Wallet Mystery

[Scarecrow]

Hi.
I have two copies of the same Bitcoin-QT wallet that show a different BTC balance!

These wallets have the same public address but one of them is missing a single 40mBTC receipt. When I put this address into BlockchainINFO, it shows all the six transactions including the missing 40mBTC deposit. I've tried doing a -rescan on the wallet missing the transaction but it didn't help.

How can this be and how do I rectify it?

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.
Thanks

[1715491888]

1715491888

[1715491888]

1715491888

[rarkenin]

If you look in the bottom right, is it still synchronizing with the network? Basically, every single transaction is in a giant chain, and if you only have part of the chain your final total won't be accurate until your client downloads the entire chain.

[Kouye]

Hi.
I have two copies of the same Bitcoin-QT wallet that show a different BTC balance!

These wallets have the same public address but one of them is missing a single 40mBTC receipt. When I put this address into BlockchainINFO, it shows all the six transactions including the missing 40mBTC deposit. I've tried doing a -rescan on the wallet missing the transaction but it didn't help.

How can this be and how do I rectify it?

I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.
Thanks

Overwrite the wallet copy missing the 40mBTC tx by the one including it.
Problem fixed!

[Scarecrow]

Thanks very much to you both for your support.

Rarkenin, The Blockchain on my PC is up to date and both copies of the wallet are fully in sync with it. I swap the wallets in the .bitcoin folder, one includes the 40mBTC transaction and the other does not. The missing transaction is in the middle as there are older and newer transactions.


Kouye, Just discarding the wallet that is missing the 40mBTC transaction may solve the problem but not the Mystery.

[Kouye]

Thanks very much to you both for your support.

Rarkenin, The Blockchain on my PC is up to date and both copies of the wallet are fully in sync with it. I swap the wallets in the .bitcoin folder, one includes the 40mBTC transaction and the other does not. The missing transaction is in the middle as there are older and newer transactions.

Kouye, Just discarding the wallet that is missing the 40mBTC transaction may solve the problem but not the Mystery.

You're not the first one to report a -rescan failure.

The mystery might be explained by the way QT keeps track of balance internally.

He does not care what unspent outputs are used when you send coins, for example, it'll always use your default address to keep track when you send coins (meaning you generally have a negative default address balance, and all your other addresses have a balance as great as the greatest one they ever had). The way QT computes the balance is just local, it basically does not care about matching the blockchain.

Check the result of
listaccounts

Which, I beleive (not 100% sure, though), is used by QT to compute the current total balance

And check the result of
listunspent

By comparing those, you might find where the diffence is.

[KieranJones1]

Go to your wallet on blockchain.info. Select the "receive money" tab. Click the "Archived" tab.

There will probably be a wallet in there with the "missing" coins. Click the little blue arrow on the right to un-archive that address and restore your Blockchain balance to normal.

Hope that helps!

[Scarecrow]

That Kouye has opened a whole new window on the Bitcoin world for me, I just tested those commands on the wallet open on this PC and can see what you mean. This is my Windows PC so this wallet contains very little, as the wallet I'm talking about has a lot in it I only load it on my Linux Laptop when its offline and take a peek. I will do this tomorrow. I think you have given me enough information to help find the cause but its not sure because the 40mBTC transaction is actually missing. I really didn't know that command window existed and I will enjoy exploring that.

KieranJones1, I don't quite understand your reply as this is a Bitcoin-Qt wallet. In this case I only used Blockchain.info to check the address concerned  to find all the transactions going to my address. Six transactions exist on the Blockchain, only five transactions exist on one of the wallets, six on the other.

Thanks Y'All

[Scarecrow]

Further looking at these wallets, the only difference is that the one that is missing the 40mBTC transaction now has my password on it. The copy that has all the transactions including the 40mBTC transaction is older and does not have my password on it.

I assume that I can set the password on the correct older wallet and then delete the wallet that does not show the 40mBTC transaction. Am I right in assuming that passwords exist solely in the wallet.dat file so older, unlocked copies of the same wallet can be used to send coins without entering the password?

[Kouye]

Further looking at these wallets, the only difference is that the one that is missing the 40mBTC transaction now has my password on it. The copy that has all the transactions including the 40mBTC transaction is older and does not have my password on it.

I assume that I can set the password on the correct older wallet and then delete the wallet that does not show the 40mBTC transaction. Am I right in assuming that passwords exist solely in the wallet.dat file so older, unlocked copies of the same wallet can be used to send coins without entering the password?

From the moment you copied your original wallet, they both began their own separate lives.
Encrypting one using a passphrase won't affect the other.

The only thing they share is a pool of x (with x=100 by default) pre-generated addresses.
This basically means if you click 100 times on "create new address" in each of those, you'll get the same addresses "created".

So short answer : yes. You'll be able to spend coins from the unencrypted wallet.

[Scarecrow]

Thanks Kouye

This has been a big help with my understanding as to what is going on "under the hood". When I encrypt a wallet, the warning message that comes up but doesn't help much, is a warning that old copies of the same wallet could be used to steal your coins. I don't understand how two wallets with the same public address can show different numbers of transactions but you can't argue with the Blockchain so just check the address in there.

I will permanently retire the incorrect wallet and put a password on the one that is showing the correct transactions.

Thanks for all your help

[Foxpup]

From the moment you copied your original wallet, they both began their own separate lives.
Encrypting one using a passphrase won't affect the other.

The only thing they share is a pool of x (with x=100 by default) pre-generated addresses.
This basically means if you click 100 times on "create new address" in each of those, you'll get the same addresses "created".

This is false. Encrypting a wallet deletes all unused addresses from the pool and generates new ones. This is to reduce the potential for theft if someone obtains the unencrypted wallet (and in fact that risk is eliminated entirely if, after encrypting the wallet, you send all your coins to a new address and never reuse your old addresses).

[Kouye]

This is false. Encrypting a wallet deletes all unused addresses from the pool and generates new ones. This is to reduce the potential for theft if someone obtains the unencrypted wallet (and in fact that risk is eliminated entirely if, after encrypting the wallet, you send all your coins to a new address and never reuse your old addresses).

Excellent, thanks for clearing that up, Foxpup, and sorry about the wrong statement. Still so much to learn...