RBF or CPFP transactions if I reinstall my computer and lose transaction history

[tranthidung]

Hi all,

I reinstall my Windows early today, and yeah reinstalled my Electrum wallet. This is my first time to do this, so after using my old seeds to create wallet, I lost my transaction history inside the wallet.

The problem is yesterday I made a transaction at 1 satoshi/ byte, and today I would like to use Replace-by-fee (RBF) or Child-pay-for-parent (CPFP) transactions to boost yesterday transaction - that has not yet confirmed.

Can I do this with the wallet without transaction history?

Thanks for all your help, guys.

[mindrust]

Hi all,

I reinstall my Windows early today, and yeah reinstalled my Electrum wallet. This is my first time to do this, so after using my old seeds to create wallet, I lost my transaction history inside the wallet.

The problem is yesterday I made a transaction at 1 satoshi/ byte, and today I would like to use Replace-by-fee (RBF) or Child-pay-for-parent (CPFP) transactions to boost yesterday transaction - that has not yet confirmed.

Can I do this with the wallet without transaction history?

Thanks for all your help, guys.

Are you sure you are on the same wallet? It seems to me you are either looking at the wrong wallet (likely) or your transaction dropped out of the mempool. (unlikely because the transaction is pretty new, 1 day old)

If you know the receiver (or the sender) address, can you post it so we can see too?

[Rath_]

The problem is yesterday I made a transaction at 1 satoshi/ byte, and today I would like to use Replace-by-fee (RBF) or Child-pay-for-parent (CPFP) transactions to boost yesterday transaction - that has not yet confirmed.

RBF can be used by the wallet which sent the transaction. CPFP can be used be the wallet which contains the destination address.

Can I do this with the wallet without transaction history?

Theoretically, you can prepare your transaction in a watch-only wallet and then sign it using the recovered wallet, but if you managed to recover the same wallet from which you sent the coins then your transaction history should have been synchronized anyway. What version of Electrum do you have?

[tranthidung]

Are you sure you are on the same wallet? It seems to me you are either looking at the wrong wallet (likely) or your transaction dropped out of the mempool. (unlikely because the transaction is pretty new, 1 day old)

As I stated in OP, I reinstalled my Windows.
Then, I tried to log in my wallet in two ways:
- With seeds
- With my wallet.dat file I saved before reinstalled Windows (but I don't remember that wallet backup is before or after I did that transaction).
Both ways lead to same result, I can not see transaction history - that is the problem because without transaction history I can not use RBF or CPFP.

For your question, it is my wallet, not wrong one.  

Theoretically, you can prepare your transaction in a watch-only wallet and then sign it using the recovered wallet, but if you managed to recover the same wallet from which you send the coins then your transaction history should be synchronized anyway. What version of Electrum do you have?

Electrum 3.3.8. It has synced with the network (green) but I have not yet seen my transaction history.

CPFP can be used be the wallet which contains the destination address.

Really, from the FAQ, CPFP can be done by senders or recipients.

• Create a “Child Pays for Parent” transaction. A CPFP is a new transaction that pays a high fee in order to compensate for the small fee of its parent transaction. It can be done by the recipient of the funds, or by the sender, if the transaction has a change output. To create a CPFP transaction right click on the unconfirmed transaction on the history tab and choose “Child pays for parent”. Set an appropriate fee and click on “OK”. A window will popup with the unsigned transaction. Click on “Sign” and then “Broadcast”.

[alani123]

As other said, are you sure you're on the same wallet? Can you check to see if you have access to the same addresses?

Maybe you'd recognize some of them, their inputs, outputs or balances. Check on the blockchain to see.

[Rath_]

Electrum 3.3.8. It has synced with the network (green) but I have not yet seen my transaction history.

Click on the green dot and tell us what the third value ('Blockchain') is equal to. You can also try using a different server.

It can be done by the recipient of the funds, or by the sender, if the transaction has a change output.

Thanks for pointing this out. As you can see, the sender can't do it at all times while the receiver can; that's why I forgot about it.

[tranthidung]

Click on the green dot and tell us what the third value is equal to.

Third value, what do you mean? Can you clarify it, please. If you meant blockchain, it is 604214 blocks.

You can also try using a different server.

There are so many servers to check and get transaction history. Can I check which server my yesterday wallet connected to? It will save lots of time.

As other said, are you sure you're on the same wallet? Can you check to see if you have access to the same addresses?

Maybe you'd recognize some of them, their inputs, outputs or balances. Check on the blockchain to see.

Sure, I can see rest of my balance and my address; just did not see transaction history.

[Rath_]

Third value, what do you mean? Can you clarify it, please. If you meant blockchain, it is 604214 blocks.

That's exactly what I meant. I assumed that you also didn't see your balance. Was the value of the unconfirmed transaction deducted from it?

There are so many servers to check and get transaction history. Can I check which server my yesterday wallet connected to? It will save lots of time.

You don't have to connect to the same server; select a random one. However, I don't think it's going to help since the 'blockchain' value I asked you for is correct. Reinstalling Electrum or trying the portable version are my last suggestions.

[tranthidung]

I assumed that you also didn't see your balance. Was the value of the unconfirmed transaction deducted from it?

What I saw is:

Balance: A [-B unconfirmed]

A is the balance of my wallet before I made that unconfirmed transaction.
B is the value of the transaction I want to boost it.

[LoyceV]

 Since I was asked to respond here, I'll highlight the things I've noticed:

As far as I know, reinstalling Electrum from seed should recover your transaction history too, just like when you import an old private key.
Wallet.dat doesn't belong to Electrum, it's used by Bitcoin Core.
CPFP can be used by the receiver only. If the sender has received change, he can use CPFP using the change.

If you're in a hurry you could probably export the private key and create a new transaction (double spend), but you'll need to know what you're doing and take safety precautions. If you're not in a hurry I'd just wait it out. Chances are though it won't confirm anymore in the weekend, and on week days fees usually go up. So it can either drop from mempool or confirm in a few days or next weekend.

[tranthidung]

As far as I know, reinstalling Electrum from seed should recover your transaction history too, just like when you import an old private key.

Hey, now I see transaction history and my transaction was confirmed about 6 hours ago. I saw it hours ago on explorer but did not check my wallet till now.
Are there any explanation why I did not see transaction history yesterday?
In my wallet, I choose "Select server automatically".

Wallet.dat doesn't belong to Electrum, it's used by Bitcoin Core.

It is my incorrect description, I am sorry. The Electrum save wallet as wallet_default but we can rename that file. Most of wallets use wallet.dat so I made mistakes due to this.

If you're in a hurry you could probably export the private key and create a new transaction (double spend), but you'll need to know what you're doing and take safety precautions. If you're not in a hurry I'd just wait it out. Chances are though it won't confirm anymore in the weekend, and on week days fees usually go up. So it can either drop from mempool or confirm in a few days or next weekend.

Thank you for the clarification. Finally, that transaction was confirmed about 6 hours ago at 1 satoshi/byte fee.

[nc50lc]

Are there any explanation why I did not see transaction history yesterday?

Your Electrum as well as your OS were newly installed, so the "blockchain_headers" file in the %appdata%/Electrum directory was wiped out.
Without it, Electrum won't be able to fetch your balance even if you're connected to a server.

It took time because it needs to be downloaded (47+MB) and the duration depends on your internet speed.

[tranthidung]

Are there any explanation why I did not see transaction history yesterday?

Your Electrum as well as your OS were newly installed, so the "blockchain_headers" file in the %appdata%/Electrum directory was wiped out.
Without it, Electrum won't be able to fetch your balance even if you're connected to a server.

It took time because it needs to be downloaded (47+MB) and the duration depends on your internet speed.

Wow, great!
Your explanation sounds reasonable but yesterday my wallet shown it was synced with network (green) and sure it was connected to a server and the status shown "Connected to 10 nodes".

Are there probabilities that my wallet is synced with network while it has not yet completely downloaded blockchain headers file?

[nc50lc]

-snip-

Wow, great!
Your explanation sounds reasonable but yesterday my wallet shown it was synced with network (green) and sure it was connected to a server and the status shown "Connected to 10 nodes".

Are there probabilities that my wallet is synced with network while it has not yet completely downloaded blockchain headers file?

There have been some sync and balance issues posted in the Electrum board with the same set-up:
connected to a server with green connection icon but a newly installed Electrum/OS.

Most of them just waited for a few minutes in order to display the proper balance/history.
I have also tested by deleting my own blockchain_headers file and it indeed didn't sync normally despite being connected to a server.
[For the test: If you use existing wallet files (not restore from SEED), the history will be displayed as "not verified"]