Encrypted wallet.dat, lost password, any solutions?

[mintodev]

I'm offering a 50-100BTC bounty for helping me unlock my lost BTC as soon as possible.

old times , quite big reward now

And the greatest thing was "Revalin" Did not collected that 50-100 BTC Reward. Very sad.

[Velkro]

I'm offering a 50-100BTC bounty for helping me unlock my lost BTC as soon as possible.

old times , quite big reward now

And the greatest thing was "Revalin" Did not collected that 50-100 BTC Reward. Very sad.

question is, if he really could collect it
because saying you will give smth for smth is long way from giving it really

[FiatKiller]

Wouldn't lost bitcoin be one of the inherent faults with the bitcoin system? It seems inevitable that a huge percentage of bitcoin will eventually be locked/unusable as people continue to lose their wallets or passwords, etc. What happens when 25% or 50% of bitcoin is "lost"? Of course, maybe by then, we'll have already moved on to a "better" cryptocurrency.

It's great for the rest of us because less coins means more value for the ones that are accessible. Think of it this way, they cannot sell those coins cheap, so it keeps the price higher.

[Revalin]

I've gotten behind on things.  Let's catch up:

For everyone asking about Multibit: Sorry, I don't have time to write an interface for it right now.  If someone creates a command line or JSON-RPC API I can use to test a password I'll be happy to plug my script into it.

Dogecoin, other altcoins: Try using the newer Net::HTTP scripts.  They're more reliable and easier to plug into altcoin wallets.  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85495.msg1768970#msg1768970

Everyone who's sent me PMs: Thanks for being patient.  I'll reply when I can.

I remember 6 in the password but cannot remember the rest, 16 in total..

10 characters is too many.  Details:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85495.msg4401257#msg4401257

If you can narrow down the search we might be able to help.

I run pywallet and this is what I get
The wallet is encrypted but no passphrase is used

This means you ran pywallet without the --password option.  It does not mean the wallet has an empty passphrase.

Another question is, what it's needed to change if I want to search for every possible solution with a script without any starting point. Any hints where I can read up about this?

First read this:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85495.msg4401257#msg4401257

The practical limit of brute force is 5-6 characters.  If you think your passphrase is that short I can write a script for you.

It's great for the rest of us because less coins means more value for the ones that are accessible. Think of it this way, they cannot sell those coins cheap, so it keeps the price higher.

The fact that it's so easy to lose your money is a significant hindrance to adoption.  If we can't come up with a better way to solve this problem then Bitcoin will be stuck in a niche: it's too difficult for most people to handle.  You call yourself FiatKiller...  If that's really your goal then this isn't just a big deal, it's the whole game.  Even if you're just an investor then widespread utility and public confidence will give you far more benefit than you'll see from a small reduction in the money supply.

I haven't heard back from the OP but I hope he recovered his wallet.  Otherwise he's just another statistic, and that's not good for any of us.

[IceGuru]

What if i know most of the characters, which are either in the very beginning or in the middle, but missing 3-5 characters(certain letters, numbers, and symbols), that are mostly at the end but might have one or two at beginning?

Then you need something like this:

Code:

#!/usr/bin/ruby

middle = "password"           # The known part in the middle
min_left = 0                  # The minimum number of chars on the left
max_left = 2                  # The maximum number of chars on the left
max_total = 5                 # The max total unknowns
chars = 'abcd1234'.chars.to_a # Possible chars to choose from
#chars << '\\'                 # ... plus backslash
#chars << "'"                  # ... plus single quote

def test(phrase)
  print phrase, "\t"
  system("./bitcoind", "walletpassphrase", phrase, "20")
  case $?.exitstatus
  when 0
    puts "Found it! #{phrase}"
    exit 0
  when 127
    puts "bitcoind not found in current dir"
    exit 1
  when nil
    puts "Aborting"
    exit 1
  end
end

(1..max_total).each do |length|
  chars.repeated_permutation(length) do |str|
    max_offset = [max_left, length].min
    (min_left..max_offset).each do |offset|
      left = str.join[0,offset]
      right = str.join[offset,99] || ""
      test(left + middle + right)
    end
  end
end

Fill in the part you know for middle= and put in the characters you want to try in chars= .  If you want a backslash or single-quote then remove the # at the start of those lines.

Try to keep the chars list small. The time required increases very rapidly as you add more: 10 characters = 8 hours; 20 characters = 11 days; 30 characters = 3 months.

Can I use this on Windows and with earthcoin

[bennycoin]

I've wrote free lost password tools at lostpassword.info I think it'll be a good step towards people regaining access to their lost passwords. If it can help anyone, awesome!

[sumana]

I've wrote free lost password tools at  lostpassword.info  I think it'll be a good step towards people regaining access to their lost passwords. If it can help anyone, awesome!

u store wallet .dat in your server too ?

[btchris]

So, I'm another guy who's lost his password...

Luckily, I'm using Armory and I printed out my paper backups.
Unluckily, I also lost my paper backups...
Luckily, I happen to have a background in software, so I went about making my own Revalin-style script.
Unluckily, they didn't end up doing me any good.
Luckily (maybe for someone else, anyways) I have a touch of OCD, so I kept playing around with my script, adding more and more stuff to it. It ended up being a good learning experience.

Anyways, I'm at the point where it could be useful to someone else, so I've put it up on GitHub: https://github.com/gurnec/btcrecover. It's open source, written in Python so anyone can check it out and make sure it's not doing anything funky with your wallet file. There's a tutorial (link at the bottom of this post) to get you started.

I really do hope it ends up being useful to someone, it would at least make me feel a little bit better


btcrecover

btcrecover is an open source Bitcoin wallet password recovery tool. It is designed for the case where you already know most of your password, but need assistance in trying different possible combinations.

Features

• Bitcoin wallet support for:
  
  • Armory
  • Bitcoin Core
  • MultiBit Classic
  • Electrum
• Supported on Windows, Linux, and OS X
• Options to help minimize the search space - the more you remember about your password, the less time it will take to find
• Multithreaded searches, with user-selectable thread count
• Wildcard expansion
• Typo simulation
• Progress bar and ETA display (at the command line)
• Interrupt and Continue searches without losing progress
• Optional autosave - continue searches even after inadvertent interruptions or crashes

Please see TUTORIAL.md for more information, including installation instructions and requirements.
 

[spooderman]

^^^^^is this legit? I am in the exact same situation as OP. Offered money to various people that helped the OP in this thread as I want to get these BTC back for my mom.

[spooderman]

snip

The fact that it's so easy to lose your money is a significant hindrance to adoption.  If we can't come up with a better way to solve this problem then Bitcoin will be stuck in a niche: it's too difficult for most people to handle.  You call yourself FiatKiller...  If that's really your goal then this isn't just a big deal, it's the whole game.  Even if you're just an investor then widespread utility and public confidence will give you far more benefit than you'll see from a small reduction in the money supply.

I haven't heard back from the OP but I hope he recovered his wallet.  Otherwise he's just another statistic, and that's not good for any of us.

My mom is in the same position as OP. Mine are safely in cold storage/paper wallet. Wanted to do the same for my mom who bought a long time ago, but we can't move them from her QT because the password she wrote down is ambiguous. Some things looks like they could be 1s or ls or Is etc. Hope you respond to my PM asking for help.

Thanks

[TwinWinNerD]

snip

The fact that it's so easy to lose your money is a significant hindrance to adoption.  If we can't come up with a better way to solve this problem then Bitcoin will be stuck in a niche: it's too difficult for most people to handle.  You call yourself FiatKiller...  If that's really your goal then this isn't just a big deal, it's the whole game.  Even if you're just an investor then widespread utility and public confidence will give you far more benefit than you'll see from a small reduction in the money supply.

I haven't heard back from the OP but I hope he recovered his wallet.  Otherwise he's just another statistic, and that's not good for any of us.

My mom is in the same position as OP. Mine are safely in cold storage/paper wallet. Wanted to do the same for my mom who bought a long time ago, but we can't move them from her QT because the password she wrote down is ambiguous. Some things looks like they could be 1s or ls or Is etc. Hope you respond to my PM asking for help.

Thanks

try some quick and dirty things:

activate capslock and enter the password.
switch to another keyboard layout and enter the password (en -> de for example)

[spooderman]

snip

The fact that it's so easy to lose your money is a significant hindrance to adoption.  If we can't come up with a better way to solve this problem then Bitcoin will be stuck in a niche: it's too difficult for most people to handle.  You call yourself FiatKiller...  If that's really your goal then this isn't just a big deal, it's the whole game.  Even if you're just an investor then widespread utility and public confidence will give you far more benefit than you'll see from a small reduction in the money supply.

I haven't heard back from the OP but I hope he recovered his wallet.  Otherwise he's just another statistic, and that's not good for any of us.

My mom is in the same position as OP. Mine are safely in cold storage/paper wallet. Wanted to do the same for my mom who bought a long time ago, but we can't move them from her QT because the password she wrote down is ambiguous. Some things looks like they could be 1s or ls or Is etc. Hope you respond to my PM asking for help.

Thanks

try some quick and dirty things:

activate capslock and enter the password.
switch to another keyboard layout and enter the password (en -> de for example)

Thank you. I did try this to no avail. I wish bitcoin-qt had an option to "show password" as many people have said.

[TwinWinNerD]

snip

The fact that it's so easy to lose your money is a significant hindrance to adoption.  If we can't come up with a better way to solve this problem then Bitcoin will be stuck in a niche: it's too difficult for most people to handle.  You call yourself FiatKiller...  If that's really your goal then this isn't just a big deal, it's the whole game.  Even if you're just an investor then widespread utility and public confidence will give you far more benefit than you'll see from a small reduction in the money supply.

I haven't heard back from the OP but I hope he recovered his wallet.  Otherwise he's just another statistic, and that's not good for any of us.

My mom is in the same position as OP. Mine are safely in cold storage/paper wallet. Wanted to do the same for my mom who bought a long time ago, but we can't move them from her QT because the password she wrote down is ambiguous. Some things looks like they could be 1s or ls or Is etc. Hope you respond to my PM asking for help.

Thanks

try some quick and dirty things:

activate capslock and enter the password.
switch to another keyboard layout and enter the password (en -> de for example)

Thank you. I did try this to no avail. I wish bitcoin-qt had an option to "show password" as many people have said.

Hmm. For exactely this reason, I am only using Keepass 2 and copy paste everything directly out of the database. So this can never happen again. Must be so horrible to have this happen to oneself

[spooderman]

snip

The fact that it's so easy to lose your money is a significant hindrance to adoption.  If we can't come up with a better way to solve this problem then Bitcoin will be stuck in a niche: it's too difficult for most people to handle.  You call yourself FiatKiller...  If that's really your goal then this isn't just a big deal, it's the whole game.  Even if you're just an investor then widespread utility and public confidence will give you far more benefit than you'll see from a small reduction in the money supply.

I haven't heard back from the OP but I hope he recovered his wallet.  Otherwise he's just another statistic, and that's not good for any of us.

My mom is in the same position as OP. Mine are safely in cold storage/paper wallet. Wanted to do the same for my mom who bought a long time ago, but we can't move them from her QT because the password she wrote down is ambiguous. Some things looks like they could be 1s or ls or Is etc. Hope you respond to my PM asking for help.

Thanks

try some quick and dirty things:

activate capslock and enter the password.
switch to another keyboard layout and enter the password (en -> de for example)

Thank you. I did try this to no avail. I wish bitcoin-qt had an option to "show password" as many people have said.

Hmm. For exactely this reason, I am only using Keepass 2 and copy paste everything directly out of the database. So this can never happen again. Must be so horrible to have this happen to oneself

It happened to my mom too which makes it worse I didn't want to take responsibility for them. She made a super long complicated password, wrote it down, and a year later we come back to look at it and it has 2 symbols that are either a "t" or an "r" a symbol that is either a "6" or a "b" a third symbol which is either a "1" a "I" or a "l" and an "!" which might be ".'"

Ugh

[TwinWinNerD]

snip

The fact that it's so easy to lose your money is a significant hindrance to adoption.  If we can't come up with a better way to solve this problem then Bitcoin will be stuck in a niche: it's too difficult for most people to handle.  You call yourself FiatKiller...  If that's really your goal then this isn't just a big deal, it's the whole game.  Even if you're just an investor then widespread utility and public confidence will give you far more benefit than you'll see from a small reduction in the money supply.

I haven't heard back from the OP but I hope he recovered his wallet.  Otherwise he's just another statistic, and that's not good for any of us.

My mom is in the same position as OP. Mine are safely in cold storage/paper wallet. Wanted to do the same for my mom who bought a long time ago, but we can't move them from her QT because the password she wrote down is ambiguous. Some things looks like they could be 1s or ls or Is etc. Hope you respond to my PM asking for help.

Thanks

try some quick and dirty things:

activate capslock and enter the password.
switch to another keyboard layout and enter the password (en -> de for example)

Thank you. I did try this to no avail. I wish bitcoin-qt had an option to "show password" as many people have said.

Hmm. For exactely this reason, I am only using Keepass 2 and copy paste everything directly out of the database. So this can never happen again. Must be so horrible to have this happen to oneself

It happened to my mom too which makes it worse I didn't want to take responsibility for them. She made a super long complicated password, wrote it down, and a year later we come back to look at it and it has 2 symbols that are either a "t" or an "r" a symbol that is either a "6" or a "b" a third symbol which is either a "1" a "I" or a "l" and an "!" which might be ".'"

Ugh

Well so there shoudln't be so many combinations. 1000 maybe (if everything else is correct). How much funds were in the database?

[spooderman]

22.1 btc

I have tried 64 combinations. I need some password cracking software to push the boat a bit further out.

[TwinWinNerD]

22.1 btc

I have tried 64 combinations. I need some password cracking software to push the boat a bit further out.

That is quite some stash there. Well I'd do it by hand until I was sure i tryed everything. But there are some guys here that can do it with scrypts, you may need to contact them so that they can setup the python scrypts for you!

[Soulpowered]

Just try the original ruby script from Revalin. It substitudes, deletes and adds characters to the passpharase you remember.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=85495.msg942017#msg942017

To search faster delete all characters you don't need from "characters ="

[btchris]

It happened to my mom too which makes it worse I didn't want to take responsibility for them. She made a super long complicated password, wrote it down, and a year later we come back to look at it and it has 2 symbols that are either a "t" or an "r" a symbol that is either a "6" or a "b" a third symbol which is either a "1" a "I" or a "l" and an "!" which might be ".'"

Ugh

You're welcome to try my new script (but you'd probably be the first to do so... Revalin is well trusted, and it's easy to see that his scripts aren't doing anything unexpected. Although my script is also viewable as just a text file, unless you're a Python programmer you'd be trusting me at least a little, some dude on the net you've never met...)

Anyways, if you'd like to try it, download the scripts from here: btcrecover download. These are Python scripts, so you also need to install Python, instructions are here: Installation requirements for Bitcoin-qt wallets. You just need Python, the other two libraries are optional for Bitcoin-qt.

Once the scripts file is unzipped, you'll need three files in the same folder as the btcrecover.py script: the wallet.dat file, a file (created with Notepad) named "token.txt" that just contains the password as best as you can tell, and another (Notepad) file that lists out which letters to try swapping for which others called "typos.txt" which should look something like this:

Code:

r t
6 b
1Il 1Il
! .

This just means that wherever there's an 'r' in the original password, try it with both the original 'r' but also with a 't' instead, and so on (there's a space between those two letters in that file). Actually it might be better to do this:

Code:

tr tr
6b 6b
1Il 1Il
!. !.

That way every 't' and every 'r' in the original is tried both as-is and swapped, and every '1', 'I', and 'l' is tried as-is and swapped with the other possibilities on the right, etc.

Then you need open a command prompt and try something like this:

Code:

cd c:\Downloads\btcrecover-directory
c:\Python27\python btcrecover.py --wallet wallet.dat --tokenlist token.txt --typos-map typos.txt --typos-capslock --typos-swap --typos-delete --typos 3

I added on three other types of checks (--typos-capslock --typos-swap --typos-delete); you can keep them, get rid of them if you don't think they'd help, or add other ones (complete list of different typos is here: different types of typos). Finally, that last option (--typos 3) is how many typos, at most, to try in any single guess. The higher it is, and the more of those different types of typos you add, the longer it will take...

Good luck.

[spooderman]

Thanks a lot for the help people. I contacted revalin, and the guy who broken OPs password.

Basically not cracking this password isn't an option for me :|