Topic: Electrum Wallet Issue - Warning Some Data... (Read 309 times)

"It is not possible for a wallet you were using normally to turn into a watch only wallet.[B/]"  Why would I make this up and claim I've been using a watch only wallet this whole time?  If I had messed with settings or done anything different, I would have mentioned that.  On top of that, there have been several other people with the same experience as me.

It is my wallet and I have made many transactions using that default wallet and never created or changed anything.  I got a replacement phone (same exact model) and and the data was transferred from the old to the new.  Only had to type in my password to access the same electrum wallet on the new phone.

Maybe it changed/updated the version my previous phone was running.  But, that's a stretch because I was able to make a successful transfer several days prior with the new phone which is difficult to explain with that theory.  If I WAS running an old version for some reason, wouldn't it have updated on the new phone automatically?  So, the coincidence that it happened to update versions weeks after using the electrum wallet, that it would all off the sudden decide to update itself.  
I was able to create a new wallet out of curiosity and it is NOT watch only.  I cannot send from my watch only to that one.  I am officially done with BTC and Electrum can eat it.  Moving to lite or XMR and already am using Cake wallet instead of Electrum. BTC fees are way too high and this experience has me questioning the reliability of something else happening. 

I have successfully "cloned" the wallet on my PC and was able to send the coin to an exchange as the computer wallet was not a watch only.  Money is back after some insane mining fees plus the exchange's fees.  Besides the fees (lost nearly $50 sending to my wallet and getting back as the mining fees were out of control), the fact that this happened is concerning.  Wonder how often this happens and someone doesn't ask for help from the right place (here, NOT Reddit where that dude was trying to pull a fast one).  Or, they get answers but are not technically savvy, they are not going to have a fun time.

Several topics referenced in this thread said it happened to several people even also on the PREVIOUS version update 4.3 to 4.4 and then currently from 4.4 to 4.5 where there were similar stories.  IIRC, all issues revolved around watch only wallets being place unintentionally rendering their funds essentially very tough to get. The fact that it's occurring to a small population of android users who have no clue how this happened - I think it's something that just randomly happens to electrum wallets on androids on rare occasions and I'm one of the lucky ones.  I consider myself somewhat literate when it comes to technology and this was an absolute nightmare.  Cannot imagine having thousands stuck like that and being even less knowledgeable about troubleshooting this kind of thing than I am.  There were some lovely accusations, almost every single reply to this had a completely different set of instructions to attempt a resolution and also another saying I'm screwed.

Thank you all SOO much for the help.  To summarize my solution: I was able to get the money OUT of the watch only wallet by installing Electrum on my computer and using the seed to open a new default wallet.  Then, bam.  Money is there in a usable wallet.  I am positive the issue woudl have been solved earlier if I hadn't have had to work as much as I currently do.  Stressful as hell and long hours do not justify decent pay for me right now in life.  I'm looking for some type of job within my realm of studies and the jobs I've held.  But, definitely a different industry.  I need a bit of work/life balance and not be on call literally 24/7.


Apologies for any grammar or odd words.  It's been a long week and weekend at work for me.  Back at it tomorrow. 

The OP is using the latest Android version, and since he has a problem, I advised him to try the version he was using when he first installed Electrum. It helped me when I had a similar problem, and the goal is of course to get access to the coins that are in the current wallet and then start using the latest available version.

I found the topic where I reported my problem and I think there are some answers there ->

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.62166840
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/8374

Please show where it says that there's a workaround so we can see the other info that you've shared where they came to the conclusion that it's recoverable.
BTW, this thread started with an entirely off-mark issue that isn't actually the issue, the "QR Code warning",
perhaps they're talking about the work-around to that, because it's just about the exportation of the unsigned transaction.

Anyways,
Here's an easy-to-understand explanation: Bitcoin isn't something like a bank account.

It is "self-custodial" and every bitcoin is recorded in every Bitcoin Node's blockchain, not in anyone's wallet, Electrum is a self-custodial wallet.
Even the nodes where the Blockchain is stored have no control over the funds stored in them since those can only be unlocked by the correct private key.

Wallets just display coins that it can watch or spend depending on what's stored in it:
"Spending" bitcoins require the "private key" of the address where it's sent to.
"Watching" only requires the public info which can be the address, public key or xpub key (in  Electrum: Wallet->Information).
Your watching-only wallet doesn't contain any private key.

I hope that the terms I've used here are not confusing.

Are all those hundred transactions inbound?

If not, you may have more than one wallets available in your wallet list and you've just loaded the watching-only wallet that you've (accidentally) created.
How about the 12-word "seed phrase" that the wallet instructed to write on a paper/backup?
You can't proceed without backing it up.

If yes, it's normal that you can receive bitcoins to a watching-only wallet because all it needs to receive is to provide an address to the sender.
But you can't spend it without the usual non-watching-only pair where the xpub/address came from.

Special circumstances sometimes require older versions of the application, despite potential bugs or missing features.
Besides, there are no security risks or vulnerabilities in the Electrum versions that Lucius suggested, as far as I am aware.

Old versions have bugs in them. He's better off using the latest version which he can get from the playstore.

If you have a seed, I would suggest that you uninstall Electrum and download an older version, I suggest one of the versions that were released about 1 year ago. These would be versions 4.3.3 or 4.3.4 which can be downloaded from the official Electrum site. Of course, you need to download the apk version and install it manually.

https://download.electrum.org

Your Electrum wallet cannot be nuked, it is in your own self custody and you control the keys. Your funds can only be confiscated if you use a custodial wallet, so this cannot be what the problem is.
It is not possible for a wallet you were using normally to just turn into a watch only wallet, to create a watch only wallet all you need is your master public key. But in this situation you claim you have been making tx's with this wallet, so i think you are leaving some details out here. If you own the wallets, where are your backups?

What do you mean by nuke? Do you mean someone blocked your access to the wallet?
When you use a non-custodial wallet like electrum, you have full control over your fund and no one can freeze your fund.


If all you have is watch-only wallet, there's nothing you can do.

I think you should probably clear up first whether you own that wallet or not. Do you have the seed/private key? I find it impossible that you successfully make so many transactions just from your watch-only wallet, and I don't get what you're trying to say by nuking wallets either. Can you translate it into better terms? Your story is a bit confusing to follow imo.

I created that wallet about a year ago when I first downloaded electrum and started using BTC.  It's always worked and have made hundreds of transactions.  Until the last one.


There was some talk in a forum I am part of where a mod said their attack dog was "nuking some peoples' wallets" who were trying to scam others in the group.  Could I have unintentionally have been nuked even though I never gave that wallet address out to anyone?  I did try sending some coin to the main person in that forum for his help.  Money never got to him so, have to assume he would not have seen any information of the transaction to show up as I don't think it was even broadcasted.  So, if that's correct, I couldn't have been "nuked?"

This is so confusing because one topic says that there IS a work-around and then something else or someone else says that it does NOT work and that money is just gone even though it's sitting right friggin' there

I am at the point where I would pay someone technically savvy (this person would have to be someone on the forums here that is a long-standing and trustworthy individual) to help walk me through troubleshooting this.  The big issue here is that I work a lot and don't have a ton of time right now to keep searching and searching when the majority of what is being talked about in the solutions is way beyond my basic understanding of BTC wallets, coding and all that jazz.  I am going to be moving states in a few months and that money is kind of a big deal even though it's not a ton.

He can only do that if he has the standard/imported wallet that has the private key(s) of his watching-only wallet.
Based from OP's replies, it seems like he's unaware that he's been using a watching-only wallet all this time.

Electrum wallets do not change from standard to watching-only for whatever reason.
It's watching-only because it's created via importing a "master public key", an address or set of addresses.

The former will create an HD watching-only wallet that's capable of generating new addresses.
The latter has fixed amount of addresses depending on how many was imported.
Both are incapable of spending bitcoins sent to them.

The "QR code issue" isn't always an issue but standard warning for those who want to use the QR code to export the transaction.

So, the question is, how did you created that wallet?
Had someone or a shady tutorial instructed you?

Just like this error:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/how-do-i-import-the-copied-text-transaction-5460116
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/8538

You can see the answer here with this complaint: https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/issues/8535


Or just like I have said before which I think would work, try and use Sparrow for the cold wallet and see if it will work. Sparrow is only available on desktop.

So this is why you can't access the funds in the wallet, you need the seeds/privkeys to access the funds and I hope you have seeds.

Just go and create a new wallet then import the wallet using seeds which will let you access the funds and move where you want to. But this contradicts what you said in the first post. you have been using the wallet for over 1 year and now only you have issues wth spending the funds or have you just used this wallet only to receive it until now?

I am using Android and am on version 4.4.6

I have tried transferring the entire amount in my wallet and have tried transferring much less than the total amount in the wallet.  Every time I get the same error.  One thing I noticed is that the wallet details say it is "watch only."  I created a new wallet and the wallet details info is much newer.  Might be because I've had the original wallet for a long time?

I have screenshots but, don't have the time to upload them to a hosting site and attach here.  The error code reads: Transaction created.  Present this QR code to the signing device."  Below that it says, "Warning: some data (prev txs / "full utxos") was left out of the QR cod as it would not fit.  This might cause issues if signing offline.  As a workaround, try exporting the tx as a file or text instead."

It seems that might be my issue is that somehow the wallet became watch only.  Or, am I wrong?  Quick search pulled  up some complicated directions for sweeping the key???  Crunched for time or I would have done more digging.

Your transaction probably includes many inputs/outputs and as mentioned by Stalker22, the data is too big to fit in the QR code.

Are you trying to import the unsigned transaction from the watch-only wallet to your offline wallet?

If possible, try to make your transaction with less inputs/outputs. You may need to use coin control for that.
If you can't do so and you have to use all your inputs, a solution is to export the unsigned transaction as text.

You don't need to go to a website to migrate your wallet due to a virtual error of your Electrum wallet QR code. i believe the person who gave you the advice wanted to steal your funds so discard the advice.
For this forum member to help, you need to tell us in detail if you're talking about the mobile, or desktop wallet and the wallet version ^{(a screenshot without showing your wallet's private information will help)} because I used the Electrum desktop QR code yesterday without an issue.

So the QR code you are using is causing the issue, try a different one and see if the problem still persists.

I haven't encountered such a problem yet with the Electrum wallet, so the TX went whenever I scanned QR so this could not be an issue due to the electrum side.

If QR is not working then try copy => paste the BTC address into the destination then you are free to send/withdraw your balance.

Yeah, the error message "data left out of QR code" pops up when theres just too much info in the transaction.  I ran into it myself when trying to push through a big transaction on Electrum - had a ton of inputs and outputs since I was moving funds between a bunch of addresses and  the little QR just cant fit all that complex data!

If you can share more details on exactly what you were doing when you saw the message.  Knowing the Electrum version, what kinda transaction it was, how many inputs and outputs were included all that nitty gritty would help us troubleshooting where the bottleneck happened.  Maybe we can find a workaround for this problem.

First of all, be careful of scammers. The person might give you a link to download a fake wallet and if you import your seed phrase on the wallet, all your coins will be gone.

I do not know what could have caused this, but hope the transaction is not more than 100 kb? If the transaction is too larger, Electrum will not be able to broadcast it.

If you have the desktop version of Electrum, you can import the seed phrase on it because this kind of complaint I have seen in the past was from mobile Electrum user, but it was about transaction signing through QR code and not address.

You can also try to use Sparrow wallet and see if it is going to work.

Please explain this better aka translate what you wrote in plain English language, and post some screenshot without exposing your addresses and/or private key.
Data can't leave QR code, it's just visual information that needs to be scanned with camera from other device, but you can send transaction perfectly fine without QR code.
If you have your seed words written in safe place, and if address balance is correctly shown on mempool explorer than you don't have anything to worry about.