Topic: MultiBit - page 70. (Read 336309 times)

Awesome. Thanks a lot Jim!

In fact I'll go ahead and create bunch of more new addresses in advance myself, for future usage. Then I'll export the private keys and back them up somewhere safe, and I should be good.
(Regardless, I will still making frequent backups of my regular wallet files as well, just to keep my personal labels and transaction notes and stuff)

One more thing, just wondering: what is in a wallet file, other than the keys + transaction data? For example I've got one wallet that is almost 6 MB now, and there aren't that many addresses or transactions from or to them so far (approx 15 addresses and 20 transactions in total). And a few labels, that's it. Does it contain tons of blockchain data or something?

Hi Kazimir,

You are correct. The MultiBit change goes back to the first address used in the transaction inputs. There is not a pool of future addresses like in the Satoshi client.

You can backup the wallet with a private key export as you suggest.

There is a how-to in the MultiBit help (which is basically identical to what you have outlined) here:
http://multibit.org/help_backupWalletUsingPrivateKeys.html

If you have a non-trivial amount of money in any bitcoin wallet I would definitely recommend having an encrypted backup of your private keys somewhere safe.

You can also keep a backup of the actual wallet file with the keys in it too but the private keys are all you need.

The encrypted private key file is IMO superior as you can:
+ Decrypt it using openssl i.e. you do not need MultiBit to do the decrypt.
+ Import the keys into pretty much anything - they are standard Satoshi wallet import private key format.

Another question, regarding backups and creation of new keys/addresses.

As far as I understand, the default client (Bitcoin-Qt) precomputed 100 keys in advances. And whenever you make a payment (send some bitcoins to someone else), the change is not returned to the sending address, but to your next address in line. Reason: using a new address after every payment improves anonimity. And calculating 100 keys in advance is to make sure that a backup of your wallet does not become expired/incomplete as soon as you make a single payment (although it will if you'd make more than 100 payments since your last backup and your hdd crashes).

Does MultiBit also do something like this? When looking up my own payments on blockchain.info, I noticed the change is return to same address. So I guess not?

In that case, as long as I don't manually create any new addresses in a wallet myself, will a backup of my wallet remain valid? Even if I get or make new transactions (receive or send) afterwards? I understand I might lose notes, labels, comments, or other personal stuff that I filled in for those new transactions, but I mean 'remain valid' as in I won't lose any actual bitcoins.

Put differently: if I just export the private keys, would that be a sufficient backup (to not lose any bitcoins) as long as I don't add new keys/addresses myself?

(with 'backup' I mean copying up the wallet files or exporting the private keys, and storing them on a remote location (encrypted of course), to avoid losing bitcoins in case my harddisk crashes)

Thanks Kazimir - good that you are getting clean confirmations. Let me know if you see it again.

Thanks, yeah I found out about this later, helped me save time.

Actually, I'm not sure what happened, but after I tried again, this problem did not occur anymore. I've sent several more payments later on and they were processed normally (I mean they also appeared as 'confirmed' in MultiBit within reasonable time).

Anyway I'll keep checking, and if it shows up again I'll let you know and send some logs.

It does not have a minimise to tray at the moment.
I seem to remember something in the Java System class improvements about minimize to tray so will put it on the list of things to look at.

Cheers

Thanks for the consideration, Jim.

Does MultiBit have a minimize to tray option? If not, any plans to add one?

Nice CSV sounds good Awesome work on MultiBit !!

Hi Lumpy,

Thanks for your comments and suggestions.

Yes I want to improve the options with the numbers presentations. There is already a suggestion to add support for commas as decimal separators and number of decimal places would be good to do at the same time.

The current wallet description and filename is shown on the top of the window e.g

MultiBit - your wallet description - c:/Jim/pettyCash.wallet

I put it in the window title as it is more conventional and there is more space there.  Also when you have the MultiBit window minimised it normally appears in the minimised icon title.

I imagine it will be a month or so before I do another round of UI improvements (other than wallet related ones).

Thanks for your input.

I like this client quite a bit.

I had a couple of small suggestions: the first was for watch-only wallets, but I see from the thread that it's on your todo list.

The others:

1) Customizable decimal places in display. I don't think 8 digits will overwhelm anyone, but if 4 sounds more friendly, maybe add an option to preferences that defaults to 4?
2) A header that shows the current wallet along with (or after) its balance. I know that the wallet is highlighted on the side, but I think it would be nice to see: "3.0000 BTC - Spending" or something of that nature.

Sorry no - not at the moment. It is on my list on UI enhancements to do but I am concentrating on the lower layers at the moment.

I will probably have an export to CSV as that is simpler to do.

Any way to export all my transactions info to a CSV or XLS file ?

TBH it sounds like a bug.

You get the zero confirmation on the send when it gets put out to the network(which sounds like it is working) and then the confirmation comes from the block in which the transaction appears in. If MultiBit does not see/ process this correctly when it comes in from the network then the transaction would not confirm.

The fact that it is on the blockchain means it was correctly transmitted out to the network so I suspect it is on the receive side.

Could you PM your log files (in your user data directory/ MultiBit/log) and I will have a look. If you can engineer an example transaction where it has not confirmed (say by sending a small amount to a friend) and let me know the transaction details that would help me identify it in the log.

Oh and let me know which version you are using and the operating system in case it is related to that.

Jim

p.s. It is not a solution I know, but you can save a bit of time in the 'Reset blockchain and transactions' from choosing the option 'Specify reset date'. Then choose a date, say, one day before when the first unconfirmed transaction appears. It will work the same as doing the whole wallet but you can save a lot of waiting.

Been using MultiBit for a while now, but I'm having problems with transactions I send.

Receiving works OK, but if I want to send coins to another address, they just don't seem to get confirmed. At least not according to MultiBit. If I look up the details on blockchain.info, it's confirmed all right (so the transfer is processed properly by the network) but somehow MultiBit doesn't pick up. Not even after 24 hours, and restarting MultiBit several times (and giving it pleny of time to sync).

Note that it *does* pick up confirmation of transactions I receive from others.

So far I have been able to 'fix' this by using Reset blockchain and transactions. It takes a (quite long) while to replay all the blockchain data and then my wallets are up to date and all transactions appear as confirmed.

What gives?

Hi piuk,
Thanks for supporting the original format of tx URLs once more.

:-)

Jim

Oops, This was an unexpected side effect from a change I made. Both links are working again now.


Yeah this is a database index used to save a little memory. Each input and output needs to reference the transaction so rather than have a 32 byte hash included each time it is cheaper to assign the tx a unique 4 byte integer and use that as the PK.

You can also use:

http://blockchain.info/tx/df06784a5d5d313ddc107fc5c92ebf975f13b9c8500e0897b49a0e3848ee8114

Yes I think you are right.
Looks like piuk has put in an index for the unique number of the tx (presumably it is faster).
That would scupper me as I do not have that number to do a look up MultiBit -> blockchain.info on.

I have messaged him anyhow so will see what he replies. 

Seems to be the transaction number. See:

http://blockchain.info/tx-index/3578085/
and
http://blockchain.info/tx-index/3578086/

Are seconds apart. They don't require the transaction hash either.

Hi Tittiez,

Thanks for that headsup.

The URL for, say, tx df06784a5d5d313ddc107fc5c92ebf975f13b9c8500e0897b49a0e3848ee8114

has changed from:
http://blockchain.info/tx-index/df06784a5d5d313ddc107fc5c92ebf975f13b9c8500e0897b49a0e3848ee8114

to:
http://blockchain.info/tx-index/3578082/df06784a5d5d313ddc107fc5c92ebf975f13b9c8500e0897b49a0e3848ee8114

I will ask piuk about what the extra field is and update it if possible. I think it has changed in the last 24 hours as I tried it ok last night.
The transaction lookup for blockexplorer.com in the MultiBit transactions details dialog still works ok.

Cheers

Seems blockchain.info changed the way URL's work for transactions. Might wanna fix that.