Topic: MultiBit - page 80. (Read 336309 times)

Hi bitcoinspot.nl,

Yes.   The main reason you cannot remove wallets in MultiBit is that until recently there has been no block chain replay.

Imagine you remove a wallet from MultiBit on Monday (but it is still on your disk).
On Tuesday you think - oh I just need to look at that again and open it up.

Because there has been a day's worth of blocks the "Monday wallet" needs to be refreshed with the day's worth of blocks.

Block replay is more-or-less working but needs a bit more work to be 100%.   Once that is rock solid it will be easier to remove wallets and then reopen them.

Deleting wallets (as in total destruction) would be doable now as it is just deleting the files.

Is there any planning for some more advanced wallet-handling in the future ?
- like deleting or archiving a wallet from multibit ?

Thanks again for the swift replies!

Greetz from holland.

@bitcoinspot.nl

Good idea to have an option in the installer for 'normal' and 'portable' installs.
It would save the fiddling around copying files around.

I have added it to the future features list on the wiki:
https://github.com/jim618/multibit/wiki


RE: Two wallets that have the same bitcoins in.
Here is a how-to guide:

1.) How to see if two wallets are the same.
To work out if two wallets are copies of each other, you need to check whether the receiving addresses are the same.  
(There is one receiving address for each private key - it is these that allow you to spend.)
Steps:
1.1) Start MultiBit.
1.2) Compare the receiving addresses between the two wallets.   If they are identical then one wallet is a copy of the other.
1.3) If they are the same, choose the wallet that you want to get rid of.   Let us say it is a wallet called "MyExpensesCopy" that you no longer want.
1.4) Make a note of the file path for the "MyExpensesCopy" wallet. If you hover over the filename in the "Your Wallets" screen you get a tooltip with the full path.
1.5) Shut down MultiBit.

2.) Preparing an unwanted wallet for deletion.
2.1) Make sure MultiBit is shut down.
2.2) In your filemanager, go to where the MyExpensesCopy wallet is stored.
2.3) Rename the file "MyExpensesCopy.wallet" to "readyToDelete.wallet".
2.4) Rename the file "MyExpensesCopy.info" to "readyToDelete.info".

3.) Checking everything is ok and deleting the unwanted wallet.
3.1) Start MultiBit.
3.2) Your unwanted wallet will no longer appear in the "My Wallets" screen.
3.3) Check that the wallet you intend to keep is ok.  (It should be - this is just double checking).
3.4) If the wallet you intend to keep is ok you can safely delete the "readyToDelete.wallet" and "readyToDelete.info" files.

one more quick question:

i dont know how i did it, but i have 2 wallet-files that seem to have the same bitcoins in them.
Is there a way to figure out which is the correct one ?/to figure out which one is safe te delete ?

Thanks again, keep up the good work!

wouldn't it be nice to have a option in the install process to choose between "normal" and "portable" installation?

Greetz!

If the balance is on the address for the private key on the blockchain, it should be there.
I presume you have looked on blockexplorer/ blockchain.info that the balance is there for the receiving addresses you have listed in MultiBit.

Possibilities:
+ Maybe the import format for the key is different to the export - it should be the standard sipa wallet format.
   (You should also see the same bitcoin addresses in both MultiBit and Armory which would indicate the import+export formats are the same).
+ Perhaps Armory is rounding the display in a similar way to MultiBit (sounds pretty unlikely I must admit).

You could also try importing the private key file into the blockchain.info wallet - it loads straight in in the "Import/Export | Import wallet" textbox.  There is a checkbox for the Multibit (sic) format.   I have tried this out before so this definitely understands the MultiBit key format.  You sometimes have to log out of blockchain.info and back in again to get it to refresh the BTC amounts.


Let me know what you find out as I have not heard of anything similar happening to anyone else (yet).

so i exported 5 private keys from MultiBit into Armory.  does it make sense that the 0.0001 btc left in the wallet would not be found in any of them?

Hi cypherdoc,

RE: the "Export private keys" screen not being as clear as it could be.

I have written up some help text with screenshots and put it into the MultiBit help here:
http://multibit.org/help_exportingPrivateKeys.html

Edit: I have also transcribed the "how to run from a USB drive" into:
http://multibit.org/help_runFromUSBDrive.html

ok, if the .0001 is stuck thats fine.

but the export key fx is still confusing...

trying to export keys to salvage the .0001 or more Satoshi's.

i don't see any export files in the directory with .key extensions.  the file "next" to the wallet files are called .info.  is this it?

i clicked Export Private Keys, it says it was successful, but where did it go since it never let me specify where to export them?

With the minimum fee of 0.0001 a total of 0.0001 is stuck yes.  You cannot get it out without spending it all on fees.

RE: location of wallets.
Theorectically you can have your wallets and the blockchain that "feeds" it transactions anywhere but I think it makes it less error prone if the MultiBit exe, wallets and blockchain are all on the same USB.

At the moments the wallets do not keep track of the last block they saw so it works best if any given wallet is always sent transactions from a single blockchain.  We are beefing up the wallet format in bitcoinj and I am some plans on the block replay ability so this will improve.   You can imagine with the subtleties of reorgs that you don't really want a wallet to receive blocks/ txs from multiple sources though.


I think you have given MultiBit a good bashing this evening so thanks for the feedback.   It indicates a few areas that either need improving or more explanatory notes provided.

phew.  was able to send all btc except for .0001 back to Satoshi client.  is this residual amount stuck in Multibit?

in the future for a USB install, are ALL wallets supposed to be on USB?  in this instance, i had wallets generated on both C drive and USB.

Hmmm,

if you cannot close that open dialog window after a few tries you could kill MultiBit and then in the multibit.properties remove the line:
selectedView=XX

Start up MultiBit again and it should get rid of it.


RE: the amounts and confirms.
You can resync your wallet to what is on the blockchain which should get you back into a good state.
There is an option "Tools | Reset blockchain and transactions".

Read the notes and then run it and then leave MultiBit to resync.   (It is sort of doing a replay). Don't do anything whilst it is resyncing as it is literally replaying the blocks.

Of course you should not have to do any of this.


Edit: I am offline soon - if all else fails: try getting your BTC out by exporting the private key file and importing it into blockchain.info.   There is an option in "Import / Export | Import wallet".  Then send it to wherever you want.    Sorry for your mixed experience with MultiBit tonight - it looks like I need to do some plain old fashioned testing/ bug fixing before adding more functionality.

double buggy.  notice the amount of BTC upper left just doubled and now i have confirm checks.  but i'm still locked up:

buggy.  can't get confirms to release that 12.8320.  i'm locked up here.  any suggestions?

You might be a bit on the "bleeding edge" here . . .
What it should do is:
When MultiBit starts it looks to see if there is a file called "multibit.properties" in the start up directory.   If there is, it should use that as the default directory to use for wallet creation.  It also uses the blockchain (multibit.blockchain) in that directory.

If there is no file of that name it uses the user application directory for that OS.


RE: two blockchains.   MultiBit has a fresh blockchain in the install directory when it is installed. I keep this up-to-date every time I create an installer.  Normally on a multiuser machine the first time a user starts up MultiBit it copies the fresh blockchain into the users roaming/ application directory.  Each user has their own blockchain.


For a standalone USB solution you want to have a multibit.properties in your USB installation directory and a blockchain in the same directory that it will then update.   Have the copy of MultiBit you are running on your USB drive look after wallets that you ALSO keep on the same drive.   That way all of your wallets and the blockchain they are using will all update in sync.

I hope that makes sense but just ask if it does not.

Hi cypherdoc,

Glad you got the USB install working ok.

Answers to your points inline:

1.  do the private keys touch my RAM when sending/receiving?  doesn't the OS do the crypto signing mandating this?  security risk?
Yes - at the moment the private keys are unencrypted in BOTH memory and in the wallets.   This obviously needs fixing before MultiBit can be used for larger amounts of BTC.   Encryption is pretty much at the top of my TODO list - needs to go into the underlying bitcoinj classes too.
   
2.  is .0001 fee mandatory?
It is a tricky one this as if I drop the mandatory minimum fee some people's BTC will get 'stuck' in the bitcoind nodes which would be painful all round.   I have gone with the same fee level/ solution as the bitcoind client for similar reasons.

3.  i sent 13.83222962 Btc's to Multibit but only 13.8322 are displayed.  what happened to the 0.00002962 ?
It is in your wallet - at the moment I have a fixed BTC number *display* down to 0.0001 BTC but the BTC in the wallet are in Satoshi. This is mainly not to overwhelm mainstream users with gazillions of numbers on the screen.
If you have a look in blockchain.info / block explorer you should see the full amount really is there. 
Display formatting will I expect become more sophisticated (show in mBTC etc) over time but I do not have it as a very high priority at the moment.

4.  as i understand it, there is no RPC connection.  this is good for security.
Yes agreed.   I do not expect MultiBit to have any sort of programmable interface as it just creates an attack surface.   For an end client program it does not seem necessary.

5.  when will we be able to encrypt the wallets?
I plan to work on encrypting the private key output files hopefully in the next week or two.   The wallets will be next but will take a while because:
a) I want a common encryption format with the rest of bitcoinj
b) There is also a migration of the underlying wallet format (to protobuffers) which I will probably do first (Andreas has started doing it for his Android Wallet).   I don't want to change two things that are so critical simultaneously.
c) Testing testing testing.

I honestly do not know how long it will take.

6) Key output file location - by default it puts the export key file "next" to the wallet so you were probably using a wallet on your C drive.   If you hover your mouse over the name of the wallet in the 'your wallets' view it gives you the file path.   You can have wallets stored directly on your USB drive (wherever you like) and the default output private key file should be "next" to the wallet.

Note that the private key *import* on this release is broken at the moment.   You can import them into the wallets but the replay is faulty.   I am working on this.   You can import the whole key file into blockchain.info which works quite well.

I have been working on an "All-In-One" USB drive solution tonight that I have tentatively called "MultiBitThumb".
With a bit of work I think running MultiBit on a USB drive will simplify to:
a) You download a zip file.
b) You unzip it onto your USB drive
c) You then have links for "runOnWindows", "runOnMac", "runOnLinux" to run MultiBit locally with local wallets and blockchain on any of those OSes.

I will probably have to timebox this work - have a play with it tonight and then get back on bugs/ next steps tomorrow.

so when i want to export private keys the default export file takes me to the multibit.key file on the C drive.  didn't i read somewhere that they are supposed to be within the multibit.properties file on my USB stick?

edit:  i checked the directory folder on my usb and it has the .exe but the 2 wallet files i created were installed in the users app data folder on c drive while the .blockchain and .properties files are in BOTH locations.

never mind.  chose wrong folder.  it defaults to users app data.

ok, i'm very impressed with this USB installation:

1.  do the private keys touch my RAM when sending/receiving?  doesn't the OS do the crypto signing mandating this?  security risk?
2.  is .0001 fee mandatory?
3.  i sent 13.83222962 Btc's to Multibit but only 13.8322 are displayed.  what happened to the 0.00002962 ?
4.  as i understand it, there is no RPC connection.  this is good for security.
5.  when will we be able to encrypt the wallets?

Cheers !
(have also added Linux for use by others)