Electrum Issue

[sky_hooke]

I am using electrum with a hardware wallet. It is connected to my node. This has worked very well for a long time, however, recently the electrum SPV keeps stating it is "synchronizing."

It will flash my bitcoin balance and then immediately go back to synchronizing. 

And to be honest, I don't really understand what the electrum server does.

Has anybody experienced this problem in the past?  Any solutions?

Sincerely,

Sky Hooke

[1714038873]

1714038873

[1714038873]

1714038873

[Charles-Tim]

It is connected to my node

Electrum is not a full node wallet, it is a SPV wallet like you later mentioned.

Are you using the latest version of Electrum, try to run the latest version of Electrum.

[sky_hooke]

Thank you for the reply. I have updated electrum to the most recent version and verified the signatures.  The issue persists.

I am having no problem sending the bitcoin....just can't understand why it seems to constantly be synchronizing.

[ranochigo]

What Electrum server are you running?

[DireWolfM14]

You make it sound as if you have your own Electrum server running, is that the case?  Have you tried allowing your Electrum client to connect to a server automatically?  If not, I would suggest trying that to determine where the issue is coming from.

[BitMaxz]

There might be something from your pc that prevents Electrum to sync to the online server.

Do you have anti virus? Try to disable it and check if it will sync if not try to change your DNS.

You can use any of these

Code:

Google DNS
8.8.8.8
8.8.4.4

Cloudflare DNS
1.1.1.1
1.0.0.1

Then update here if it works.

[nc50lc]

-snip-
I am having no problem sending the bitcoin....just can't understand why it seems to constantly be synchronizing.

Enabling logging may give you a hint on why it's synchronizing when not needed.

You can enable it in:  "Tools->Preference->Write logs to file"
And the log file will be saved in: <electrum data directory>/logs

[pooya87]

It is connected to my node.
Has anybody experienced this problem in the past?  Any solutions?

Have you tried connecting to another Electrum node instead of your own and see if that solves it, the problem may be with the node you are connecting to.

Other than that the sync issues are either connectivity issue which can be solved by changing server, whitelisting in firewall, etc. or they are bugs. For example there has been some bugs related to transaction parsing where user received a tx containing certain scripts that would break Electrum and prevent syncing from progressing. You could figure this out by looking at the logs. https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/faq.html#how-to-enable-debug-logging

[sky_hooke]

What Electrum server are you running?

Thank you for the response. I am an incompetent basically. I am running a full node using @getumbrel.

I have been running it for over 6 months and using it with COLD CARD and ELECTRUM - the network circle in the bottom right has always been the color blue. This indicates I am successfully connected to my node - or at least the umbrel site indicates so.

I unchecked the "select server automatically" and pasted the data from my umbrel node (I don't want to paste here for privacy concerns), but I pasted that in the area where it says "server." 

Then, under proxy I have selected TOR PROXY at 9050.

Interestingly, that button for TOR PROXY had disappeared this morning, no idea why, but I couldnt connect at all. So I had to download this program called "homebrew" and then download TOR. Now that part is working again, but still constantly syncing.

I'll be honest, I dont know the difference between and "electrum server" and a full node.  I do not understand the difference b/w the TOR browswer and the TOR I was forced to download this morning.


Other Questions I am now struggling with:

What does it mean to "install Tor?" Why did the tor proxy tab at 9050 disappear? and then I have to dl tor?
Why are the address for my node different on wasabi versus electrum?
What is the difference b/w an "electrum server" and my full node?

I guess I am just confused AF. Thank you for your response. Any further thoughts to help me better understand this issue?

Sincerely,

Sky_hooke

[Husires]

What does it mean to "install Tor?" Why did the tor proxy tab at 9050 disappear? and then I have to dl tor?
Why are the address for my node different on wasabi versus electrum?
What is the difference b/w an "electrum server" and my full node?

1. TOR, proxy, VPN, ...etc. They are all used to enhance privacy, if you don't know how to set them up, you should choose the basic ones. Remember, it is your privacy that will be affected, not the security of your wallet.
2. The servers do not generate the address, but the wallets. HD wallet addresses are generated from seeds, which differ from one seed to another and cannot be the same.
3. AFAIK, the only differance is addressing way, full does does not index the blockchain  by address, which electrum server does.

[ranochigo]

I have been running it for over 6 months and using it with COLD CARD and ELECTRUM - the network circle in the bottom right has always been the color blue. This indicates I am successfully connected to my node - or at least the umbrel site indicates so.

I unchecked the "select server automatically" and pasted the data from my umbrel node (I don't want to paste here for privacy concerns), but I pasted that in the area where it says "server." 

Then, under proxy I have selected TOR PROXY at 9050.

I assume this is done when you were using your Electrum? The blue bubble appears if you're connected over the proxy or Tor that is set within Electrum. If you did not specify the server before that, then the server would've been random.

Interestingly, that button for TOR PROXY had disappeared this morning, no idea why, but I couldnt connect at all. So I had to download this program called "homebrew" and then download TOR. Now that part is working again, but still constantly syncing.

Within Electrum?

I'll be honest, I dont know the difference between and "electrum server" and a full node.  I do not understand the difference b/w the TOR browswer and the TOR I was forced to download this morning.

An Electrum server is different from a full node. Electrum servers communicates differently from a full node, so you can't just specify any random node as your server. It has to be an Electrum server, so I'm assuming your umbrel supports it. Tor browsers are hardened browsers that is used to access the web using Tor while a Tor daemon doesn't necessarily include that.

What does it mean to "install Tor?" Why did the tor proxy tab at 9050 disappear? and then I have to dl tor?

You've always had to download Tor. Either Tor browser or Tor daemon, the only difference being the ports.

Why are the address for my node different on wasabi versus electrum?

Are you connecting to your node correctly?

What is the difference b/w an "electrum server" and my full node?

Electrum servers are designed to communicate with Electrum clients while full nodes do so with other full nodes.

[bob123]

I do not understand the difference b/w the TOR browswer and the TOR I was forced to download this morning.

The Tor browser is - as the name says - a browser routing you via the Tor network.
The Tor "you were forced to download" (?) most likely was the Tor package which allows you to set up a proxy on your machine to route all traffic via Tor instead of just your Browsers traffic.

Why are the address for my node different on wasabi versus electrum?

What address? IP address or bitcoin addresses?
The IP should be the same (or you have an IPv4 and IPv6 and you therefore see 2 different IPs). Your bitcoin addresses are not related to your node at all, they are generated and derived on your machine only.

What is the difference b/w an "electrum server" and my full node?

A full node is a node participating in the bitcoin network.
An electrum server speaks a different protocol and talks to electrum clients.

[Abdussamad]

Why would you connect to your own electrum server over tor? Remove the tor proxy settings in electrum and see if that fixes your problem.

[bob123]

Why would you connect to your own electrum server over tor?

Maybe to not have any Bitcoin-related traffic appear in a DPI system?
Or to not have the ISP know OP is using BTC?

Without knowing where geographically his node is located (i.e. if it is not a second machine 1 hop away from his main pc), there can be multiple reasons why one would want to connect to his own node / electrum server via Tor.
Privacy is the number 1 reason here i'd say.

[nc50lc]

Interestingly, that button for TOR PROXY had disappeared this morning, no idea why, but I couldnt connect at all. So I had to download this program called "homebrew" and then download TOR. Now that part is working again, but still constantly syncing.
-snip-

The checkbox in proxy setting: "Use Tor proxy at port 9050/9150" will appear only if Tor or Tor browser is running and connected to the Tor network.
It will instantly appear/disappear when you're connected/disconnected to Tor network:


And you still haven't checked the logs to see if you can find an entry related to the re-sync issue.
You don't have to post them if you don't want to, just check the logs for errors.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Or to not have the ISP know OP is using BTC?

If you connected to your Electrum server via LAN through port 50002, your ISP won't know a thing.

I think it's pretty clear that if you want to personally use your electrum server, there's isn't such much point to do it through tor; your Bitcoin node could then broadcast your transaction through tor, but transferring the signed transaction from the Electrum server to your Bitcoin node through tor while both run under the same router makes things more complex and provides the same privacy.

[bob123]

Or to not have the ISP know OP is using BTC?

If you connected to your Electrum server via LAN through port 50002, your ISP won't know a thing.

That's the reason i wrote:

Without knowing where geographically his node is located (i.e. if it is not a second machine 1 hop away from his main pc), there can be multiple reasons why one would want to connect to his own node / electrum server via Tor.

You can't just assume that everyone always connects to his/her full node 1 hop away in a local network. 

I think it's pretty clear that if you want to personally use your electrum server, there's isn't such much point to do it through tor; your Bitcoin node could then broadcast your transaction through tor, but transferring the signed transaction from the Electrum server to your Bitcoin node through tor while both run under the same router makes things more complex and provides the same privacy.

Did i miss something or where did OP mention that he will only connect to his electrum server within the same local network?
It definitely makes sense to connect to your own electrum server via Tor if you are doing so via the internet and don't want others to know you are sending/receiving bitcoin-related traffic.

If it is completely and solely within the local network, then yes. Connecting within a local network via Tor does not make sense. Even if you want to hide that from other network users, you would just tunnel the traffic and not route it via Tor.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Did i miss something or where did OP mention that he will only connect to his electrum server within the same local network?

I wrongly assumed it.

It definitely makes sense to connect to your own electrum server via Tor if you are doing so via the internet and don't want others to know you are sending/receiving bitcoin-related traffic.

No one will know what you're doing if you connect to your electrum server through port 50002. Information won't be transparent, both your main & remote pc will communicate using encryption. Unless I missed something, it doesn't make sense to me. You'd use Tor if the server wasn't yours and you wanted to protect your privacy.

[bob123]

No one will know what you're doing if you connect to your electrum server through port 50002. Information won't be transparent, both your main & remote pc will communicate using encryption. Unless I missed something, it doesn't make sense to me. You'd use Tor if the server wasn't yours and you wanted to protect your privacy.

Actually everyone who can listen to the traffic inbetween (including the ISP) knows that you are communicating with the server. They just don't know what is being communicated.
TLS does not protect against metadata analysis in terms of knowing when does who communicate. It just protects the content.

If the Electrum server is actually connected to the bitcoin network (which it has to be to retrieve up-to-date information), then it is straight forward to deem that server and anyone connecting to it as a bitcoin user.
TLS does not protect against that since it does not hide your identity.


The main question here indeed is whether OP cares that other entities might know he has something to do with bitcoin. If the answer is yes -> Tor is required. If the answer is no -> TLS is definitely good enough.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Actually everyone who can listen to the traffic inbetween (including the ISP) knows that you are communicating with the server. They just don't know what is being communicated.

Then what you meant wasn't privacy, but anonymity.

If the Electrum server is actually connected to the bitcoin network (which it has to be to retrieve up-to-date information), then it is straight forward to deem that server and anyone connecting to it as a bitcoin user.

That's true if the Bitcoin node your remote pc runs isn't connected to Tor. Otherwise, they can't conclude that your remote pc runs a Bitcoin node and thus, that you're a Bitcoin user.

The main question here indeed is whether OP cares that other entities might know he has something to do with bitcoin. If the answer is yes -> Tor is required. If the answer is no -> TLS is definitely good enough.

I think we've confused that the remote PC runs both an Electrum server and a Bitcoin node. My response went to Abdussamad who I find him correct. Whether you want to remain private or not, your connection to your Electrum server doesn't matter as long as your Bitcoin node transfers information through Tor.