'Address is not in Wallet' when I try to sign a message

[Doctorv5000]

Hi. I have generated a new receive address in Electrum 3.3.8, and that address already has some transactions.

Later on I wanted to sign a message to that address so I went to Tools - Sign/Verify Message. I wrote the message, included the address, and hit sign; but a pop up window then says 'address is not in wallet'.

I verified the address on a block explorer and it is correct. What am I doing wrong? Please help.

[HCP]

Couple of questions that might help eliminate some possibilities for what is wrong...

- Does the address show in the Electrum "addresses" tab? (might need to use View -> Show Addresses)
- At the top of your wallet in Electrum, does it say: [Standard], [imported] and does it say [watching only]?
- When you are signing the message, I assume you are putting the address in the box labelled "address" and not just in the "message" part?
- Does the address start with a "1", a "3" or "bc1"?

[Doctorv5000]

Hi, thanks for a lot replying

- Does the address show in the Electrum "addresses" tab? (might need to use View -> Show Addresses)
I am able to view addresses. However, that particular address is not on the list. And I find it weird because Electrum generated it for me

- At the top of your wallet in Electrum, does it say: [Standard], [imported] and does it say [watching only]?
Standard

- When you are signing the message, I assume you are putting the address in the box labelled "address" and not just in the "message" part?
Yes, I'm putting the address in the address part and the message alone at the top

- Does the address start with a "1", a "3" or "bc1"?
It starts with a 1

[o_e_l_e_o]

However, that particular address is not on the list. And I find it weird because Electrum generated it for me

Here is your issue. The address you are using is not part of the wallet you are trying to sign a message with. How did you generate that address? You should first make sure that you are using a legitimate copy of Electrum, as malicious copies have been known to generate fake addresses. Did you download it from electrum.org? Did you verify it before installing?

Are you sure you have opened the correct wallet file, and the address you are trying to sign with doesn't belong to a different wallet?

If you are definitely using a legitimate version of Electrum, and are definitely in the correct wallet file, then try going to console and pasting in the following:

Code:

wallet.change_gap_limit(100)

This will generate the next 100 addresses from your wallet. Check if your address is now shown.

[khaled0111]

Since it's not a watching-only wallet then most likely you have opened the wrong wallet file not the one which was used to generate the address you want to sign with.
From the file menu click open then choose the correct wallet file.
To know if the address belongs to the open wallet, check the addresses tab as suggested by HCP or from the console, type:

Code:

ismine(address)

if it returns true then you are good to go.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The correct syntax is actually:

Code:

ismine("address")

This isn't going to help in this case, though. ismine only scans addresses already visible on the addresses tab, which OP has already checked. To scan for additional addresses that Electrum may have generated, then you need to increase the gap limit by using the command I shared in my previous post.

[Doctorv5000]

Hi. Thanks a lot to both of you. I did that and checked but the address still wasn't there.

I went down a rabbit hole of checking all addresses linked to the 3 transactions with that address, and found that it was MY error. The address I kept thinking was generated by Electrum, wasn't, smh. I should have written it down before. I'm still relatively new to this.
The one I thought was mine is a type of escrow address that I can use for a service but the real one I generated from Electrum a while back was different.

Very sorry to have wasted your time. I even made a Reddit account recently only for this issue in r/Electrum, lol. Gonna have to find out how to delete it.

Thanks again! At least I learned some valuable info.

[pooya87]

There is no way to delete  the imported address from Electrum. You need to get used of living with it or create new wallet and swap all funds to that wallet. You know, to avoid such embarrassment in the future you could attach to each Electrum's address the tag which would give you a relevant hint such as "imported from...", "receiving from..", "sending to.." etc.. That's up to your imagination how to tag addresses in your wallet.

you can't delete an address from a standard wallet which was created using your seed. the imported addresses in an imported wallet are delectable as it is the nature of the wallet. all you have to do is to right click that address and select "Remove from wallet" option.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yeah, I import and delete individual keys in Electrum all the time from a wallet dedicated for that very purpose. If you are using a HD wallet, you cannot import or delete keys or addresses.

-snip-

No problem at all, happy to help.

For future, writing down addresses often isn't the best solution either. They aren't in an easy to read format, and it is easy to make mistakes. A better solution is to double check in Electrum itself every time you are about to use an address to make sure that it is definitely correct.