affected wallet entirely... so I believe my problem is resolved, with all funds again spendable rather than stuck as unconfirmed change.

I'm guessing kjj's theory above, rediscovery of the key transaction from peers, was the main factor in the spendable outputs/balances remaining the same even after local transaction deletion.

Thanks for the rapid replies and suggestions!

[jackjack]

Yeah, the real problem is when the tx is broadcasted to the network
In this case, kjj's suggestion is the only thing to do

[camereye]

Hi everybody,

I am quite new on the bitcoin universe and I am already in trouble.

I lost the passphrase of my wallet, is it possible to reset or recover it with pywallet ?

Thank you very much for your help,


Stef

[jackjack]

If you have parts of your passphrase and/or it was short, there is some hope, and yes, pywallet can help (well, a tweaked version)

If not I don't think you'll recover them
You can still try to scan your hdd at a low level (pywallet can do this) to find private keys. It may remain some parts of your not-yet-encrypted wallet before you encrypted it

[camereye]

If you have parts of your passphrase and/or it was short, there is some hope, and yes, pywallet can help (well, a tweaked version)

If not I don't think you'll recover them
You can still try to scan your hdd at a low level (pywallet can do this) to find private keys. It may remain some parts of your not-yet-encrypted wallet before you encrypted it

Thanks for your answer. Do you know if I can find a tutorial ? I tried to install Python + Pywallet, but I can't launch pywallet.py, I have a window appearing for 1ms and desappearing (sorry for my bad english)

[jackjack]

If you have parts of your passphrase and/or it was short, there is some hope, and yes, pywallet can help (well, a tweaked version)

If not I don't think you'll recover them
You can still try to scan your hdd at a low level (pywallet can do this) to find private keys. It may remain some parts of your not-yet-encrypted wallet before you encrypted it

Thanks for your answer. Do you know if I can find a tutorial ? I tried to install Python + Pywallet, but I can't launch pywallet.py, I have a window appearing for 1ms and desappearing (sorry for my bad english)

Run it through the command line:

• Hit Windows+R, enter 'cmd'
• Then type 'c:\python27\python.exe path\to\pywallet.py --web' (you won't need the web ui but it's to show what dependencies are missing)
• Report results here

PS:
In case you want to use the web ui later:

• Download and install PWI (pywallet windows installer), link at the bottom of http://pywallet.tk
• That will put 4 files in the folder you provided (pywallet.bat, pywallet.py, update, and install)
• Run install.bat again (because a link to a dependency changed) and install the program
• Run pywallet.bat

[camereye]

If you have parts of your passphrase and/or it was short, there is some hope, and yes, pywallet can help (well, a tweaked version)

If not I don't think you'll recover them
You can still try to scan your hdd at a low level (pywallet can do this) to find private keys. It may remain some parts of your not-yet-encrypted wallet before you encrypted it

Thanks for your answer. Do you know if I can find a tutorial ? I tried to install Python + Pywallet, but I can't launch pywallet.py, I have a window appearing for 1ms and desappearing (sorry for my bad english)

Run it through the command line:

• Hit Windows+R, enter 'cmd'
• Then type 'c:\python27\python.exe path\to\pywallet.py --web' (you won't need the web ui but it's to show what dependencies are missing)
• Report results here

PS:
In case you want to use the web ui later:

• Download and install PWI (pywallet windows installer), link at the bottom of http://pywallet.tk
• That will put 4 files in the folder you provided (pywallet.bat, pywallet.py, update, and install)
• Run install.bat again (because a link to a dependency changed) and install the program
• Run pywallet.bat

ok cool, I succeed to access the webui, I couldn't install because I used the 64bit version of Python (sorry for my english)

[camereye]

ok, but now I don't understand how I can reset or hack my old passphrase ..... 

[camereye]

I tried a dump (don't know what it means), and it didn't work, I had this message : "Error in dump page"
And in the windows command :
Maybe I am no smart enough for this...


.......
28 "http://localhost:8989/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537
.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31"
2013-04-24 23:08:49+0200 [HTTPChannel,0,127.0.0.1] Wallet Dir: C:\
2013-04-24 23:08:49+0200 [HTTPChannel,0,127.0.0.1] Wallet Name: wallet.dat
2013-04-24 23:08:49+0200 [HTTPChannel,0,127.0.0.1] Unhandled Error
        Traceback (most recent call last):
          File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\twisted\web\http.py", line 790, in
 requestReceived
            self.process()
          File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\twisted\web\server.py", line 192,
in process
            self.render(resrc)
          File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\twisted\web\server.py", line 241,
in render
            body = resrc.render(self)
          File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\twisted\web\resource.py", line 250
, in render
            return m(request)
        --- <exception caught here> ---
          File "d:\docs\downloads\pywallet.py", line 3264, in render_GET
            read_wallet(json_db, create_env(wdir), wname, True, True, "", None,
version)
          File "d:\docs\downloads\pywallet.py", line 1231, in create_env
            r = db_env.open(db_dir, (DB_CREATE|DB_INIT_LOCK|DB_INIT_LOG|DB_INIT_
MPOOL|DB_INIT_TXN|DB_THREAD|DB_RECOVER))
        bsddb.db.DBPermissionsError: (1, 'Operation not permitted -- C:\\__db.00
1: Operation not permitted')

2013-04-24 23:08:49+0200 [HTTPChannel,0,127.0.0.1] 127.0.0.1 - - [24/Apr/2013:21
:08:49 +0000] "GET /DumpWallet?dir=C:\\&name=wallet.dat&version=0 HTTP/1.1" 200
18 "http://localhost:8989/" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537
.31 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/26.0.1410.64 Safari/537.31"

[jackjack]

Dump is to show the content of your wallet, that's a good thing to start with that
Looks like you told pywallet that your wallet.dat is in c:\, are you sure of that? Normally it's somewhere in some windows directories and moreover, pywallet should fill the form with this place by default

Once you can dump your wallet, I'll make you a custom pywallet to test out passphrases

[camereye]

Yes, the path is good, I've put the wallet here because pywallet couldn't find it with the default path

[jackjack]

Then either :

• Bitcoin client is locking your wallet (check that it's closed)
• Your wallet is corrupted
• You need to be administrator to open a file in C: . Not likely but I'm no specialist of Windows so maybe

[Dabs]

Another thing to note if you want to recover your unencrypted wallet. DO NOT USE THE HARD DRIVE that used to contain it. This usually means, don't even use the computer it's connected to. Otherwise, you might inadvertently overwrite any unencrypted private keys that you are trying to recover.

[camereye]

Hi JackJack,

you are right, I could'nt access the file because it was on C:. It works on D: and could make a dump.

But now I don't know what I am supposed to do. I have a lots of "scriptPubKey": and "encrypted_privkey", or "pubkey":, is it helpful  to recover my password ?

[jackjack]

You have some ideas about what the passphrase could be? Or you used something like 2i9Dz$£*"$Aç")=zàé°0"$µZ€¤^?

In the first case, put that in a py file and run it: http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=KyTQWPqs (tweaked Joric's pywallet)
It will ask forever for your passphrase and will tell you instantly if it's correct