Cannot restore BTC addresses

[Ninelkk]

Hello. Yesterday I received BTC to my electrum wallet that I’ve been using for a year now. Then an error with electrum appeared, when I tried to send these bitcoins to my another address, new window opened on my Mac and told that I have error with electrum and whether I want to inform electrum about it or no. I clicked no and reloaded my laptop. When I tried to open electrum once again, it said that default_wallet (my wallet) doesn’t exist. It was shocking as I’ve been using electrum since 2018 and never had such issues.

After that, I restored my wallet with seed phrase, but there is a problem: I had almost 500 addresses and only half of it restored. The last history of transaction is in December, but I’ve been using this wallet until 11th October. Bitcoins are not gone and are on blockchain (only received), I also could see this transaction in watch-mode after putting my BTC address of receipt. But unfortunately, I cannot restore this address and see my balance. (Increase Gap limit etc didn’t help). Would appreciate any help.

[Charles-Tim]

Increase the gap limit to 500 addresses.

To increase the gap limit, open the console and use this command:

wallet.change_gap_limit(50)

[PawGo]

Did you try a "stupid" workaround - try to generate/produce addresses for incoming transaction? If you exhaust addresses which are visible, does Electrum start to produce the "hidden" addresses you expect to see?
After you increased the gap limit, you said it did not work - but what was the consequence? Do you see any new address or there was no change at all?

[Ninelkk]

I tried it, no new addresses appeared, I tried to increase gap limit to 1000 even. Now when I load electrum, it loaded 1000 addresses, but actually I don’t see it as well as transactions. Also tried to find the BTC address in the same way. The reply from the system was “false”.

[PawGo]

I tried it, no new addresses appeared, I tried to increase gap limit to 1000 even. Now when I load electrum, it loaded 1000 addresses, but actually I don’t see it as well as transactions. Also tried to find the BTC address in the same way. The reply from the system was “false”.

Do you have balance on each address or there are big gaps between founded addresses? Do you know how many missing addresses you have until the first founded address, where you are sure there was any transaction?

[Ninelkk]

Increase the gap limit to 500 addresses.

To increase the gap limit, open the console and use this command:

wallet.change_gap_limit(50)

I tried it, but unfortunately it didn’t help, too. I read many topics on the forum before creating new one. I’m already willing to give 500$ to anybody who would give useful advice. Nothing was created automatically, only manually during the year, most of the addresses were paid.

[PawGo]

Nothing was created automatically, only manually during the year, most of the addresses were paid.

I do not understand now, what does it mean "automatically" and "manually"?

The wallet is generated from electrum seed or from bip39 seed? If it is bip39, do you confirm that page https://iancoleman.io/bip39/ (you may download it and run offline) shows the expected addresses?

[Ninelkk]

I tried it, no new addresses appeared, I tried to increase gap limit to 1000 even. Now when I load electrum, it loaded 1000 addresses, but actually I don’t see it as well as transactions. Also tried to find the BTC address in the same way. The reply from the system was “false”.

Do you have balance on each address or there are big gaps between founded addresses? Do you know how many missing addresses you have until the first founded address, where you are sure there was any transaction?

I have balances only until 12/2021. There are 250 missing addresses, most of them were paid. I made transaction myself to this address, so I’m sure money are there. I also checked by the address on electrum (watch mode, money was there), on blockchain there is no sign that it was withdrawn, so wallet wasn’t hacked as well.

Also, as you can read in my first message, money was there, I tried to withdraw it and then the error appeared. So I’m sure money is on the wallet.

[PawGo]

Strange, indeed.
I have tried

Code:

wallet.change_gap_limit(50)

and it worked perfectly. Do you use the latest version of Electrum? (4.3.2)
As I understand you do not see addresses in "Addresses" tab, right? The issue is not that you see addresses but the balance (transaction history) is not updated?

If you execute

Code:

wallet.create_new_address(False)

do you see expected new address?

[NeuroticFish]

Nothing was created automatically, only manually during the year, most of the addresses were paid.

Can you please tell more about how you've created "manually" those addresses?
Was it with Receive->Create request, or was it something else? (because if it was something else the derivation path may differ - I've seen people using scripts that resulted in very odd derivation paths)

[nc50lc]

Your other funds could be in your change address at higher index.

Try to manually generate change addresses with, open console:

Code:

[wallet.create_new_address(True) for i in range(600)]

[Ninelkk]

Strange, indeed.
I have tried

Code:

wallet.change_gap_limit(50)

and it worked perfectly. Do you use the latest version of Electrum? (4.3.2)
As I understand you do not see addresses in "Addresses" tab, right? The issue is not that you see addresses but the balance (transaction history) is not updated?

If you execute

Code:

wallet.create_new_address(False)

do you see expected new address?

Yes, Latest version. But when my wallet stopped working it wasn’t the latest version of electrum. For now I tried this code in the latest version and it didn’t help. I have few thousands $ on the balance, but it shows 0btc. Also the address didn’t show up.

I will try another code in 8 hours when I will be able to connect to the internet and will let you know.

[PawGo]

You said that you selected addresses for incoming transactions "manually", not "automatically" - I guess that "automatically" means that address is proposed by Electrum.
Is it possible that you used "change" addresses (yellow ones) for your transactions? Then indeed, maybe you should try to generate new ones using "wallet.create_new_address(True)"

[Ninelkk]

Your other funds could be in your change address at higher index.

Try to manually generate change addresses with, open console:

Code:

[wallet.create_new_address(True) for i in range(600)]

Just tried it. Even to 2000, nothing changes with the balance. Also tried to find this exact address by using ismine(‘address’) and the answer in console was false

[Charles-Tim]

Just tried it. Even to 2000, nothing changes with the balance. Also tried to find this exact address by using ismine(‘address’) and the answer in console was false

Try and check if the first addresses are correct with the ones on explorer by checking the funds if correct. Maybe you import the wrong seed phrase.

[PawGo]

Did you try to export xpub and see in other application if your addresses are correctly found? (then it will be watch-only wallet of course)
What kind of wallet (addresses) it is? Legacy, Segwit?

[nc50lc]

After that, I restored my wallet with seed phrase, but there is a problem: I had almost 500 addresses and only half of it restored. The last history of transaction is in December, but I’ve been using this wallet until 11th October.

Your other funds could be in your change address at higher index.

Just tried it. Even to 2000, nothing changes with the balance.

Hmm, I can only guess that you had two wallets, one is your default_wallet and another, either one has 2018~Dec2021 txns and one with the latest.
Since you have about 500 addresses, it'll be hard to monitor if you're actually using the one from 2018.

Is there any chance that you've created another wallet with the same seed phrase but with "extended words"?
In case, restore another wallet but enable the option "Extend this seed with custom words".
Or different seed phrase?

[BitMaxz]

The other addresses might be in different derivation path if your addresses are legacy I would like to suggest use a tool called xPub analyzer to find those missing addresses and to lead you to the correct derivation path.

Here's the tool https://blockpath.com/wallets/local/101?action=appxpub

Export the master public key from your Electrum wallet and then paste it there then scan.
It would only show used addresses with balances including the right derivation path.

[o_e_l_e_o]

So you restore a wallet which has your earlier addresses in it, but then even after generating thousands of new addresses you cannot see your more recent addresses?

The only two options here are either your original wallet had an enormous gap of unused addresses, even more than the several thousand you have already generated, or at some point you switched to a different wallet and forgot that you had done so.

Is your seed phrase generate by Electrum or is it BIP39? Are you sure you don't have any other seed phrases? Are you sure you never used a passphrase? If your seed phrase is BIP39, are you sure you didn't use it to create more than one wallet, either at a different derivation path or a different script type (legacy/segwit/etc.)?

It is also strange that Electrum could no longer find your wallet file after the error. An error with Electrum shouldn't delete your wallet file. Have you checked your wallet folder to see if your wallet file is still there and accessible? Find it at /.electrum/wallets.

[Abdussamad]

The other addresses might be in different derivation path if your addresses are legacy I would like to suggest use a tool called xPub analyzer to find those missing addresses and to lead you to the correct derivation path.

Here's the tool https://blockpath.com/wallets/local/101?action=appxpub

Export the master public key from your Electrum wallet and then paste it there then scan.
It would only show used addresses with balances including the right derivation path.

Electrum wouldn't hand out addresses that are not a part of the wallet. It's not a bip39 wallet.


What colour circle icon do you see in the bottom right? If it's not green try changing servers:



https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-switch-to-a-different-electrum-server/



[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

[hosseinimr93]

What colour circle icon do you see in the bottom right? If it's not green try changing servers:

I don't think there's any syncing issue.
OP said that he can't find the address he is looking for at all. He also said that he can see the balance on the watch-only wallet.
Most probably, OP is using a seed phrase which belongs to another wallet.

[Pmalek]

Just tried it. Even to 2000, nothing changes with the balance. Also tried to find this exact address by using ismine(‘address’) and the answer in console was false

Which would mean the address is not part of that wallet and you don't have the private keys to spend the coins from it.
Did you ever import addresses or private keys to any wallets in all these years of using Bitcoin? If so, how, when, where, and where are the private keys?
Do you remember having addresses that start with different characters or do they all start with the same character? Legacy (1), Nested Segwit (3), Native Segwit (bc1).