Electrum syncing issue

[salatm]

Hello everyone I ask for help. I use electrum and it stopped syncing to the end 2 days ago, progress reaches 99% and again, it's always 223/224 or 224/225. Changed servers, client version, device, network. Nothing helped. I imported the private key of one of the wallets and realized that it was him, that he was not syncing. Thank you in advance!

[1713850310]

1713850310

[1713850310]

1713850310

[1713850310]

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[hosseinimr93]

I imported the private key of one of the wallets and realized that it was him, that he was not syncing. Thank you in advance!

You imported private key of one of addresses, not private key of one of wallets.
Anyways, that address has probably a big transaction history and servers do not load them due to protecting themselves from attacks.

[DaveF]

I imported the private key of one of the wallets and realized that it was him, that he was not syncing. Thank you in advance!

You imported private key of one of addresses, not private key of one of wallets.
Anyways, that address has probably a big transaction history and servers do not load them due to protecting themselves from attacks.

The other possibility, also do to a massive transaction history is local RAM. Had that years ago when someone was running an online store that swept every transaction to 1 address. After a bit electrum would not work. Upped the RAM in the workstation that electrum was running on and all was good again. I do not know if this issue was fixed in later versions since after a while the issue never came back after adding the RAM, then they went to bitcoind and then out of business

But, if you only have 4GB it *might* be an issue.

-Dave

[salatm]

I imported the private key of one of the wallets and realized that it was him, that he was not syncing. Thank you in advance!

You imported private key of one of addresses, not private key of one of wallets.
Anyways, that address has probably a big transaction history and servers do not load them due to protecting themselves from attacks.

That's right, one of the addresses.
And it's probably just the number of transactions. How to solve such a problem?

[hosseinimr93]

How to solve such a problem?

One way is to continue to change the server until one of them sends you the required data.Of course, I doubt any of them do so, but you may want to try you luck.
I don't know if there's any other secure SPV wallet which is helpful to you. Wait, somone may suggest you an alternative to electrum.

The last effort is to run your own electrum server or download the full blockchain and use bitcoin core.

[NeuroticFish]

That's right, one of the addresses.
And it's probably just the number of transactions. How to solve such a problem?

Electrum servers have a default limit for the history of transactions; most public servers have the default settings, hence you may have not much luck there.
Some possible options would be:
1. Import the private key (safely) of only that one address into another wallet and try your luck - this may work because it will ask for history for only one address and not more.
2. Import the private key(s) into Bitcoin Core - but syncing means time and hardware (and a lot of disk space).
3. Find somebody who hosts an Electrum server that can be accessed from the internet (i.e. not for local use only) and ask him nicely to increase the limits until you do what you must, then move to a new wallet.

[salatm]

That's right, one of the addresses.
And it's probably just the number of transactions. How to solve such a problem?

Electrum servers have a default limit for the history of transactions; most public servers have the default settings, hence you may have not much luck there.
Some possible options would be:
1. Import the private key (safely) of only that one address into another wallet and try your luck - this may work because it will ask for history for only one address and not more.
2. Import the private key(s) into Bitcoin Core - but syncing means time and hardware (and a lot of disk space).
3. Find somebody who hosts an Electrum server that can be accessed from the internet (i.e. not for local use only) and ask him nicely to increase the limits until you do what you must, then move to a new wallet.

The first method did not work. Because it is at one address that the limit is exceeded.
I think towards the second and third.
Thanks!

[LoyceV]

If the number of transactions is really what's causing the issue, there's a fourth option: get someone with Bitcoin Core to import the address (NOT the privkey), create a transaction to any address you want, copy the raw transaction, send it to you, and you can import, VERIFY and sign it (even offline) in Electrum. I've never tested it this way, but I think it should work and you can broadcast it.
Then, abandon the overused addy.

[DaveF]

OR, you can setup one of the 'nodes in a box' https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5364113 which run an electum server and then connect to that.
It really is just 1 line in the config file you have to change to have it allow for more information: https://github.com/romanz/electrs/discussions/472

May not be the ideal thing for everyone to do, but running it yourself does provide for more privacy and security.
And it's really not that tough. mynode even has a preconfigued virtual machine that you can run so long as your PC has enough free drive space (550+ Gb needed at the moment)

-Dave

[nc50lc]

-snip-
And it's probably just the number of transactions. How to solve such a problem?

You can enable logging to see if it's really the issue.

First, close other wallets aside from the problematic one, then enable it in the settings: "Tools->preferences->Misc->Write logs to file".
Close Electrum, then open it again; reproduce the issue by letting it get stuck for a few minutes, then you can now disable logging.

The logs will be saved in "logs" folder inside Electrum's data directory (default data dir).
Open it and check if there's an error message related to the issue.

[Kakmakr]

That's right, one of the addresses.
And it's probably just the number of transactions. How to solve such a problem?

Electrum servers have a default limit for the history of transactions; most public servers have the default settings, hence you may have not much luck there.

There are many electrum server implementation which may have different default limit value, although AFAIK ElectrumX is still most popular option.

If the number of transactions is really what's causing the issue, there's a fourth option: get someone with Bitcoin Core to import the address (NOT the privkey), create a transaction to any address you want, copy the raw transaction, send it to you, and you can import, VERIFY and sign it (even offline) in Electrum. I've never tested it this way, but I think it should work and you can broadcast it.
Then, abandon the overused addy.

Obtaining raw transaction from Bitcoin block explorer also works.

If he does not know how to configure an Electrum Server, could someone not create a Server for him, with the "default" value turned off, so that he can access that Server to finalize the transaction?

Since that exploit with the malicious "Phishing Servers" ..... not everyone can create servers that are accessible to the public... right? How can anyone configure a Server.. and then make it accessible to someone else?

[LoyceV]

If he does not know how to configure an Electrum Server, could someone not create a Server for him, with the "default" value turned off, so that he can access that Server to finalize the transaction?

OP could ask mocacinno, he created private Electrum Server [bitcointalk members only] but the topic is inactive for 3 years.

[Cricktor]

I run my own node (RaspiBlitz) and connect my own Electrum to my own Electrum server. As sometimes I do some sort of blockchain analysis and digging I ran into sort of the same problem as the OP. The preconfigured electrs Electrum server just refused to retrieve bigger address histories.
You can tweak the config of electrs to some amount but for really large address histories I couldn't convince electrs to work as I wanted it. So I ditched electrs and switched to Fulcrum Electrum server. Much faster than electrs and ElectrumX (not during initial sync, though) and rather easy to configure to retrieve and submit address histories in the hundred thousands of transactions.

Unfortunately my Fulcrum server is not setup to be public and at present I have some strange issues which developed somewhat out-of-nowhere in the past days and I get weird errors from my Electrum when it tries to connect to my Fulcrum server (connection is refused and I get a constant stream of errors spit out by Electrum; it worked before without any hickups and I didn't change anything before the errors occurred; oh, well, needs more investigation).