I was fucked, do not repeat same mistakes as me

[The Cryptovator]

Thanks for sharing your problems with the community, everyone could take a lesson from here. That's the reason why I have been discouraging store your credential to the online or offline machine. I have been writing all my credentials on my daily note (paper). Once I forgot any of them including google 2FA, then I look on my note for it. A few months back I changed my phone and everything recovered from my notes. Hope you learn from your mistakes and save all your credential on hard paper.

[bittraffic]

Congrats that you still have the copy after recovering your file from the old hard drive.  I have not experienced such but I almost when I lost my phone which was used for binance and this phone is where I installed my wallet. But I do know I have a copy of my private keys in my USB drive. It's good practice to have a copy of everything.

[Findingnemo]

Thanks for sharing your problems with the community, everyone could take a lesson from here. That's the reason why I have been discouraging store your credential to the online or offline machine. I have been writing all my credentials on my daily note (paper). Once I forgot any of them including google 2FA, then I look on my note for it. A few months back I changed my phone and everything recovered from my notes. Hope you learn from your mistakes and save all your credential on hard paper.

This is one of the way to store our wallet credentials for very long term and I am also thinking about having all the important codes in a single diary or something because even though I am having codes in offline drive their lasting nature is in big question which I realized from one threads here recently.

But while writing down things on paper note books their durability is in big question. ( and security if someone stores millions worth of assets)

[BITCOIN4X]

Your experience is very valuable to us, at least that's what I can say after you went through that mess. After I read some safety advice in your thread then I think I still have a good choice to at least not suffer the same fate as you and that is.

• Write down all credentials regarding important data on multiple flashdisk and store them safely in different places.
• Write it down on paper and make several copies and keep them safely in different places

I've been using both of these security method for a long time and it would be helpful if one of them was missing. We still can't trust all the important data on our Android phone, something can still happen with the phone and it's like being stolen or all the data is lost.

[LTU_btc]

OP, your story is really scary, but at least it have good ending. After reading it, probably I should rethink how I keep my data.
Personally for me pattern is most convenient way to unlock phone, but I understand how easy to forget it, especially if you haven't used that phone for a while. Though, same can be said about PIN codes. So, because of this I use same pattern on every phone. I know it's not good idea in terms of security, but unfortunately my memory isn't good enough to remember everything. But even in worst case scenarion I would be able to unlock my phone with fingerprint.
But now I should re-consider where do I keep my backups and other sensitive files. After reading this topic I have some doubts. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Thanks for sharing your problems with the community, everyone could take a lesson from here. That's the reason why I have been discouraging store your credential to the online or offline machine. I have been writing all my credentials on my daily note (paper). Once I forgot any of them including google 2FA, then I look on my note for it. A few months back I changed my phone and everything recovered from my notes. Hope you learn from your mistakes and save all your credential on hard paper.

I don't think that paper is more reliable than online or offline machines. If you write everything on paper, you should protect it very well. Water, fire and even sunlight is dangerous for paper. Offcourse, there is some ways how to protect your sensitive data, for example, laminate paper.

[hatshepsut93]

And people, especially beginners, are still messing with brainwallets, thinking that they have perfect memory and can remember long phrases for years without even practicing repeating them. Writing down some of your most critical passwords on paper and storing them in safe place is actually not such a horrible idea like some would say, because the risk of storing passwords only in memory is usually bigger than the risk of someone stealing your passwords physically.

[libert19]

Thanks for sharing your problems with the community, everyone could take a lesson from here. That's the reason why I have been discouraging store your credential to the online or offline machine. I have been writing all my credentials on my daily note (paper). Once I forgot any of them including google 2FA, then I look on my note for it. A few months back I changed my phone and everything recovered from my notes. Hope you learn from your mistakes and save all your credential on hard paper.

But while writing down things on paper note books their durability is in big question. ( and security if someone stores millions worth of assets)

One thing I learned from this incident is that, it's better to have backup than to not have it because you question it's security and be locked out of your accounts/funds forever.

[joniboini]

Writing down some of your most critical passwords on paper and storing them in safe place is actually not such a horrible idea like some would say, because the risk of storing passwords only in memory is usually bigger than the risk of someone stealing your passwords physically.

Yea, especially if the crime rate in your area is so low. As long as you store it in a secure place (such as your own room) with enhanced protection it should serve as a good back-up. Some reports even suggested that this kind of data breach happens more often in workplace instead of your home.

[bakasabo]

I had almost identical situation with a new phone.

I have restored all backup files on a new phone and was going to erase my old one, when I though I should check how everything works on new one. All the passwords and accounts on social media app were working perfectly, except Google Authenticator. It was empty. Only then I have realized, that I havent saved QR 2FA pictures or "special codes to add 2FA manually to app".

If I had erased my old phone, it would be really hard to restore access to all exchanges and wallet, not speaking if it would be really possible to do.

It took me several hours to login to exchange or wallet, switch off 2FA security, erase it on old phone, set 2FA again on new phone. All this mixed will all that email and sms confirmations. It is good when you have few accounts only. But if you have registered like on 10-15 exchanges, all with different email and etc. Horrible.

[CryptocurencyKing]

How your being security concious can cause you everything! So heart touching a story, it brought me to the spotlight of some of the frustration you might have been encountering during that phase of trying a possible recovery of data.
We often preach the security awareness path of ensuring that your account and related data are properly safe even at times discuss on hardware wallets but often don't see the validity of these hardware wallets as also a backup system for the softwares because it actually is. Following the fact that, one can face equipment damage, burglary, natural or artificial desaster that could result in damage and lots of others, you've got to improvise a way of recovering or easily accessing data stored in safe systems.

Muscle memory always puts your hands in a certain pattern that it almost direct itself in reflecting what's on your mind on the screen. Like your typing on your device compared to someone else's device, it could never be the same especially when the persons device is structurally different from yours even with the same placement of features. It's a display of how frequent you've done a thing but, being nervous or mentally unstable can disrupt the whole thing.

Can you really sleep peacefully on your problems? Because, I can't except, I've got a plan on set to be tried out and it's got a 70-90% success else, the problems could just be a nightmare that bugs me till it's either solved or given up on for other chances. I'm yet to try out sleeping on your problems though but, I hope I don't have to.

[libert19]

Can you really sleep peacefully on your problems? Because, I can't except, I've got a plan on set to be tried out and it's got a 70-90% success else, the problems could just be a nightmare that bugs me till it's either solved or given up on for other chances. I'm yet to try out sleeping on your problems though but, I hope I don't have to.

Well, I didn't say I sleep peacefully , I was frustrated, pondering on remembering pattern and I eventually slept

[Mighty_crypt]

Hmmm, I've changed my smartphone 3 times since I entered crypto space and I'm also a 2FA user on almost every thing on my phone, even emails but one thing I never forget about is moving every thing from the old phone into the new phone, I won't dare forget this part as it's so dangerous, I had to go to all websites and exchanges to off 2fa though and that took me days, I'm happy you solved things out

[casperBGD]

Did you try to recover your google account with text message option?

It is possible only if you verified/added your mobile number to your google account, this looks simple way but it only work when you have the mobile number added.

I mentioned that in op already.

Really? Or I am missing to read that part again?

Please highlight or bold those part which you mentioned in OP about recovering through text message codes which will send to our mobile number.

"I had disabled recovery phone number to make myself safe from sim swapping attacks and no recovery email either."

it sounds scary, but i really do not understand how can you forget your pattern, how long did you used your old phone, seems that i draw that pattern in my sleep, because i use the phone for at least two years
or you are using several phones, and then you did not save this particular pattern?

you can draw your pattern on a piece of paper, if you think that you will lose/forget it one more time, it could be part of broader drawing that you will hang as art on the wall

[libert19]

Did you try to recover your google account with text message option?

It is possible only if you verified/added your mobile number to your google account, this looks simple way but it only work when you have the mobile number added.

I mentioned that in op already.

Really? Or I am missing to read that part again?

Please highlight or bold those part which you mentioned in OP about recovering through text message codes which will send to our mobile number.

"I had disabled recovery phone number to make myself safe from sim swapping attacks and no recovery email either."

it sounds scary, but i really do not understand how can you forget your pattern, how long did you used your old phone, seems that i draw that pattern in my sleep, because i use the phone for at least two years
or you are using several phones, and then you did not save this particular pattern?

you can draw your pattern on a piece of paper, if you think that you will lose/forget it one more time, it could be part of broader drawing that you will hang as art on the wall

Well, I kinda mentioned the reason in op why I forgot the forgot the pattern. I'm pin lock guy from now on.

[Ryushin]

it's very bad news, at the same time you should have multiple backups which mean in your pc, a safe cloud backup, and if you want you can write it down in a notebook, this happens to me and save my day, and a very important thing backup your phone, and make sure that your new phone can be imported to a new phone, is your authenticator connected with an exchange?

Multiple backup can be dangerous, saving private keys in cloud storage is even worse, private keys are meant to be kept from any online storage or email accounts, they are safer offline and if you want to in multiple places make sure they are all offline

[Rabi3]

that must be so frustrating to you, thank god everything went good at the end, i almost had the same problem once, because my phone didn't turn on one day after a lot of tries, but thank god it was just the battery, it's really nice of you to share awareness about something like this, you might be the reason to prevent it from happening to someone else.

[libert19]

it's very bad news, at the same time you should have multiple backups which mean in your pc, a safe cloud backup, and if you want you can write it down in a notebook, this happens to me and save my day, and a very important thing backup your phone, and make sure that your new phone can be imported to a new phone, is your authenticator connected with an exchange?

Multiple backup can be dangerous, saving private keys in cloud storage is even worse, private keys are meant to be kept from any online storage or email accounts, they are safer offline and if you want to in multiple places make sure they are all offline

Well, the backup was encrypted with the password only known to me.

that must be so frustrating to you, thank god everything went good at the end, i almost had the same problem once, because my phone didn't turn on one day after a lot of tries, but thank god it was just the battery, it's really nice of you to share awareness about something like this, you might be the reason to prevent it from happening to someone else.

Thank you and yes making others aware and not repeating same mistake as me was the purpose of creating the thread.

[pawanjain]

You made the backups at 3 separate locations "Google drive, box cloud storage, android file manager" but I wonder why didn't you consider saving a backup in an offline storage like HDD/USB/Memory card. I have personally reset my phone several times and had to regenerate the 2FA codes every time but never was I worried about my crypto holdings since I always had a backup of it in my HDD.
I know how painful it is to lose the google 2FA and thanks for making this post. I will now regenerate the backup code and save it offline in my HDD.

[libert19]

You made the backups at 3 separate locations "Google drive, box cloud storage, android file manager" but I wonder why didn't you consider saving a backup in an offline storage like HDD/USB/Memory card. I have personally reset my phone several times and had to regenerate the 2FA codes every time but never was I worried about my crypto holdings since I always had a backup of it in my HDD.
I know how painful it is to lose the google 2FA and thanks for making this post. I will now regenerate the backup code and save it offline in my HDD.

Yes it was my mistake, thankfully I did save it in my hdd otherwise this wouldn't have happy ending.

[OasisDre]

OP, your story is really scary, but at least it have good ending. After reading it, probably I should rethink how I keep my data.
Personally for me pattern is most convenient way to unlock phone, but I understand how easy to forget it, especially if you haven't used that phone for a while. Though, same can be said about PIN codes. So, because of this I use same pattern on every phone. I know it's not good idea in terms of security, but unfortunately my memory isn't good enough to remember everything. But even in worst case scenarion I would be able to unlock my phone with fingerprint.
But now I should re-consider where do I keep my backups and other sensitive files. After reading this topic I have some doubts. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Thanks for sharing your problems with the community, everyone could take a lesson from here. That's the reason why I have been discouraging store your credential to the online or offline machine. I have been writing all my credentials on my daily note (paper). Once I forgot any of them including google 2FA, then I look on my note for it. A few months back I changed my phone and everything recovered from my notes. Hope you learn from your mistakes and save all your credential on hard paper.

I don't think that paper is more reliable than online or offline machines. If you write everything on paper, you should protect it very well. Water, fire and even sunlight is dangerous for paper. Offcourse, there is some ways how to protect your sensitive data, for example, laminate paper.

If paper isn't safe for private keys so is the same with any physical objects too, either hardware wallet or PC because there isn't anything that is fire proof, even wallet can damage hardware wallets too, it's just easier to choose anything offline because online is more risky than offline