Bitcoin Wallet for Android

[Vandroiy]

I'm still watching this, but still not satisfied. I've just been shown a phone on which the wallet shows inconsistent data: the transactions do not sum to the balance. What the heck? In addition, the balance is wrong, it does not agree with blockexplorer and shows coins that supposedly appeared out of nowhere.

It is usually not possible to buxfix quality into a program, and if this is done in a cryptographic context, the result is probably not secure. How does that programmer's saying go... "Do it. Do it right. Do it right now." I really like the UI, and the back-end (BitcoinJ, I assume?) does not seem to eat coins all too much, but whatever does the processing in between really needs an overhaul.

A lot of the output I saw was more than one error: the error itself, and the fact that the program doesn't output something like "Sanity check failed. Send a report to the developer, backup the last valid wallet data?"

[BurtW]

I also have noticed that the balance in not correct.  It is way too high.  I have not downloaded the very latest so I am hoping the issue may be fixed when I download the pending version.

[imsaguy]

I also have noticed that the balance in not correct.  It is way too high.  I have not downloaded the very latest so I am hoping the issue may be fixed when I download the pending version.

I was having that issue.  I used a backup from my phone to go back to version 1.33 and the balance is fine.  After watching the wallet and doing a bit of investigating, I discovered when it would incorrectly increase the balance on the versions after 1.3:.

Imagine a scenario where you've accumulated a balance of say 5 btc to your wallet.  The wallet has been opened/closed and the balance is as it should be.  You have your wallet open and someone sends you say 1 btc.  You receive the grey'ed out "pending" notification and your balance increments by 1 to show a balance of 6btc.  You don't wait for a block and instead, you close the wallet because perhaps you have to do other things.  Some time later, you reopen the wallet because you're ready to do a transaction.  The wallet downloads the blocks to catch up from the last time, notices the 1btc transaction (from before) in a block and increments the balance by 1btc (making now 7btc).  6btc are available to send and the wallet shows 1 btc waiting for confirmations when really, there have already been confirmations, its just counting twice.

[Vandroiy]

After testing it with a few coins, I thought, let's just quickly send this transaction to the phone so I can send it on from there. Big mistake. The moment I transferred the second batch of coins to it, it force closed.

Now, it force closes every time a peer connects. Over 100 BTC stuck. It's almost as if the beast waited until there was enough on it to cause extra grief.

Is it just me or is this program trying hard to fight with my morals on having added to the bounty? I can't remember any android program with half the bugs, crashes and misbehavior that this thing shows. And yet we just really need it!

I'll have to get my coins out of there somehow, but how?

[Mike Hearn]

Could you post a stack trace? You can use the "adb" command in the Android SDK to get one.

As to bugs - Bitcoin is not a trivial thing. The app comes with health warnings for a reason. I'd NEVER recommend putting as much as 100 BTC into anything based on BitcoinJ currently. Perhaps Andreas can make that clearer in the app. It really isn't "production ready".

[Vandroiy]

I got them out again using system backups. Good thing I made sure my addresses are on there before using them.

The stack trace was mailed by the app itself, the few seconds it takes before crashing are long enough to discover the crash and let me send the stack trace; it only blows up a moment later. It was some sort of null pointer exception.

Yea, I'll stay away from it for a bit longer. This doesn't seem ready for field use. It's just that I really really really want to use BTC away from my "secure dedicated trading machine that nobody except I should touch". That's just... anti-social usage. Being able to pay or tip people by phone would be really awesome.

[Cryptoman]

I'm having a bit of trouble.  I sent 10 BTC to the Android client on October 24, and it was received fine.  Then, I sent 1 BTC to a PC client the next day to test sending.  No problem.  My balance was 9 BTC for several weeks until a recent Android client update.  Now the balance reads 18 BTC, and of course the math doesn't add up when compared to the transactions.  I'm going to do a block chain and transaction reset and see what happens.

EDIT: OK, that fixed it. 

[caveden]

Some info about wallet backup is contained in

http://code.google.com/p/bitcoin-wallet/source/browse/trunk/README

I've heard you can use TitaniumBackup to backup app-private data.

I'm afraid I can't find the wallet file in data folder, in fact it is empty. Could anyone give me a hint where to look?

Same thing here. The directory /data/data does not exist. Where else could my wallet be? Do I need a rooted android just to find the wallet?

[urstroyer]

Some info about wallet backup is contained in

http://code.google.com/p/bitcoin-wallet/source/browse/trunk/README

I've heard you can use TitaniumBackup to backup app-private data.

I'm afraid I can't find the wallet file in data folder, in fact it is empty. Could anyone give me a hint where to look?

Same thing here. The directory /data/data does not exist. Where else could my wallet be? Do I need a rooted android just to find the wallet?

You have to:
- grab Android SDK here: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
- connect your phone to pc with appropriate driver
- grab your private key with help adb.exe: adb /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet/files/key-backup-asn1
- use your private key to reclaim your btc (via mtgox for example)

[pazor]

hello andreas,

here a little idea...

copied from
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=53353.40

/*
 loving the app so far, only thing i would like to see is a bit of basic security.

i.e. a 4 digit pin entered when you first open the app. Both sending BTC and exporting private keys should require this pin. if someone grabs or steals your phone at least you know they won't be able to instantly transfer all of your coins, giving you a bit of time to add the private key elsewhere and transfer them out.

*/

greetings
pazor

[cande]

You have to:
- grab Android SDK here: http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html
- connect your phone to pc with appropriate driver
- grab your private key with help adb.exe: adb /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet/files/key-backup-asn1
- use your private key to reclaim your btc (via mtgox for example)

that only works if you have your phone rooted, right? because i can't access /data/data without getting permission denied from adb. And since the wallet application is not in debugmode, the run-as don't work either, so is there another way to extract my private key?

Is it possible to reinstall the application with the android:debuggable="true" ?

[tgmarks]

Big fan of the app and use it regularly.  This is a big deal in the long run for the viability of bitcoin.

[payb.tc]

is it still being worked on? i used it a few months ago but uninstalled it.

[tgmarks]

is it still being worked on? i used it a few months ago but uninstalled it.

Yes, he did a fix for me last month when I was having feb 12th trouble and then released the newer version with NFC not very long ago.

[cypherdoc]

WARNING!!!!

installed this on my Android a couple of days ago along with 1 BTC.  tonite the 1 BTC and entire installation gone from my phone. 

everything else on the phone seems intact but i can only assume some malware took the wallet.  too bad.  was looking forward to using this; i'd heard alot about it.

[Mike Hearn]

The app itself was gone? And you're sure you didn't uninstall it?

That's really weird.

[imsaguy]

I'd suggest anyone thinking about using this software (or any wallet software) to invest in a backup app.  I use Titanium Backup Pro and it has saved me multiple times when upgrading/downgrading/etc.

[cypherdoc]

The app itself was gone? And you're sure you didn't uninstall it?

That's really weird.

exactly.  of course i didn't uninstall it. 

in fact, i downloaded it to try b/c you had just released the new version of BitcoinJ to it and MultiBit so i thought i'd better give it a try.

if you have any suggestions about how i could be a dummy please feel free to suggest but the whole thing is gone. 

[tgmarks]

Malware on android that completely uninstalls an app?  That would be a new one.

[imsaguy]

The app itself was gone? And you're sure you didn't uninstall it?

That's really weird.

exactly.  of course i didn't uninstall it. 

in fact, i downloaded it to try b/c you had just released the new version of BitcoinJ to it and MultiBit so i thought i'd better give it a try.

if you have any suggestions about how i could be a dummy please feel free to suggest but the whole thing is gone. 

The app does make backups of the wallet. if you browse to /data/data/de.schildbach.wallet, there should be multiple copies of your wallet.  That data survives an app uninstall.