How do I upgrade Electrum to the latest version?

[Sam Spade]

First of all, let me say that I am not a programmer, just a guy who has been using Electrum for years and wants to keep doing so.

But now I can't connect any more.  So I go to the web page and see that I have to upgrade my software.  OK, fair enough.  Not sure why it didn't happen automatically, but never mind.  When I try (using Ubuntu and Python) I am overwhelmed with problems.  This never used to happen before, what is wrong?   Why has it become so complicated to upgrade Electrum?

I am told my copy of Python is up-to-date, good.  So I download the package and am told it was done successfully, good.  I downloaded the Electrum asc file and am told it is done correctly, good.  But then when I attempt to get a signature verification, I am told: 

gpg --verify Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz.asc
gpg: assuming signed data in `Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz'
gpg: Signature made Wed 13 Feb 2019 05:08:29 PM EST using RSA key ID 7F9470E6
gpg: Can't check signature: public key not found

First question:  Why can't I verify the signature?

But, OK, I try to continue anyway,  Python tools are the latest, good.  But when I try to do the installation I get:

sudo python3 -m pip install --user Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz[fast]
The directory '/home/jacques/.cache/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/home/jacques/.cache/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
Processing ./Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    Error: Electrum requires Python version >= 3.6.1...
   
    ----------------------------------------
Command "python setup.py egg_info" failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-2i0mzg45-build/
You are using pip version 8.1.1, however version 19.0.3 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.

What is going on?  All I want to do is upgrade to the latest version, why has this become so difficult?

(Yes, I tried the -H flag also, but got more complexity:

sudo -H python3 -m pip install --user Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz[fast]
Processing ./Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    Error: Electrum requires Python version >= 3.6.1...
   
    ----------------------------------------
Command "python setup.py egg_info" failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-r2ryjtwv-build/
You are using pip version 8.1.1, however version 19.0.3 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.

SO, OK, we will try:

sudo -H pip install --upgrade pip/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pip/_vendor/requests/__init__.py:83: RequestsDependencyWarning: Old version of cryptography ([1, 2, 3]) may cause slowdown.
  warnings.warn(warning, RequestsDependencyWarning)
DEPRECATION: Python 2.7 will reach the end of its life on January 1st, 2020. Please upgrade your Python as Python 2.7 won't be maintained after that date. A future version of pip will drop support for Python 2.7.
Requirement already up-to-date: pip in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages (19.0.3)

Which is as worthless to me as tits on a boar-hog.

I tried to do a general search on the subject, and did find a Reddit article on the upgrade, but it was deleted.  And that was ALL I FOUND!  Not even anything on this site!

What is going on here?  Please, someone, point me to an article that describes, in simple text, how I do this process.

My current version is 3.2.3 and it will no longer connect to any Electrum server.

[djhomeschool]

First try:

pip install --upgrade pip

After that install python3.7.1. What distro are you using?

After you upgraded to python3.7 use the command:

sudo python3.7 -m pip install --user Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz

That should work.

[DireWolfM14]

Try adding "sudo" to your command.

But to be honest I would not continue without verifying the signature first.  I'm not familiar enough with PGP on linux machines to coach you through adding ThomasV's public key, but if I'm not mistaken that's what you need to do to get the signature to verify.

 

[djhomeschool]

Try adding "sudo" to your command.

But to be honest I would not continue without verifying the signature first.  I'm not familiar enough with PGP on linux machines to coach you through adding ThomasV's public key, but if I'm not mistaken that's what you need to do to get the signature to verify.

 

He already did that

[DireWolfM14]

Try adding "sudo" to your command.

But to be honest I would not continue without verifying the signature first.  I'm not familiar enough with PGP on linux machines to coach you through adding ThomasV's public key, but if I'm not mistaken that's what you need to do to get the signature to verify.

 

He already did that

I see that now, thanks.

[Abdussamad]

See under linux here. This'll download, verify and "install" (make executable) the appimage version which should work on any 64bit linux system.

[Abdussamad]

PGP public key changed some time ago, you can find it at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/spesmilo/electrum/master/pubkeys/ThomasV.asc or https://electrum.org/#download.
It should have fingerprint 9914 864D FC33 499C 6CA2 BEEA 2245 3004 6955 06FD with username "Animazing <animazing@gmail.com>"


The error message mention you have outdated python and pip, so you should try upgrade both of them with command

Code:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo pip install --upgrade pip

Animazing no longer signs releases. That file thomasv.asc may install both Thomas' key and Animazings but animazing no longer signs releases. He used to years ago. Thomas' key's fingerprint is: 6694 D8DE 7BE8 EE56 31BE  D950 2BD5 824B 7F94 70E6 and it is used to sign releases.

He won't be able to upgrade python on this system since his distro doesn't offer a newer version. Best he use the appimage like i said above.

[Sam Spade]

Thank you for all your suggestions.

I tried to purge python completely from my system to force a new download.  Then I ran the installation sequence again.

'sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt5' got me the statement: 
python3-pyqt5 is already the newest version (5.5.1+dfsg-3ubuntu4).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

'sudo apt-get install python3-setuptools python3-pip' got me: 
python3-setuptools is already the newest version (20.7.0-1).
python3-pip is already the newest version (8.1.1-2ubuntu0.4).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

'python3 -m pip install --user Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz[fast]' got me:
Error: Electrum requires Python version >= 3.6.1...
   
    ----------------------------------------
Command "python setup.py egg_info" failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-h3ldhd_z-build/
You are using pip version 8.1.1, however version 19.0.3 is available.
You should consider upgrading via the 'pip install --upgrade pip' command.

So I ran 'python' and got: Python 2.7.12 (default, Nov 12 2018, 14:36:49)
[GCC 5.4.0 20160609] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.

So I assume I must download a later version. Tried:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo pip install --upgrade pip
and got:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 7, in <module>
    from pip._internal import main
ImportError: No module named pip._internal

I am running Ubuntu 16.04 as mentioned in my original post.

Can someone tell me how to import ThomasV's key?  When I click on the link, all I get is a large ASCII page of meaningless characters.

As far as the Appimage is concerned, I ran it and got no errors, but nothing happened and my copy of Electrum still will not connect.

Thank you, any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

[Sam Spade]

Re one of the other posts:

When I entered:  pip install --upgrade pip

I got:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 7, in <module>
    from pip._internal import main

How do I upgrade to Python3.7.1?  I have been trying to do that ever since this fiasco started!

Thank you for any additional advice you can offer.

[djhomeschool]

Re one of the other posts:

When I entered:  pip install --upgrade pip

I got:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/pip", line 7, in <module>
    from pip._internal import main

How do I upgrade to Python3.7.1?  I have been trying to do that ever since this fiasco started!

Thank you for any additional advice you can offer.

Do these commands:

Code:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install build-essential zlib1g-dev libncurses5-dev libgdbm-dev libnss3-dev libssl-dev libreadline-dev libffi-dev wget
cd /tmp
wget https://www.python.org/ftp/python/3.7.2/Python-3.7.2.tar.xz
tar -xf Python-3.7.2.tar.xz
cd Python-3.7.2
./configure --enable-optimizations
make -j 1
sudo make altinstall

Each line is a command. Use sudo for every command if you are not root user.

Let me know if this worked.

[Sam Spade]

Thank you for the detailed instructions.  As nearly as I can tell, all went well until a dialog box popped up which said:

Sorry, the application regrtest.py has stopped unexpectedly

The details took several hundred lines of text and I was unable to copy more than one line at a time, so didn't make a record of them

The terminal continued to run, however, and seemed to finish without errors so I ran the last line and it also executed without error.

But the menu entry that I have for Electrum won't run the program.  How do I start it?

Thank you again for your help.

[djhomeschool]

Thank you for the detailed instructions.  As nearly as I can tell, all went well until a dialog box popped up which said:

Sorry, the application regrtest.py has stopped unexpectedly

The details took several hundred lines of text and I was unable to copy more than one line at a time, so didn't make a record of them

The terminal continued to run, however, and seemed to finish without errors so I ran the last line and it also executed without error.

But the menu entry that I have for Electrum won't run the program.  How do I start it?

Thank you again for your help.

The errors are normal and should not give you any problems.

Now download the latest Electrum versoin if you have not already done so and in the same directory try this command:

Code:

sudo python3.7 -m pip install --user Electrum-3.3.4.tar.gz

Let me know what this does.

[Abdussamad]

pyqt5 will not be compiled against that version of python so he'll have to build that from source as well. in the process he's screwed up his system. non of these are packaged so keeping up with updates will be a pain.

it would be better if he just used the app image or upgraded to a distro that has python 3.6 like opensuse leap.

[djhomeschool]

pyqt5 will not be compiled against that version of python so he'll have to build that from source as well. in the process he's screwed up his system. non of these are packaged so keeping up with updates will be a pain.

it would be better if he just used the app image or upgraded to a distro that has python 3.6 like opensuse leap.

He is on Ubuntu so i am trying to guide him thruw with the distro he has

[Abdussamad]

Because he's installing from source he will have a hard time keeping up with updates to python. It is better to stick to the software in your distro's repository, use the app image or switch to a distro that has newer packages. We don't install from source anymore for a reason - it becomes harder to maintain the system.

edit: see this.

[Sam Spade]

Tried your suggestions, thank you.  Got good and bad.

The good is that everything seemed to run without any critical errors.  And it created a menu entry.

The bad is that clicking on that menu entry didn't do anything.

The path for the menu shortcut is:  sh -c "PATH=\"\$HOME/.local/bin:\$PATH\" electrum %u"

Any other suggestions will be appreciated.  (Other than switching to another distribution, which is a bit too extreme for me.)

BTW, I am considering upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.  If I do so, will this problem go away?  If so, I might move my upgrade schedule up a bit.

Thank you.

[BitMaxz]

BTW, I am considering upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.  If I do so, will this problem go away?  If so, I might move my upgrade schedule up a bit.

What Ubuntu version you have? is it the 16.04 version?

I heard many Electrum user's experienced the same problem as yours but I don't find someone success in upgrading their wallet to the latest version in lower version.

If you have seed backup why not upgrade your Ubuntu to 18.04 version it might solve your issue.

I don't have much knowledge about Linux but check this below it might help you install the latest Electrum.
-Install electrum 3.3.4 wallet ubuntu 16.04 / 18.04

[Abdussamad]

Tried your suggestions, thank you.  Got good and bad.

The good is that everything seemed to run without any critical errors.  And it created a menu entry.

The bad is that clicking on that menu entry didn't do anything.

The path for the menu shortcut is:  sh -c "PATH=\"\$HOME/.local/bin:\$PATH\" electrum %u"

Any other suggestions will be appreciated.  (Other than switching to another distribution, which is a bit too extreme for me.)

BTW, I am considering upgrading to Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.  If I do so, will this problem go away?  If so, I might move my upgrade schedule up a bit.

Thank you.

run it in a terminal and you'll get informative error messages. just open a terminal and type "electrum" or "$HOME/.local/bin/electrum". most likely it'll complain about pyqt5 being missing.

[Sam Spade]

Tried the suggestion re running Electrum in the terminal.  Got:

Error: Could not import PyQt5 on Linux systems, you may try 'sudo apt-get install python3-pyqt5'

OK, so tried to run that command and got:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
python3-pyqt5 is already the newest version (5.5.1+dfsg-3ubuntu4).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.

This is insane!  Is it installed or not?

Please, any help will be appreciated as upgrading to 18.04 right now would be difficult.

Thank you.

[Abdussamad]

Listen man I've already explained above that pyqt5 is compiled against the version of python that came with ubuntu not the one you recently installed from source. Just use the app image and save yourself this headache. You keep asking for help but don't read what we write.