Bitcoin Core password not accepted

[sigaieu]

Why is it that my password stopped working in Bitcoin Core? I tried many Bitcoin Core versions down to 0.6.2 in Windows 7 Virtual Machine and all I get is error -14. The password is correct and doing some programming I can see the bunch of ckeys, the vMasterKey 32 bytes. Is this a IV DecryptSecret() problem because of upgrades? I see similar problems Googleing and some have sucessfully fixed the problem downgrading Bitcoin Core. I couldn't. Has anyone been through that? What's the fix?

[BitMaxz]

Have you tried to check the wallet folder? Maybe you have 2 different wallet files? If you found 2 or more wallet files, try to import them manually by going to File > Open Wallet and then go to the wallet folder and choose the other wallet file to test them.


Just want to ask if you upgraded the Bitcoin Core recently with version 30.0 or 30.1 because there have been some bugs recently about this version related to the wallet file. It was announced here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5562380.0

If you have an old wallet.dat backup, you can restore it, but make sure to use the most recent version that was just released yesterday; 30.2 has the bug fix.

[sigaieu]

Thank you for your time answering my question! I believe this is not a matter or importing an old wallet (2012) but I think somehow the Bitcoin Core, old or new, is not able to decrypt all the ckeys because of a cryptography problem with Decrypt function. It seems to me that it is not able to find the right IV to decrypt the right key. It decrypts half of the 8000. It does not show the common error "can't decrypt all keys" and it only shows the "password is wrong" but I never changed it. It simply stopped working. I came here hoping someone has or had similar problem and was able to fix it. I want tips to fix mine.

[nc50lc]

It seems to me that it is not able to find the right IV to decrypt the right key. It decrypts half of the 8000.

If you're talking about each encrypted prvKey's IV, those should be the few bytes from the hash of their pair pubKeys
which are saved in the wallet where your addresses are derived from.

Since half of your private keys work but not the rest, you can assume that the AES Key is correctly decrypted from the Mkey and the provided wallet passphrase.
Because the same wallet.dat wont save two of it to encrypt separate set of private keys.
So the decryption process and the passphrase shouldn't be wrong.
I'm thinking that it could be a case of corruption or interrupted encryption process rather than a bug,
assuming that the rest of the wallet's encrypted keys are somehow corrupted or "other reasons" that could mismatch their public keys or make the master key unable to decrypt them.

Some background details about the wallet should help a bit.
e.g.: when its created, which versions have your used, something happened to it, is it recovered, from a friend? etc.

I see similar problems Googleing and some have sucessfully fixed the problem downgrading Bitcoin Core.

Can you share those threads for reference to see if it's related.

[sigaieu]

I think you got something when you mention interrupted encryption because I remember my Toshiba Qosmio back in 2012 was being naughty and it might have done something to the wallet like crashing in a middle of a save. I have tried the initial IV from the hash bytes but I think my problem right now it parsing. I found the wallet along others in what's left of my Qosmio HDD. One of the wallets was fine and I was able to easily move around 0.08 BTC a few months ago, I guess because I never set any password for it, but since then this one is giving me headaches because I had a password set up. Not sure about what version it was. I was barely aware of Bitcoin. But searching the history of wallets releases I think it was around 0.6.3 to 0.8. And I don't remember the threads about similar problems, what I remember is that I googled it and found in another forum someone that downgraded his Core down until he found one version that worked. It did not work for me. By the way, "Legendary" is a good fit for your profile. Thank you for trying to help!

[nc50lc]

But searching the history of wallets releases I think it was around 0.6.3 to 0.8. And I don't remember the threads about similar problems, -snip-

This narrowed-down the search, however, it's something that can't be easily reproduced unlike other issues.
Plus, the accuracy of what you can remember is also a problem so we're pretty much guessing at this point.
The program that you've used to come up with the half decrypted private keys is also not disclosed.

This is used for corrupted wallet files but you can try to run "salvage" command on a copy of your wallet.dat file. (don't use it without a backup)
If it's just a parsing issue which is caused by wallet database corruption and most of those failed to decrypt ckey are still intact, it should output an intact wallet.

To use it, find your Bitcoin Core's "bitcoin-wallet" tool.
It should be inside "daemon" or "bin" folder in its install directory.
Then run in it your terminal, use bitcoin-wallet -h for the available commands (including salvage) and args.