Electrum stuck on synchronizing

[chamfort]

Hi, my electrum has been stuck on synchronizing for the last 2 weeks. I tried the troubleshooting advice from the FAQ but it did not work:
https://bitcoinelectrum.com/frequently-asked-questions/#electrum-is-stuck-at-synchronizing-what-can-i-do-to-fix-this

I turned on the debug logging and have attached the log below. Please let me know what I can do to recover my funds! Thank you

https://pastebin.com/qHaCfKFJ

[BlackHatCoiner]

Hmm... It fails to connect to the servers. Assuming you'd reinstalled it and it didn't work, do the following: Rename or delete the “certs” directory in AppData. If you're using Windows, that's on:

Code:

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Electrum

It contains the certificates of those servers. I remember that I had the same issue and it worked when it re-downloaded the certificates.

[o_e_l_e_o]

It fails to connect to some servers, but it connects just fine to others, such as ex03.axalgo.com and caleb.vegas.

According to this GitHub issue, the warning "dropping message over 1,000,000 bytes and re-synchronizing" seems to be related to trying to receive too much data. Do one or more address in your wallet have enormous transaction histories?

[chamfort]

It fails to connect to some servers, but it connects just fine to others, such as ex03.axalgo.com and caleb.vegas.

According to this GitHub issue, the warning "dropping message over 1,000,000 bytes and re-synchronizing" seems to be related to trying to receive too much data. Do one or more address in your wallet have enormous transaction histories?

Yes that's right. One of the addresses has thousands of deposits.

[BitMaxz]

Yes that's right. One of the addresses has thousands of deposits.

That is one of the big reasons why it stuck at synchronizing your Electrum and server-side have default max message size of 1MB that is why you get warning message below

Code:

20220214T211731.809460Z |  WARNING | NotificationSession | MemoryError('dropping message over 1,000,000 bytes and re-synchronizing')

They limit the transaction to around 10k transactions so if you have one address in your Electrum wallet with 10k transactions then you will get that error and it will stuck at syncing.

Are you planning to send some funds from the wallet?

The only solution for this issue is to wait for the updated Electrum Protocol, version 1.5 but they don't release it yet.

[nc50lc]

-snip-
Yes that's right. One of the addresses has thousands of deposits.

Please let me know what I can do to recover my funds! Thank you

A possible workaround is to create an imported wallet using the private keys of all the other addresses excluding the one with thousands of deposits.
That's if the excluded address doesn't have a relatively large balance, otherwise, try to create another imported wallet with that address' PrvKey, it may work if not included with the rest.

To export the keys from your wallet: Go to 'Addresses' tab ("View->Show Addresses" to enable the tab), right-click on an address and select "private key".
Copy the private key including the script type (eg. p2pkh:Kjs539fa9A.......).

To create an imported wallet: Create a new wallet (File->Restore->Type a wallet name), select "Import Bitcoin addresses or private keys";
Then paste the keys including the script type, one line per key.

After that just make sure not to open the wallet that's failing to connect; renaming the wallet file from your drive should do the trick.

[chamfort]

Yes that's right. One of the addresses has thousands of deposits.

That is one of the big reasons why it stuck at synchronizing your Electrum and server-side have default max message size of 1MB that is why you get warning message below

Code:

20220214T211731.809460Z |  WARNING | NotificationSession | MemoryError('dropping message over 1,000,000 bytes and re-synchronizing')

They limit the transaction to around 10k transactions so if you have one address in your Electrum wallet with 10k transactions then you will get that error and it will stuck at syncing.

Are you planning to send some funds from the wallet?

The only solution for this issue is to wait for the updated Electrum Protocol, version 1.5 but they don't release it yet.

I see. I don't think I have 10,000 transactions in that wallet but it's possible. When might they release version 1.5, how long has it been in the works? I do have a significant amount of funds in that wallet.

[chamfort]

-snip-
Yes that's right. One of the addresses has thousands of deposits.

Please let me know what I can do to recover my funds! Thank you

A possible workaround is to create an imported wallet using the private keys of all the other addresses excluding the one with thousands of deposits.
That's if the excluded address doesn't have a relatively large balance, otherwise, try to create another imported wallet with that address' PrvKey, it may work if not included with the rest.

To export the keys from your wallet: Go to 'Addresses' tab ("View->Show Addresses" to enable the tab), right-click on an address and select "private key".
Copy the private key including the script type (eg. p2pkh:Kjs539fa9A.......).

To create an imported wallet: Create a new wallet (File->Restore->Type a wallet name), select "Import Bitcoin addresses or private keys";
Then paste the keys including the script type, one line per key.

After that just make sure not to open the wallet that's failing to connect; renaming the wallet file from your drive should do the trick.

Thank you. Unfortunately exporting the private key to a separate wallet didn't work, it's still stuck on synchronizing.

Is there another GUI or CLI wallet software I could use that can work with this number of transactions?

[Rickorick]

Exporting should work. Did you get any errors when you did that?

[hosseinimr93]

Is there another GUI or CLI wallet software I could use that can work with this number of transactions?

I think the best thing you can do is to use bitcoin core and run your own full node.
In this case, you will have the full blockchain on your device and there wouldn't be any problem when dealing with addresses that have big transaction history.

Just note that bitcoin core won't accept any seed phrase and you will have to import private keys.

[NeuroticFish]

Thank you. Unfortunately exporting the private key to a separate wallet didn't work, it's still stuck on synchronizing.

Was it the export stuck (should not happen, you may be doing something wrong) or the import/sync in the new wallet (still too many tx)?

Is there another GUI or CLI wallet software I could use that can work with this number of transactions?

If you have too many transactions, the server will protect itself and will not send the info. So you may want to use something that's not using an external server. And then... it will be Bitcoin Core. Just then you'll have to download the whole blockchain (~400GB), hence you'll have to be prepared (time/patience, disk space ^{unless you prune, but I don't advise that for your case}, bandwidth).


(Update: fixed typo)

[BlackHatCoiner]

Alternatively, you can try to connect to my Electrum server via Tor.

Code:

electrum --oneserver --server nw724n2hcotb2zaavdwhaudgggvpukb5ybpkz4duz7fvnp5fgkycsnad.onion:50002:s

I've set txid_limit=100000000 in my configuration file, so it should allow large queries. If I were you, though, I'd listen to @hosseinimr93 and setup my own node. It's more practical and far more private, especially if we're talking about thousands of TXOs.

[o_e_l_e_o]

There are some workarounds suggested in the GitHub issue I linked to above.

This reply from SomberNight (one of the Electrum devs) suggests trying to use fortress.qtornado.com:443:s as your server, since it has a higher limit than the default used by other servers. You'll still need to edit your client to bypass the client side limit though. You can do this by editing the variable MAX_INCOMING_MSG_SIZE in interface.py.

If doing that doesn't work, then you'll either need to host your own Electrum server where you can bump the limit up as high as you need to, or you'll need to export your private key to another client, probably Bitcoin Core.

[nc50lc]

-snip-

Thank you. Unfortunately exporting the private key to a separate wallet didn't work, it's still stuck on synchronizing.

Have you closed Electrum then renamed the wallet file that causing the issue before opening the newly created imported wallet?
That is to make sure that it wont open when you run Electrum .
Because it it's just thousands of transactions, it should work; it wouldn't if the original wallet is running in another instance or in the background since both will query the same server.

Otherwise, I'd second the suggested 'Bitcoin Core' and disable "pruning".