* NEWB * Electrum situation: Still syncing and no confirmations showing

[kanet11]

Hi all,

Perhaps you can help me out, would be amazing.

On the evening of 10th of February i transferred some btc from an internet exchange to my local electrum software.
Right after seeing them in my wallet (grey clock on left side, not yet confirmed) I closed my wallet and shut down my computer for 3 months.
i just did a quick transfer i wanted to do before getting on a plane, when i saw the grey clocks I closed the software.

now, 3 months later thats what im seeing when i open electrum. left bottom says 'syncing' and the transfers show date and time, but not with a green V, but with the grey clock.

Ammount and balance are up to date tho.
when i go to explorer everything seems fine and finished, but my wallet perhaps is not up to date.

do I have to wait, or do something with my wallet? or is the btc somewhere in oblivion

basicly it was a successful TX, but my wallet software just hasn't been used for 3 months.

thanks for any advice!

[1714713201]

1714713201

[1714713201]

1714713201

[HCP]

Versions older than 3.3 won't sync any more... Changes were made to try and prevent users losing coins due to phishing attacks.

Goto www.electrum.org and download and install the latest version (currently 3.3.5).

Once you update the wallet will connect and sync just fine.

Make sure you enter the website in your browser carefully, there are a lot of very convincing scam websites with fake versions of Electrum.

Note that there is currently NO v4.0.0 and NO v3.3.6. If you see any message or link promoting these versions or websites that are not electrum.org they are FAKE!

[kanet11]

ah great, thanks for your quick answer.

I just found out I never even properly installed electrum on my pc. it just opens the .exe from the download.
is that an issue when updating or restoring?

Or should I just backup my current wallet.file in advance?

[HCP]

It isn't a problem... You can either use the 3.3.5 installer or just download the new 3.3.5 "standalone" version...

Either way, it should continue to use your existing wallet. The only reason it wouldn't would be if you are currently using the "portable" version. In that case you would simply need to copy the wallet file to a new location and the new version will be able to find it.

If you have the 12 word backup seed mnemonic for your wallet, you can recover using just that... So a wallet backup isn't strictly necessary. Having said that, backing up the wallet file is never a bad idea

[kanet11]

thanks for helping guys

when i looked today, i was synced tho, on 3.0.5
probably to a hackers server? since 3.0.5 didnt allow syncing anymore

anyways, after that i did what you said. from the official site i installed 3.3.5 and everything works now.

But just one more thing, if I was connect to an unsave server on 3.0.5, is that solved now switching to 3.3.5?
because on my pc is the folder / appdata/roaming/electrum/ and those files in there are still being used, such as 'config', 'daemon' and 'recent_servers'.
is that an issue?

[DireWolfM14]

thanks for helping guys

when i looked today, i was synced tho, on 3.0.5
probably to a hackers server? since 3.0.5 didnt allow syncing anymore

anyways, after that i did what you said. from the official site i installed 3.3.5 and everything works now.

But just one more thing, if I was connect to an unsave server on 3.0.5, is that solved now switching to 3.3.5?
because on my pc is the folder / appdata/roaming/electrum/ and those files in there are still being used, such as 'config', 'daemon' and 'recent_servers'.
is that an issue?

I find it odd you were able to get 3.0.5 to synchronize, there may be a server floating around the network that has not been patched with the latest update.

The servers themselves weren't able to steal your coins, or do anything malicious to your wallet.  The compromised servers were only able to send a notification to the user instructing him to download an update that was actually malware.  The message directed users to a website other than the real electrum.org.  The user would have to download and install the malware to suffer any losses.

If you haven't already done so, I recommend you familiarize yourself with PGP and learn to check the electrum downloads for the official signature.  There are a few tutorials floating around the internet on how to use PGP.

[kanet11]

Thanks

I will become familiar with PGP.

yea, perhaps, but somehow it did synchronize
after that, still on 305, i tried to send some btc to an internet exchange. before doing that i indeed got the popup asking me to install electrum 4.0
realized that wasn't good, so closed software and switched to 335.

[HCP]

I find it odd you were able to get 3.0.5 to synchronize, there may be a server floating around the network that has not been patched with the latest update.

Most likely OP was simply connected to a "bad" server... I suspect that these "bad" servers have not implemented the patches that break syncing on older versions for exactly this reason.

If an old version just happens to try connecting to them first, it will be able to sync and everything will look "normal"... User tries to send and gets the fake popup message... And another possible victim is created.

But at least this episode had a happy ending!