Incompatibility v4.1.5 and v4.2

[ps1234]

I have a wallet which was created with v3.8 and in use with v4.1.5.

I installed v4.2 and opened the wallet, and it looked OK. But when I try to open it with v4.1.5 it fails with error message:

This version of Electrum is too old to open this wallet.
(highest supported storage version: 18, version of this file: 44)

Is this an expected behaviour? Am I now forced to use 4.2 forever? I didn't see any warnings about this.

I could recreate the wallet for 4.1.5 using the seed phrase, but that loses the transaction descriptions.

[BitMaxz]

If you use Electrum v4.2 recently the wallet file won't be able to open with an older version of Electrum that is why you get that error.
Every version of Electrum has its own wallet storage version.

If you want to use an older version you can anytime use the old version but you will need to recover your wallet with a backup seed phrase.


Edited:
Opppsss... a bit misunderstood pointed by pooya87 below

[jackg]

Do you ever backup your wallet file? You'll be able to get some descriptors for it from that if you do.

Aside from that, I'd recommend using the more up to date version of electrum anyway as it'll have less bugs and might be more secure.

[Charles-Tim]

I could recreate the wallet for 4.1.5 using the seed phrase, but that loses the transaction descriptions.

To still have the transaction description, you can restore it from file backup if you have it, but do not depend on this, files do corrupt. The best way for wallet recovery is through seed phrase importation.

But why not want to use version 4.2.0? Best to use the lastest version.

[NeuroticFish]

Is this an expected behaviour? Am I now forced to use 4.2 forever? I didn't see any warnings about this.

I could recreate the wallet for 4.1.5 using the seed phrase, but that loses the transaction descriptions.

Well, the release notes don't seem to tell anything specific about it, but normally, if one wants to keep everything untouched at an upgrade test, he can backup everything before updating.

I didn't see that message (I also didn't get to update yet), but it seems that yes, the only choices seem to be that you either keep using 4.2 (I see no real reason for going back, actually) and keep your labels, either go back to 4.1.5 by recovering from seed and lose those labels.

As a rule of thumb, I would not get too "attached" to those labels, there's always a chance that something goes wrong and you have to recover from seed. Not a big chance, but still...

[ps1234]

Not a major problem, either way.

My seed phrase is there if needed, and I can stay on 4.2.

I just thought it useful to raise the question, as I had not come across the issue/feature before.

Is this an expected behaviour? Am I now forced to use 4.2 forever? I didn't see any warnings about this.

I could recreate the wallet for 4.1.5 using the seed phrase, but that loses the transaction descriptions.

Well, the release notes don't seem to tell anything specific about it, but normally, if one wants to keep everything untouched at an upgrade test, he can backup everything before updating.

I didn't see that message (I also didn't get to update yet), but it seems that yes, the only choices seem to be that you either keep using 4.2 (I see no real reason for going back, actually) and keep your labels, either go back to 4.1.5 by recovering from seed and lose those labels.

As a rule of thumb, I would not get too "attached" to those labels, there's always a chance that something goes wrong and you have to recover from seed. Not a big chance, but still...

I saw another thread explaining how to export and import labels.

A wallet backup running on the older version 4.1.5, let me export the labels (menu option). I then imported these labels into the wallet running on the new version 4.2

I now have what I want - wallet on newest version, and labels too.

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[NeuroticFish]

A wallet backup running on the older version 4.1.5, let me export the labels (menu option). I then imported these labels into the wallet running on the new version 4.2

I now have what I want - wallet on newest version, and labels too.

Shame on me, I managed to miss that feature, although I'm using Electrum for quite some years. Thanks for sharing.

[nc50lc]

-snip-
I just thought it useful to raise the question, as I had not come across the issue/feature before.

Tip: a solid indication that the wallet file's version will be upgraded is if the new version of Electrum wont launch your wallet right after you open it.
Instead, first, it will show you the "Install Wizard" - Choose wallet window:

Pressing "Next" will upgrade the wallet file.

[pooya87]

If you use Electrum v4.2 the wallet file won't be able to open an older version of Electrum that is why you get that error.

This is wrong.
New versions should always keep backward compatibility and support old wallet versions, which they do unless stated otherwise in release notes.
Any breaking change happens in major version changes (meaning from 1.x.x to 2.x.x to 3.x.x, etc.) OP said the wallet worked in 4.1.5 and stopped working in 4.2.0 which is a minor update and shouldn't have a problem, if there is an issue it may be a bug which should be reported to developers on Github.

Every version of Electrum has its own wallet storage version.

Not necessarily.
As I explained above minor versions don't introduce major changes and in major versions for example from 3.x.x to 4.x.x the main change was addition of LN support while wallet had minor changes. Also it has to keep backward compatibility.