MultiBit - Somehow managed to lose 11.25BTC?

[aarong11]

Hi, today I made a small transaction for 1.5BTC using MultiBit, but for some reason my balance is now listed as 11.252 (0.009 available to spend). Here are the logs associated with the event -

Code:

18:50:31.633 [AWT-EventQueue-0] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.Wallet - Creating send tx to 1HujLVZCEUqdKPWfkXDEo1ANVqw3Rd78eQ for 1.50
18:50:31.634 [AWT-EventQueue-0] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.Wallet -   with 11.25 coins change
18:50:31.675 [AWT-EventQueue-0] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.Wallet -   created 5d28c52b042d9a21ecd4cffba62f50b7a95c5cb473a87855d860a08b34563b45
18:50:31.676 [AWT-EventQueue-0] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.Wallet - confirmSend of 5d28c52b042d9a21ecd4cffba62f50b7a95c5cb473a87855d860a08b34563b45
18:57:10.584 [PeerGroup-1-thread-101] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.BlockChain - 1 blocks per second
18:57:10.641 [PeerGroup-1-thread-101] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.Wallet - Received tx for -1.50 BTC: 5d28c52b042d9a21ecd4cffba62f50b7a95c5cb473a87855d860a08b34563b45
18:57:10.642 [PeerGroup-1-thread-101] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.Wallet -   <-pending
18:57:10.642 [PeerGroup-1-thread-101] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.Wallet -   ->unspent
18:57:10.642 [PeerGroup-1-thread-101] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.Wallet - Balance is now: 11.25
18:57:12.185 [PeerGroup-1-thread-100] INFO  com.google.bitcoin.core.BlockChain - 1 blocks per second

I attempted to look up this event on bitcoinexplorer.com, and it appears that the bitcoins do definitely still belong to that wallet, but it has gone out of synch. Is there any way I can fix this? Maybe some way to export my private key from the wallet and import it elsewhere?

[Ryland R. Taylor-Almanza]

I had the same problem, and it's easy to fix (Just a little annoying.) Just go to Help >> About Multibit and then click "Reset Blockchain and Transactions" button in the bottom right corner.

[aarong11]

Done this, however my wallet is now claiming that I have a shit ton more bitcoins that I should have. Any suggestions on what I can do?

[jim618]

Hi aarong11,

I have just had a look on blockexplorer.com at:

http://blockexplorer.com/address/1HujLVZCEUqdKPWfkXDEo1ANVqw3Rd78eQ

and the 1.5BTC payment you made appears to have been successful.


If you look at the transaction in more detail -
http://blockexplorer.com/tx/5d28c52b042d9a21ecd4cffba62f50b7a95c5cb473a87855d860a08b34563b45

You can see the 11.25 BTC change is being sent back successfully to 1Jb1yuS2VQwWZeoLqjLyvF7tVyxhMmwbUg (which I presume is a receiving address in your wallet).

Everything on the *blockchain* looks ok as far as I can tell from your post.

What the 'reset blockchain and transactions' does is remove the *transactions* out of the wallet and then replays the blockchain from the earliest transaction you have so that the wallet reflects what is on the blockchain.

Are you sending BTC from one address in your wallet to another address in the same wallet ?   I just wonder if there is a bug in that scenario ?

One thing you can do is transfer the whole amount in the wallet (worked out simply by totalling up BTC in - BTC out - fees) and transfer the whole lot out to, say, InstaWallet.  That way you will at least have your BTC safe.

[jim618]

Also, when you get that extra bit "Available to spend" in the total it means that there is change that you are waiting for.   The change gets back to you when the spend gets onto the blockchain.

This is a bit confusing so I have written some help on it here:
http://multibit.org/help_availableToSpend.html

[aarong11]

Thanks Jim, yeah I tried shuffling the stuff around my own wallets to see if it would fix it but that doesn't seem to have worked as it has gone out of sync again. I've reset it again and now i'm attempting to move the stuff over to my mt gox wallet, after which i'm going to completely re-install the client + wallets which will hopefully fix it.

If I have any more problems i'll let you know, but thanks for the quick response

[jim618]

Hi aarong11,
I will also do more testing on spending from and to receiving addresse *within* the same wallet to see if I can reproduce what you saw (and hence track it down and fix it).

Also, in the new year I am going to put in a 'private key export' option so that people can back up their private keys to a file on a USB or whatever.  You mentioned wanting to do that in your original post.