BTC Recover Symbol Issue

[chris1269]

Morning all,

So I’ve taken on the challenge of brute forcing my core wallet (forgotten password). BTCrecover & Python have been fully installed and work well. Generating password lists and trying them against my wallet.

My issue is, I need to use a specific character in my token file. Character being £. Each time I add this character as a token in my .txt file and “list passwords”. An error returns. As soon as I take this character off the token list. Procedure runs as normal. Im certain the £ (GBP) is there and must be used.

“BTCrecover.py: error: token on line 2 has character with code point 194 > max (127 / ASCII) See the Unicode support section in the tutorial”.

Has anyone experienced this or a similarly issue with a special character / any possible solutions?

Many thanks in advance, Chris

[NotATether]

BTCrecover's Unicode support guide at https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover/blob/master/TUTORIAL.md#unicode-support says you need to pass the --utf8 command line option to enable processing of Unicode characters, otherwise you get that above error.

You also must make sure you save the token file in the UTF-8 (BOM) format. In particular, do not save it as ANSI or UTF-16 or BTCrecover will not be able to read it properly.

[chris1269]

NotATether,

Many thanks for your reply. It’s really appreciated. I’m a bit of a novice. I understand - - utf8 has to be put as a command. Where and when do I input this into command prompt? Before my - - listpass etc?

Many thanks in advance, C

[o_e_l_e_o]

It shouldn't matter where you put the --utf8 option. Feel free to put it before --listpass if you want. It also works just fine if you put it at the end. I just did a few local tests using the "£" symbol, and as long as you save your tokens file as UTF-8 encoded as explained above, it all works just fine.

For future reference, if you need any more help, use the following link: https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/. The link NotATether has shared above is for an old, no longer supported version (gurnec as opposed to 3rdIteration). While the advice is the same in this case, it might not be for any other problems or issues which arise.

[chris1269]

o_e_l_e_o,

Many thanks dude. All sorted. £ symbol accepted. Currently working it’s way through 9 million combinations. I think il have to work on the token a little.

Thankyou both for your guidance!

Cheers, C

[o_e_l_e_o]

Many thanks dude. All sorted. £ symbol accepted. Currently working it’s way through 9 million combinations. I think il have to work on the token a little.

What's your ETA for 9 million passwords?

If it is very large, there are a couple of options available to you to bring it down, other than just narrowing your search. Since it is a Bitcoin Core wallet you are brute forcing, you can experience a significant speed up if you switch to using your GPU over your CPU. This could be over 100x faster depending on your exact hardware. The information on how to do this is here: https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/GPU_Acceleration/

Alternatively, or in addition to GPU acceleration, if you have more than one device you can split the work across multiple devices to speed up the process. Note this is not just as simple as running the same command on each device, since each device would then search through the same passwords in the same order and simply duplicate the work rather than split it up. See this page for how to do this properly: https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Usage_Examples/2020-05-23_multi_device_descrambling_12_word_seed_with_extras/Example_multi_device_descrambling_12_word_seed_with_extras/#running-btcrecover

[chris1269]

Hello mate,

ETA for 9.75 million passwords was 3 days. It’s slowly working it’s way through it all. I’m just hoping my password is contained within the token file I’ve made.

I remember the first word the 4 “symbols” after are a blur!!

Il keep you updated! All the help is really appreciated, il take a look at the following links. Should I be have the dreaded “search exhausted”. Are there actually any genuine, legitimate people who offer the brute force service for commission?

Cheers, Chris

[o_e_l_e_o]

Are there actually any genuine, legitimate people who offer the brute force service for commission?

The only one I am aware of is Dave from Wallet Recovery Services. His account and link to his website are here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=130960. I've never used them myself, but they have been around for many years, have some positive feedback, and I am not aware of any scam accusations against them, so that's probably the best you will find. Having said that, he still cannot brute force a difficult password from scratch with nothing to go on, and will start from the same basis that you have started from with a known word and unknown symbols following it.

Can I just check you were running --listpass just as a test, and not including it as an option in your actual brute force attempt? --listpass simply makes btcrecover print the possible password combinations on screen as opposed to actually try them against your wallet file. See here for its usage: https://btcrecover.readthedocs.io/en/latest/TUTORIAL/#testing-your-config

I'm more than happy to help you tweak either your tokens file or command line prompt if your initial search is unsuccessful.

[chris1269]

Many thanks for the info dude. I’ve read plenty about Dave and come to the same conclusion as you. He’s ultimately doing what I’m doing at the moment, however without a doubt much better equipment than what I’ve got!

We’re down to 2 million passwords! So there’s still hope. Correct, im not including the — list pass. I ran that command to see how many combinations there are. Then removing and continuing with the brute force.

The token list is very basic. If we have no joy, I’d massively appreciate any help tweaking it. I’m getting a little confused with the exact way to write things to guarantee certain words are there and their position. I should have a result within the next 24 hours. If no joy, we can discuss further. If your efforts help solve it, il drop you a little tip!

Cheers, Chris

[chris1269]

9 million done. Search exhausted 😴

[o_e_l_e_o]

No luck?

Next step then is to examine your tokens file and the command you are running. Can you paste both in to a post here so we can take a look? Feel free to change things in your tokens file to something generic (Word1, Word2, etc.) for example if you don't want to reveal anything about your password. The important thing is to know the structure of your password and see how that matches against the tokens file you are using - you can swap words in and out yourself in private.