Unable to recover saved seeds

[UniversalBoo]

Hello,

I've been using Electrum, the one directly included in the Tails operating system back in 2021.

Lately I've been thinking about the wallets I created back then, I had written all the seed words ( from 3 wallets )
Two of them had 14 words, one of them 12.

I'm pretty sure back then I was paranoid so I made sure to get the order of the seeds right, and wrote everything else related to those installs.

When I try to recover an existing seed, I put the official electrum wallet first in the options, but they don't detect any. Actually, one of the seeds got detected without changing the options, but removing one space, making it 11 words ( the last two words forming one word that doesn't exist ) and it found a wallet, with nothing on it and no transaction history

What's weird to me is that I've been looking up similar issues on forums, and they speak of other options BIP39 and the other one ( the later, I can't click on next since it says the words aren't recognized in the wordslist )
When I put BIP39 in options, it lets me proceed to the next page with the potential extended custom words, no matter what I put, I end up with an empty wallet with 30 addresses.
( I can even put nonsense and it will do that everytime, I reckon it's creating a new wallet instead of restoring? )

I'm pretty sure I copied everything right back then, I heard of a bug that changed some of the addresses/seeds since 2021 but I can't figure it out.

Thank you in advance, I hope I was clear enough when explaining my issue.

[Charles-Tim]

You created three wallets. Two among the wallets have 14 words seed phrases each, and the remaining one has 12 words seed phrase.

Seed phrase on Electrum supposed to be 12 words. But there are ways you can make it longer  up to 15, 18, 21 or 24 words.

Maybe you backup the seed phrase with passphrase, but the 12 words seed phrase is not also valid as Electrum seed phrase and the BIP39 is generating empty wallet. If you do not have the right seed phrases, nothing can be done. You do not have the right seed phrases

[OmegaStarScream]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe Electrum has ever generated 14-words seeds.

Regarding the 12 words seedphrase, if you're sure they were created using Electrum, then there should be no need to tick the "BIP39" option.

Adding custom words is not going to create a new wallet (unless that's the option you chose on the first screen). Custom words are words you add yourself when you first create the wallet (as an extra layer of security just in case someone finds the seed). So if you don't remember adding anything to your original 12-words seed, you should not be using that.

Could you tell us more about the combinations (BIP39 + 12 words, Electrum + 14 words, etc..) that actually worked? cause I'm not sure I understand how a 11 words seed worked in this case (ticking the "Electrum" option)?

In the cases where you did manage to input a valid seedphrase, are you sure you selected the correct address type in the next step? (Legacy, native segwit, etc.)?

[UniversalBoo]

You created three wallets. Two among the wallets have 14 words seed phrases each, and the remaining one has 12 words seed phrase.

Seed phrase on Electrum supposed to be 12 words. But there are ways you can make it longer  up to 15, 18, 21 or 24 words.

Maybe you backup the seed phrase with passphrase, but the 12 words seed phrase is not also valid as Electrum seed phrase and the BIP39 is generating empty wallet. If you do not have the right seed phrases, nothing can be done. You do not have the right seed phrases

Allright, I figured out I used other wallets for the 14 words ones, I managed to recover them.

That last wallet with 12 words though, I must've been using electrum.

It actually is really weird, it finds a standard wallet when I type the words, but only when I arrive at the 10th word and I type the first letter of the 11th. Then everytime it finds a regular old electrum wallet, with nothing on it.
I've seen in the electrum documentation that there was a bug on old wallets, it sounds related to the issue I'm having, but there's not much information on how to fix it.

[hosemary]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe Electrum has ever generated 14-words seeds.

You can create a 14 word seed phrase through Electrum, but you need to use Console for that.

Could you tell us more about the combinations (BIP39 + 12 words, Electrum + 14 words, etc..) that actually worked? cause I'm not sure I understand how a 11 words seed worked in this case (ticking the "Electrum" option)?

I don't know what exactly OP did, but any random string has a probablity of around 0.44% to be a valid Elecrum seed phrase.
For example, the following string is a valid Electrum seed phrase.

Code:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

In the cases where you did manage to input a valid seedphrase, are you sure you selected the correct address type in the next step? (Legacy, native segwit, etc.)?

It may be worth mentioning that Electrum asks you the script type only when you enter a BIP39 seed phrase, not when you import its own seed phrase.

It actually is really weird, it finds a standard wallet when I type the words, but only when I arrive at the 10th word and I type the first letter of the 11th.

This isn't really something surprising.
As I said above, even if you enter a random string, there's still a probability of around 0.44% that you end up with a valid seed phrase.

[UniversalBoo]

Then I'm not sure what those 12 words seed are about. They aren't detected when putting them in electrum restore

[hosemary]

Then I'm not sure what those 12 words seed are about. They aren't detected when putting them in electrum restore

This clearly means that it's not a valid Electrum seed phrase.

What does exacly happen when you check "BIP39 seed"?
Does Electrum display a message below the seed phrase field like the one shown in the following image?

[UniversalBoo]

It says the same thing as in your screenshot when I pick that BIP39 option.

Actually, there is one word I wrote that isn't in the BIP39 wordlist, which is really weird

[hosemary]

It says the same thing as in your screenshot when I pick that BIP39 option.

So your seed phrase is neither a valid Electrum seed phrase nor a valid BIP39 seed phrase.

You need to figure out what went wrong when you were writing out the seed phrase.
Maybe you've written one of the words incorrectly, or it's the order of the words that is wrong.

Actually, there is one word I wrote that isn't in the BIP39 wordlist, which is really weird

That may be your passphrase (also called custom word)

[UniversalBoo]

I replaced that one word that was causing issues to the next similar detected word and it found an empty wallet

[nc50lc]

It actually is really weird, it finds a standard wallet when I type the words, but only when I arrive at the 10th word and I type the first letter of the 11th. Then everytime it finds a regular old electrum wallet, with nothing on it.

What does it show in "Seed type:" when you input those words and letter?
"old" or "standard" or "segwit"?

Because this isn't weird in case it's detected as the latter 2.
Because there's always a small chance that Electrum will calculate that a random gibberish to have a valid version number, it's not 100% reliable.
In your case, the first 10 words + 1 letter.

But that doesn't mean that it's a wallet previously used by others or you.
That only mean that it managed to be a valid combination, collision with others person's wallet's chance is almost non-existent.

Actually, there is one word I wrote that isn't in the BIP39 wordlist, which is really weird

Does your seed phrase consists of words from this list?
Old_mnemonic: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/electrum/old_mnemonic.py#L34-L1660

I've seen in the electrum documentation that there was a bug on old wallets, it sounds related to the issue I'm having, but there's not much information on how to fix it.

Which bug specifically,
Please provide a link for reference.

[Abdussamad]

You should write down the wallet software name next to the 14 word seeds so that you know what software to use in the future.

[Cricktor]

I'm pretty sure back then I was paranoid so I made sure to get the order of the seeds right, and wrote everything else related to those installs.

Actually, there is one word I wrote that isn't in the BIP39 wordlist, which is really weird

Seriously, I don't know what some people are doing. Don't get me wrong, I had my own share of errors and fails and I'm totally aware that errors can and will happen. The question remains why some errors still happen in such an important context of mnemonic recovery words (seed words) details.

As Abdussamad emphasized, I'd highly recommend too, to document which wallet was used in recovery words creation. Additionally, at least document, date, purpose, derivation path and anything else that would be helpful for later recovery and classification of the wallet. Don't even think you can easily remember details months or years later. You will forget stuff, you don't use, recall or practice regularly, this is mostly inevitable.

Enumerate every recovery word to clearly and unambiguously document and know its position. Check double or triple that you wrote every word correctly. For the sake of your coins, use decent handwriting, at least once in your life. If you're paranoid, write every word both in small and capital letters, and whateverelse style, so that there's no chance to misread it. It simply should not ever happen to write down a recovery word that isn't in the wordlist, period!

And I've no idea why some people apparently don't do it: verify a successful recovery solely from what you've documented. If you fail, you've made a terrible mistake, but you know it before it becomes a problem later. Correct it! Repeat until you succeed.
Do the recovery verification before you fund your new wallet. If you need to do more practice, there's Testnet and basically worthless Testnet coins available from faucets. It doesn't hurt if you break stuff with Testnet coins.

[pooya87]

Considering the fact that you have multiple seed phrases, have to ever considered that the one your traying to recover and keep seeing empty wallets is actually empty? Or are you certain that you actually deposited coins into it? For example if you had the address, you could check the address (not the keys or seed, never enter those in any website) on some block explorer to see if it has any balance. Then when you recover the wallets you could check to see if you see the same address inside the wallet.

Actually, there is one word I wrote that isn't in the BIP39 wordlist, which is really weird

Does your seed phrase consists of words from this list?
Old_mnemonic: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/electrum/old_mnemonic.py#L34-L1660

OP mentioned 2021 as the time the wallet was used by them. The old_mnemonic algorithm is ancient and belongs to very early versions of Electrum and is only there for completely backward compatibility. Also the software should automatically detect it if the entered mnemonic is actually "old", there is a check for it in the code.
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/5ce8d1564635f85c9f90628b2f7fa750ecd97ef6/electrum/mnemonic.py#L268

[nc50lc]

Actually, there is one word I wrote that isn't in the BIP39 wordlist, which is really weird

Does your seed phrase consists of words from this list?
Old_mnemonic: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/electrum/old_mnemonic.py#L34-L1660

Also the software should automatically detect it if the entered mnemonic is actually "old", there is a check for it in the code.

My first question above that quote already covered that, I've asked what Electrum shows when he's typing it
And "old" is one of the options that I mentioned.

That second question is there to check if it's not something he imported from an older version.
And since the old wordlist can work as a v2.0 seed under the right circumstances (since there's no fixed wordlist in the new seed version system), he could get false positives.