I have a similar question, so I thought I'd post in this thread.
I opened a ~6 year old wallet.dat file in a fresh install of bitcoin-core (after it downloaded over a hundred gigs of data!). It shows 0 bitcoin, so before I trash it I want to make sure I have my settings right. I was mining on a pool and I have emails of transactions from the mining pool to my public bitcoin address.
I have a similar question, so I thought I'd post in this thread.
I opened a ~6 year old wallet.dat file in a fresh install of bitcoin-core (after it downloaded over a hundred gigs of data!). It shows 0 bitcoin, so before I trash it I want to make sure I have my settings right. I was mining on a pool and I have emails of transactions from the mining pool to my public bitcoin address.
Did you check whether the address which recieved the payouts does indeed have a balance?
You can check your address in a block explorer (e.g.
https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC,
https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/ or
https://blockchain.info/.
If your address does 'contain' bitcoins you have to make sure that your wallet does hold the private key of this address.
You can use the
listaddressgroupings command to list all addresses. Check whether your address is listed.
Or you can execute the
listunspent command to list all unspent outputs (basically the 'coins you can send').
Or alternatively, drop/dump the private keys of all your adresses, and import them in something such as Electrum, which should show all the balances you've possibly had on those adresses, since the core wallet might somehow be bugged.. It's less of a hassle then looking through 100's of adress on blockchain.info,
The command simply is
dumpwallet
Do note that this will extract your private keys in an unprotected format.
Thanks for your replies, I'm starting to think I never fully understood bitcoin when I set it up, but here's what I know:
The single address that the pool paid out to has a couple bitcoin, it says unspent on blockchain. I don't know whether the wallet is the destination of this address, unfortunately...
Is Electrum an alternative bitcoin client? Do I import the private keys directly or via the wallet.dat file? Thanks for your help!
EDIT:
Another thought I had, it may be a locked wallet. The bitcoin-core software (the windows GUI version) rescanned for a while after opening the old wallet.dat file, but didn't prompt for a passphrase to unlock it. Do I have to do that manually?
There might not be a passphrase, depending on the version and settings you used. And yes, Electrum is an alternative client, and you import the private keys directly, not the wallet.dat
I'm trying to get some of my BTC out of the wallet.
I listedaddressgroupings and found 1address with a small balance which matches my records. I attempted to send the BTC out, but over serveral transactions came back conflicted or unconfirmed, but the trx did not even show up on explorer.
Seeing as I have a balance, should I just backup the wallet and load it on a electrum, what are the risks with dumpwallet?
Is there an easier and safer way?
Thank you very much!
The only risks are that your computer might be infected with a virus, in which case anyone could scan through your private keys.