Electrum stuck on sync..transaction unknown

[Alx1924]

Hi..I just sent coins to my electrum wallet as per usual, but for the first time I've seen unknown showing up instead of the actual transaction in the wallet and electrum can't get past syncronizing. Found transaction through block explorer and there's been 8 confirmations for it.

Using a very old piece of garbage desktop PC that's always been in old office for things like this which still runs on vista (lol), so old it recently starts freezing all the time and I can't even update to newer versions of chrome..let alone electrum (installation of update won't even try to run). When I open wallet I can't even right click the 'unknown'.

Just wondering if there is any possible way around this and I can recover the coins or if it's 100% lost and just have to deal with it. Annoying amount of money but nothing serious.  Have a brand new laptop that I can use, just skeptical electrum will fail me again.

[ranochigo]

Whats your Electrum version? If its one of the earlier version, don't bother trying to use it. Close it immediately and get another computer to install the latest version. Any Electrum version below 3.0.5 has the potential to leak your seeds and ptivate keys on RPC.

If its above 3.0.5, press the bubble on the lower right. Try connecting to another. Uncheck the select a server automatically and right click on another server to connect.

[Alx1924]

2.7.12..

Assume that means the transaction is long gone and forget about it?

[ranochigo]

2.7.12..

Assume that means the transaction is long gone and forget about it?

Nope. If the inputs to that transaction is still unspent, you can still import it into another wallet on another computer to restore it. I wouldn't recommend you to continue trying on this computer especially since this Electrum version has vulnerabilities.

IIRC, Electrum doesn't work on XP anymore. Its possible that support for Vista has been dropped along with it.

[Alx1924]

I just managed to log into the original wallet on new laptop..had code words saved, but it's completely empty. No history or anything.

[TryNinja]

I just managed to log into the original wallet on new laptop..had code words saved, but it's completely empty. No history or anything.

Which code? Do you mean a list of words like this one?

Code:

witch collapse practice feed shame open despair creek road again ice least

So, you're saying that you can't do anything with the wallet in the old pc? If you manage to click at "Wallet" -> "Seed", you should be able to get your wallet backup seed, which is enough to restore it in your new pc. You could also try to find your wallet file, which normally can be find in the "%APPDATA%\Electrum\wallets" folder.

[pooya87]

Using a very old piece of garbage desktop PC that's always been in old office for things like this

if the hardware is fine but just old and you want to continue using it then install one of the many light Linux distributions on it and enjoy a fast, easy and clean operating system which is also going to be up to date with latest everything on it.
for example one of my favorites is https://lubuntu.net/ because it is basically Ubuntu (one of the most famous Linux distros) with a light desktop which runs fast on old computers.

you can download the ISO for free and burn it on a DVD to try the OS live and see if you like it. then install if you were comfortable with it. this way you can run all the latest programs (like last version of Electrum with Python3) without any issues. and your computer will also run faster.

make sure make backups as @TryNinja said.

[nc50lc]

Just wondering if there is any possible way around this and I can recover the coins or if it's 100% lost and just have to deal with it. Annoying amount of money but nothing serious.  Have a brand new laptop that I can use, just skeptical electrum will fail me again.

Depends, is your electrum came from the official site? (electrum.org)
And... your version has a vulnerability that can potentially compromise your bitcoins if being actively used.

The mnemonic seed can also leads to different format/"types" of address sets by setting different derivation path.

[sctpfc]

Thanks for the replies, I was able to access my wallet on another laptop but instead of not syncing it just said ‘not connected’ altogether with the red dot. Tried on 3 different computers and the same result everytime. Is there a problem with Electrum atm? Are there any other good wallets anyone could recommend I could download and use in the mean time?

[sctpfc]

Update: managed to download an earlier version of electrum (3.0.6) and everything was working fine with my coins in the wallet. Great!

[jackg]

Update: managed to download an earlier version of electrum (3.0.6) and everything was working fine with my coins in the wallet. Great!

To clarify on this, what do you mean by an "earlier version" - does that mean a later version.

2.7.x software and anything up to about 3.0.3 are prone to the errrors you have described, I had the same error, I think it was something to do with rejecting the migration from redgular addresses to bech32 addresses along with the code change from using python2 to python3. [aplogies I didn't pick this up earlier].

[pooya87]

Thanks for the replies, I was able to access my wallet on another laptop but instead of not syncing it just said ‘not connected’ altogether with the red dot. Tried on 3 different computers and the same result everytime. Is there a problem with Electrum atm? Are there any other good wallets anyone could recommend I could download and use in the mean time?

when you install Electrum on a new computer and open it for the first time it has to first download the block headers in a file called blockchain_headers. this file is currently 39.8 MB which may take a while depending on your internet speed and server responses. during this time Electrum will not show you anything. you have to let it download this completely for the first time before you see anything.

Update: managed to download an earlier version of electrum (3.0.6) and everything was working fine with my coins in the wallet. Great!

To clarify on this, what do you mean by an "earlier version" - does that mean a later version.

2.7.x software and anything up to about 3.0.3 are prone to the errrors you have described, I had the same error, I think it was something to do with rejecting the migration from redgular addresses to bech32 addresses along with the code change from using python2 to python3. [aplogies I didn't pick this up earlier].

migration to python3 happened in v3.0 and bech32 was also available in that version.

[jackg]

.

Update: managed to download an earlier version of electrum (3.0.6) and everything was working fine with my coins in the wallet. Great!

To clarify on this, what do you mean by an "earlier version" - does that mean a later version.

2.7.x software and anything up to about 3.0.3 are prone to the errrors you have described, I had the same error, I think it was something to do with rejecting the migration from redgular addresses to bech32 addresses along with the code change from using python2 to python3. [aplogies I didn't pick this up earlier].

migration to python3 happened in v3.0 and bech32 was also available in that version.

The error wasn't fixed until about 3.0.3 though, I don't know what you're saying?

Disclaimer: I messed up the quote date also, I know.

[pooya87]

.

Update: managed to download an earlier version of electrum (3.0.6) and everything was working fine with my coins in the wallet. Great!

To clarify on this, what do you mean by an "earlier version" - does that mean a later version.

2.7.x software and anything up to about 3.0.3 are prone to the errrors you have described, I had the same error, I think it was something to do with rejecting the migration from redgular addresses to bech32 addresses along with the code change from using python2 to python3. [aplogies I didn't pick this up earlier].

migration to python3 happened in v3.0 and bech32 was also available in that version.

The error wasn't fixed until about 3.0.3 though, I don't know what you're saying?

Disclaimer: I messed up the quote date also, I know.

now i am not sure which bug you are talking about
at first i thought you were talking about the python2 to python3 migration which made it hard for people to install the v3+ on different operating systems.
if you are pointing to the transaction parsing bug then it was fixed in 3.0.6 https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES

yeah i knew about bitcoin even before it was created in '74