Mother of god: My Electrum default_wallet file is corrupted. HELP

[Samwisesweden]

Hi. I go straight to the point:

In 2015, I bought 0.7 bitcoins for which I paid about $ 70. I installed the Electrum wallet and chose the offline wallet variant.

After a week my computer crashed, but I managed to save all files from my wallet, including my default_wallet file. I uploaded these files in my dropbox. Unfortunately, when I had reinstalled my computer, I had been sloppy with my seed-phrase, its lost.

One another strange thing is that my default_wallet file seems to have become corrupt. I have read and studied pretty much all the tips and guides available on Google regarding my problem. I have tried to download Bitcoin Core wallet, electrum and all versions that have been released, I have tested Hex editor, I have tried to install the pywallet but it does not get the python to work.

My idea is that file may have somehow been saved in another file format when I uploaded it in dropbox, to do so is since I uploaded the file that it suddenly became corrupt. I also wonder if it should only be called default_wallet and not wallet.dat? I currently have a "file" and not a dat file.

Could the reason for it being "corrupt" be that the file is encrypted? How to decrypt the file if so?

Is it more difficult to solve this because I have an offline wallet? I want to emphasize that I have all passwords to Electrum / wallet file, but as I said not my seed phrase.

My plan is the following: Of course I have to solve so the file is fixed, then I create and new wallet and synchronize it to the network. Then I replace the existing wallet file with my existing one and then hopefully open the wallet flawlessly.

As you may notice, I find it difficult to put my finger on what to do, or what is wrong, i really hopes someone can bring some smart ideas.

At the time of writing, my 0.7 Bitcoin's is worth $ 6647.

I give $ 2000 of this money to the person who helps me, or comes up with a tip to fix this mess.

I stand by my word. And I also want to apologize for my bad English, I did my best and if there are spelling mistakes it is Google Translate's fault. :-)

Regards, S

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[Rath_]

My idea is that file may have somehow been saved in another file format when I uploaded it in dropbox, to do so is since I uploaded the file that it suddenly became corrupt. I also wonder if it should only be called default_wallet and not wallet.dat? I currently have a "file" and not a dat file.

wallet.dat is a type of wallet file created by Bitcoin Core. What kind of message did you get when you tried opening your wallet with it? Are you completely sure that you have uploaded the correct file? I doubt that Dropbox changed the file's extension on its own. Anyway, it might sound stupidly easy but why don't you try copying that file and removing .dat extension? I'm 100% sure that it won't work. Did you use any other wallet than Electrum? Edit: Misread the quote. I thought he had .dat file.

[Samwisesweden]

My idea is that file may have somehow been saved in another file format when I uploaded it in dropbox, to do so is since I uploaded the file that it suddenly became corrupt. I also wonder if it should only be called default_wallet and not wallet.dat? I currently have a "file" and not a dat file.

wallet.dat is a type of wallet file created by Bitcoin Core. What kind of message did you get when you tried opening your wallet with it? Are you completely sure that you have uploaded the correct file? I doubt that Dropbox changed the file's extension on its own. Anyway, it might sound stupidly easy but why don't you try copying that file and removing .dat extension? I'm 100% sure that it won't work. Did you use any other wallet than Electrum?

Hey sir, thank you for the awnser. When i uploaded the wallet file in Bitcoin core wallet, i just got a massage ”This file is corrupted” I created my wallet file through Electrum and its the only wallet i have used. Its so strange, when i right click on my default_wallet file and reads more info, it just stands its a ”file”, but when i do the same on a wallet file i just created it stands its a ”.dat-file”

[Rath_]

Its so strange, when i right click on my default_wallet file and reads more info, it just stands its a ”file”, but when i do the same on a wallet file i just created it stands its a ”.dat-file”

I have misread your previous message. The file was not modified. Electrum wallets files don't have any extension (simply default_wallet) while Bitcoin Core generates wallet.dat file. It's no use in trying to access it through Bitcoin Core; it won't work. What message do you get when you load it into Electrum?

There is no need to call me sir.

[Samwisesweden]

Its so strange, when i right click on my default_wallet file and reads more info, it just stands its a ”file”, but when i do the same on a wallet file i just created it stands its a ”.dat-file”

I have misread your previous message. The file was not modified. Electrum wallets files don't have any extension (simply default_wallet) while Bitcoin Core generates wallet.dat file. It's no use in trying to access it through Bitcoin Core; it won't work. What message do you get when you load it into Electrum?

There is no need to call me sir.

When i do the same process in Electrum i dont get any message, electrum just refuse to start. Nothing happends. Is it possible to decrypt the wallet file? And do you now any ways to Repair the broken/corrupted file?

[bob123]

When i do the same process in Electrum i dont get any message, electrum just refuse to start. Nothing happends. Is it possible to decrypt the wallet file? And do you now any ways to Repair the broken/corrupted file?

If a file is corrupted, it means that information is missing from it.
If you are lucky, this was useless information (i.e. not your seed). However, there are no tools to simply 'repair' it.



If you are interested, i could give it a try.
But this would require you to give me your wallet file and the password. And this also implies that you need to trust me that i am not running away with your BTC.

Since you probably don't know any address of your wallet, this would also mean that you probably wouldn't even notice if i were able to access it and run away with it.

From your point of view.. this would be a risk. All i can do is to promise not running away with it.
If you have tried everything out, and want to take the risk and trust me.. feel free to message me.

[Red-Apple]

have you tried opening the file in a text editor?
use notepad for example and open the default_wallet file and see if you can see anything human readable. if it is the case then it might be the problem with the new electrum version that is not capable of "converting" the old wallet file version (that is for 2015 and probably electrum version 1.8-1.9) to the new wallet file version which is version 2 in electrum 3.2+

if you figure that step out you can decide which rout to take next.

ps. make sure to make a copy of that file, don't mess around on your only copy!

[nc50lc]

Try this, but first make sure to re-download your wallet file from dropbox and keep a copy and rename it into "original" or "clean-copy".
Because most of the time, old wallet files turned out corrupted when attempted to load using the latest versions and when you attempt to open it using the old version again, it won't open as the file itself was messed up by the previous process.

# Release 2.0
 * Before you upgrade, make sure you have saved your wallet seed on
   paper.
 * New file format: Wallets files are saved as JSON. Note that new
   wallet files cannot be read by older versions of Electrum. Old
   wallet files will be converted to the new format; this operation
   may take some time, because public keys will be derived for each
   address of your wallet..

I suspect that the "upgrade process" is only available for 1.9 to 2.0 and later versions.

• Download Electrum version 1.9 from here.
• Copy the "clean-copy" to your default wallet directory and rename it into something like Test01 and load it.
• If it successfully opened, click wallet tab->Seed and enter your passphrase, then copy your SEED.
• Download the latest version and restore your wallet via the Option "Standard->I already have the SEED".
• If next isn't clickable, click option, enable BIP39.
• Select, "P2PKH" when prompted for address type.

[NeuroticFish]

I also advise a check with a text editor (make a copy and open it with whatever you can, even notepad maybe).
Maybe the file starts with PK or RAR, meaning that you made in the past a zip or rar archive and didn't put the correct extension.

If it's human readable data, @nc50lc post should do.
I advise you make sure the computer is clean from viruses and keyloggers.
Also the old electrum may ask for upgrade. Don't. At least not from in-app link. The upgrade will come (after you recover your private keys or seed) from (and only ever from) electrum.org.

Edit:
After re-reading @nc50lc post I may have another list of steps. I'll assume a clean windows.
1. Download portable electrum 2.0 from the link in @nc50lc post, more exactly electrum-2.0-portable.exe
2. Create a folder d:\Test, put electrum-2.0-portable.exe in there and run it. You'll need to temp-save the seed, but most of the deafult settings will work. When trying to connect, just close (x) that window.
3. Go to d:\Test\electrum_data\wallets and overwrite that default_wallet with yours
4. Start electrum again (and pray)
Now you can:
5.1. Go to wallet->seed and write down safely that seed.
or
5.2. go to Addresses tab, check the ones with money on them (if by chance you see the money), r-click, private key, safely save the priv key(s)

6. Install safely the newest electrum from electrum.org, use the seed or priv key and you should be ok.
If you reached this point and need exact steps for the newest electrum, just ask.

[Red-Apple]

have you tried opening the file in a text editor?

I doubt it'd help to obtain necessary data (private key or seed) which always encrypted, unlike address, public key, etc. which might be not encrypted.

that is true but as i said in the line before last, this step can clarify the problem and the direction in which you could go next.
for instance if you open the file in a text editor and see readable text showing a clear JSON file containing addresses, transactions and all the other fields then you can be sure that the file is not corrupted and the problem was the conversion.
but if the file is opened and you see random characters that are not human readable then either the file is corrupted beyond repair or it is not an electrum wallet. it might have also been encrypted by him using something else like another software.

by the way old versions didn't have the option to encrypt the whole wallet. they only encrypted seed or private keys. so there is no way you could see anything unreadable.

[nc50lc]

In addition to my post above, this statement quite bugged me:

In 2015, I bought 0.7 bitcoins for which I paid about $ 70.

Bitcoin never dropped below $200 in 2015 and it's impossible to buy 0.7BTC at $70 value.
If it was 2013, the price made sense (are you unsure of the date?) and the highest version that you must use is 1.9.x (like the example).

If it's some sort of a bargain and bought in Q4 2015, the highest version that you must try is 2.7 because of another wallet file format upgrade:

# Release 2.7.0 (Oct 2 2016)

 * The wallet file format has been upgraded. This upgrade is not
   backward compatible, which means that a wallet upgraded to the 2.7
   format will not be readable by earlier versions of
   Electrum. Multiple accounts inside the same wallet are not
   supported in the new format; the Qt GUI will propose to split any
   wallet that has several accounts. Make sure that you have saved
   your seed phrase before you upgrade Electrum.

But as I said, in every attempt, always delete the "tempxx" wallet file and re-copy and rename your "original" wallet file to the wallet directory.