2013 wallet with known passphrase still incorrect

[StaleCoinz]

Hi all!
I've dabbled in bitcoin as 'early' as 2013. I used the bitcoin-qt wallet on macos back then. Must've been mountain lion or mavericks.

in 2015 I apparently encrypted my wallet (which I remember doing, just not exactly when). I know for sure I used a particular passphrase. version 0.20.1 of the client doesn't accept this passphrase. I believe I also had this same issue in 2015, which made me give up on bitcoin at that time.

After using google and reading the forums I've found a few hints as to what might be going on. It seems however, that all the solutions use software that is no longer current or available, or (might) have been hacked to steal wallets.

As it currently stands:

• client 0.20.1 can read the wallet, and shows the original transaction of my coins being added. I don't suspect any corruption issues.
• but since older versions of the client only show squares instead of text characters on the splash before they crash, I think this topic contains a few hints to what might be going on: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126791.0
• It could be that my passphrase was encoded incorrectly.
• Am I correct in assuming that extraction of the password hash would make it easier to brute force?
• What risk is involved with services that extract the hash for you? Can they steal my bitcoin? Can they crack the wallet themselves? Can it cause conflicts with transactions in the future?

[jackg]

Have you tried fiddling around with options such as caps lock and number lock first just in case that was the problem.

If you send a company the wallet hash and what you think the passphrase is they can't use the hash to build your wallet. Some prefer you send the wallet though as they are better assured you'll return the funds as it's they who need to trust you in order to do it and you'd have no incentive to pay them if trying to be anonymous at that point...

[StaleCoinz]

Have you tried fiddling around with options such as caps lock and number lock first just in case that was the problem.

Yes. I've tried with caps lock, and a few typo variations. Doing this manually is a chore though, as an alhpanumeric password of 10 characters already generates enough variations to justify automating it (just not very good at that stuff).

Since I suspect an issue with the original passphrase's character encoding in the 0.8.6 client, (see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126791.0) The exotic character sets add even more variations. It would be nice if someone could offer certainty about whether this is even a possibility. Because I think it's strange that the passphrase stopped working in 2015. I actually can't remember if I could ever unlock it using that phrase, but I do remember bitcoin-qt being buggy as all hell. frustrating me enough to the point I backed up the wallet.dat and removed the software and blockchain files.

If you send a company the wallet hash and what you think the passphrase is they can't use the hash to build your wallet. Some prefer you send the wallet though as they are better assured you'll return the funds as it's they who need to trust you in order to do it and you'd have no incentive to pay them if trying to be anonymous at that point...

So they can't steal my coins even if they have my wallet.dat and the recovered passphrase? That's sort of reassuring. I don't know if it'll be worth anyone's time since the value of the coins is just over E200,-

[bob123]

So they can't steal my coins even if they have my wallet.dat and the recovered passphrase? That's sort of reassuring.

No, that's not what he said.

If you send a company the wallet hash and what you think the passphrase is they can't use the hash to build your wallet.

If you send them a hash which they then try to bruteforce, they won't be able to steal your funds.
If you send them your wallet file, they are able to take your funds.

[HCP]

Since I suspect an issue with the original passphrase's character encoding in the 0.8.6 client, (see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126791.0)

I don't see what that thread has to do with "character encoding"? All I see in that thread is a user who claims they know their passphrase 110% and that it doesn't unlock their wallet?

The exotic character sets add even more variations. It would be nice if someone could offer certainty about whether this is even a possibility. Because I think it's strange that the passphrase stopped working in 2015. I actually can't remember if I could ever unlock it using that phrase, but I do remember bitcoin-qt being buggy as all hell. frustrating me enough to the point I backed up the wallet.dat and removed the software and blockchain files.

Does the passphrase that you believe that you used contain characters with accents and/or symbols etc?


Also, do you still have an "original" copy/backup of your 2015 wallet.dat file that you have NOT attempted to open with a newer version of Bitcoin Core? When you open wallet.dat files in newer versions of Bitcoin Core, the wallet file gets updated/modified. It might be helpful if you still have the old version of the wallet.dat to (make copies of) and "experiment" with.

You could try getting an old version of Bitcoin Core/QT from here: https://bitcoin.org/bin/ and seeing if it is able to open the old versions of your wallet.dat file and test whether the passphrase works on the old copies. If it does, you could try and dump all your private keys and then import those keys into a new version of Bitcoin Core (or a completely different wallet like Electrum etc) to recover your funds.

Again, be sure to make copies of the wallet.dat and experiment on the copies, not the original!

[Pmalek]

Are you maybe multilingual and speak more than one language where you would need to switch between those languages and adjust your keyboard language?
I am talking about the qwerty - qwertz dilemma. If I change my language to my native Croatian, the keyboard layout will be different. Especially special characters. You might be entering the correct password but in the wrong keyboard layout. Or you had the wrong layout when you initially set up your passphrase.

[Welsh]

Have you tried fiddling around with options such as caps lock and number lock first just in case that was the problem.

Yes. I've tried with caps lock, and a few typo variations. Doing this manually is a chore though, as an alhpanumeric password of 10 characters already generates enough variations to justify automating it (just not very good at that stuff).

If you aren't very good with automating stuff, that's fine as there's a few projects out there that does this for you. For example, btcrecover used to be a program that allowed you to test variations, and with you knowing most of the password it would be a decent chance of finding any errors that you may have made. However, I haven't been keeping up to date, so I can't directly recommend btcrecover, but I'm sure there's various different programs out there that are open source, and considered trustworthy.

You could potentially get someone to write up a basic python script which just attempts various combinations if you don't trust any existing software out there.

[StaleCoinz]

Since I suspect an issue with the original passphrase's character encoding in the 0.8.6 client, (see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126791.0)

I don't see what that thread has to do with "character encoding"? All I see in that thread is a user who claims they know their passphrase 110% and that it doesn't unlock their wallet?

The exotic character sets add even more variations. It would be nice if someone could offer certainty about whether this is even a possibility. Because I think it's strange that the passphrase stopped working in 2015. I actually can't remember if I could ever unlock it using that phrase, but I do remember bitcoin-qt being buggy as all hell. frustrating me enough to the point I backed up the wallet.dat and removed the software and blockchain files.

Does the passphrase that you believe that you used contain characters with accents and/or symbols etc?


Also, do you still have an "original" copy/backup of your 2015 wallet.dat file that you have NOT attempted to open with a newer version of Bitcoin Core? When you open wallet.dat files in newer versions of Bitcoin Core, the wallet file gets updated/modified. It might be helpful if you still have the old version of the wallet.dat to (make copies of) and "experiment" with.

You could try getting an old version of Bitcoin Core/QT from here: https://bitcoin.org/bin/ and seeing if it is able to open the old versions of your wallet.dat file and test whether the passphrase works on the old copies. If it does, you could try and dump all your private keys and then import those keys into a new version of Bitcoin Core (or a completely different wallet like Electrum etc) to recover your funds.

Again, be sure to make copies of the wallet.dat and experiment on the copies, not the original!

The passphrase that I believe is the correct one is just alphanumeric (so a-z, 0-9).

I have tried opening the wallet with older versions of the client which, i believe I mentioned, crashed upon loading. I experiment with copies, and keep my original wallet on my NAS (which is only locally accessible).

The other thing that is weird is the older clients seem to use a character set no longer available in MacOS, as all text in the application consists of just rectangles. This leads me to believe it has something to do with the character set being used in the original wallet passphrase that does not correspond to my current keyboard layout (even though it might represent the same characters). This is because I stumbled upon this blog post https://keychainx.medium.com/how-to-recover-a-lost-bitcoin-wallet-dat-password-4ff7704740ad

[bob123]

You could always contact some password recovery.

But i wouldn't recommend keychainx. You would be better off using Dave's recovery service. He is trusted here on this forum.
If i remember correctly, his cut is 20% if he manages to break it.

I mean, you are obviously free to try it yourself first. But if it won't work, contacting him might be worth it.

[keychainX]

Since I suspect an issue with the original passphrase's character encoding in the 0.8.6 client, (see: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=126791.0)

I don't see what that thread has to do with "character encoding"? All I see in that thread is a user who claims they know their passphrase 110% and that it doesn't unlock their wallet?

The exotic character sets add even more variations. It would be nice if someone could offer certainty about whether this is even a possibility. Because I think it's strange that the passphrase stopped working in 2015. I actually can't remember if I could ever unlock it using that phrase, but I do remember bitcoin-qt being buggy as all hell. frustrating me enough to the point I backed up the wallet.dat and removed the software and blockchain files.

Does the passphrase that you believe that you used contain characters with accents and/or symbols etc?


Also, do you still have an "original" copy/backup of your 2015 wallet.dat file that you have NOT attempted to open with a newer version of Bitcoin Core? When you open wallet.dat files in newer versions of Bitcoin Core, the wallet file gets updated/modified. It might be helpful if you still have the old version of the wallet.dat to (make copies of) and "experiment" with.

You could try getting an old version of Bitcoin Core/QT from here: https://bitcoin.org/bin/ and seeing if it is able to open the old versions of your wallet.dat file and test whether the passphrase works on the old copies. If it does, you could try and dump all your private keys and then import those keys into a new version of Bitcoin Core (or a completely different wallet like Electrum etc) to recover your funds.

Again, be sure to make copies of the wallet.dat and experiment on the copies, not the original!

The passphrase that I believe is the correct one is just alphanumeric (so a-z, 0-9).

I have tried opening the wallet with older versions of the client which, i believe I mentioned, crashed upon loading. I experiment with copies, and keep my original wallet on my NAS (which is only locally accessible).

The other thing that is weird is the older clients seem to use a character set no longer available in MacOS, as all text in the application consists of just rectangles. This leads me to believe it has something to do with the character set being used in the original wallet passphrase that does not correspond to my current keyboard layout (even though it might represent the same characters). This is because I stumbled upon this blog post https://keychainx.medium.com/how-to-recover-a-lost-bitcoin-wallet-dat-password-4ff7704740ad

Try btcrecover from github together wtih your passphrase, does it show the passphrase as correct?

You can find it here.
https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover
Good luck
/KX