Android Apps: Bitcoin Labs vs. Bitcoin Wallet

[barbarousrelic]

On my old phone, I was using the Android app "Bitcoin" from Bitcoin Labs. I had .02 BTC on it. When I got my new phone, I installed Bitcoin Wallet (by Andreas Schildbach) and tried to send my BTC .02 from my old phone to my new phone. Well, the .02 disappeared from my old phone and never showed up on the new one.

Looking in the Android market, there are a few other people who wrote complaints about Bitcoin Labs saying that either their funds did not appear when sent to Bitcoin Labs, or that their funds on Bitcoin Labs did not appear when sent out.

I have waited several weeks and the funds never showed up on my new phone. I sent funds from my computer to my new phone and that worked fine.

So, my question is, is the Bitcoin Labs app just buggy, or is this a scam and someone is taking all the funds? Is there some way to check?

[2_Thumbs_Up]

Search for your transaction here and see if the network has seen it.

http://blockchain.info/

[barbarousrelic]

Search for your transaction here and see if the network has seen it.

http://blockchain.info/

Strange. According to blockchain.info, my old phone running Bitcoin Labs should still have .02 BTC.

http://blockchain.info/address/1FbeTucfDjhs5LNCy9PNguNmffqnQajtHM

That address is the one that shows up when I push Receive.

But when I push "Check Balance" on that phone, it says "Refreshing BTC Balance. . ."

 and then says

 "BTC Balance Refresh Complete.
New Balance: 0.00 BTC"

Now, because this is my old phone I am not using the cellular network, I am using my wifi connection. Perhaps that is the problem. But then it shouldn't tell me it has refreshed if it hasn't.

I don't really care about the .02 BTC. I just want the program to work properly. In general though, I would recommend Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet much more highly than Bitcoin Labs.

[2_Thumbs_Up]

Then 2 things are clear, no one has stolen your coins, and your coins aren't technically lost. As long as you keep your Bitcoin Labs wallet with the private key it should be possible to retrieve them.

However, there seem to be a bug in the App which causes your phone to show an incorrect balance. I don't know how solve this since I'm not familiar with the app. If the app has an option to re-scan or similar I would try that. Otherwise, if the app lets you backup your wallet I would make a backup and reinstall the app (don't uninstall the app without a backup though, since this will most likely remove the wallet with the coins as well). If this doesn't work I'm out of suggestions and you are probably better of to contact the developer of the app.

[jago25_98]

Backup the private key and wallet off the old phone first of all.

I had a problem a bit like this when my computer crashed once and it reported 0.00BTC so I thought I'd lost it all. Then some people here helped me recover that wallet.dat and I was able to then wipe all and start again and reinstate that wallet.dat file. Could be a similar thing here.

[burger]

On Google play they (Bitcoin Labs) say "**** WARNING: this app is still experimental/alpha. It will get much, much better over the next few weeks."

so you just have to wait until they fixed all the bugs.

[2_Thumbs_Up]

On Google play they (Bitcoin Labs) say "**** WARNING: this app is still experimental/alpha. It will get much, much better over the next few weeks."

so you just have to wait until they fixed all the bugs.

It also says last update was May 22, 2011.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.

[Andreas Schildbach]

The Bitcoin Labs app was never updated to the Feb 20 protocol change. This means it cannot connect to any node any more.

[istar]

Have you tried Bitcoin spinner...