Electrum is 'watching only' can see the BTC but cant do anything with them.

Abdussamad

legendary

Activity: 3724

Merit: 1586

Quote from: studentlamo on August 24, 2016, 06:44:02 PM

[/b][/b]I grabbed some BTC (as I have many times) in my rush I pasted an receive address that I had saved rather than create a new one using my online wallet (Blockchain)
I eventually remembered that this address was when I was using Tails OS and the installed BTC client (in 2014) - I presume it is Electrum.
I managed to restore the account using the address (1HgLRgEHcwpnHErdkFnbGgHDtK72WNAEGH) which is visible in Electrum along with the available BTC,
however it's watching only. I have a list of words (17 in fact) and have also tried 12 as the seed when restoring the account but to no avail, I even tried an older version.

Is it that I used a different BTC wallet software?
The words I have are incorrect?
Just forgot what I am doing as I last used the address and software in 2014?
Lost the BTC, can see them, but no touch.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

There is no version of electrum that had 17 word seeds. You used some other wallet in 2014.

You need the private key for your address in order to be able to spend from it. In some wallets, like electrum, all private keys are derived from a single seed. So you need either the seed or the address specific private key. Since you have no clue what wallet you used I suggest figuring that out first. It's not electrum, though.

pooya87

legendary

Activity: 3472

Merit: 10611

to be able to spend the bitcoin balance of your address (1HgL....) you need any of these things which you should have made a back up of:
1) no matter where you made the wallet, you need the private key
2) if the address was created on blockchain.info you need your identifier and password and possibly 2FA to open your account there and spend it. read this: https://blockchain.info/wallet/security
3) if the address was created using Electrum you need either the wallet.dat file backup or your seed to restore your wallet.

Quote from: studentlamo on August 24, 2016, 06:44:02 PM

~ I have a list of words (17 in fact) and have also tried 12 as the seed when restoring the account but to no avail, I even tried an older version. ~

you don't need an older version, the new version still supports old seeds.
if you have created the wallet in 2014 it must be a 12 word seed. and you can not put random words, you need the exact number of words with the correct sequence.

studentlamo

newbie

Activity: 1

Merit: 0

[/b][/b]I grabbed some BTC (as I have many times) in my rush I pasted an receive address that I had saved rather than create a new one using my online wallet (Blockchain)
I eventually remembered that this address was when I was using Tails OS and the installed BTC client (in 2014) - I presume it is Electrum.
I managed to restore the account using the address (1HgLRgEHcwpnHErdkFnbGgHDtK72WNAEGH) which is visible in Electrum along with the available BTC,
however it's watching only. I have a list of words (17 in fact) and have also tried 12 as the seed when restoring the account but to no avail, I even tried an older version.

Is it that I used a different BTC wallet software?
The words I have are incorrect?
Just forgot what I am doing as I last used the address and software in 2014?
Lost the BTC, can see them, but no touch.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Topic: Electrum is 'watching only' can see the BTC but cant do anything with them. (Read 450 times)