Tails with old Electrum (2.7.9) for cold strorge?

A1exander

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Answering my own questions:

Quote from: A1exander on November 30, 2017, 01:48:26 AM

I suppose it is possible to install the latest version to the Tails permanent storage and it should read the wallet properly, without the need to restore from the seed. Maybe it is better to do it right now.

Yes, it works with the latest version (3.0.2), so i suppose there will be no difficulties accessing my coins later, when I need them.

Quote from: A1exander on November 30, 2017, 01:48:26 AM

Another question. Is it possible to export an incoming transaction from the watching-only wallet and import it to the cold wallet to make it show the correct amount without connecting to servers?

No, it does not work. It seems that import is for signing only.

I've also tried to sign a message in cold wallet and then to verify it. No problems.

A1exander

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Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: User365 on November 30, 2017, 10:18:38 AM

Quote from: A1exander on November 29, 2017, 03:39:50 AM

It seems I've found a bug or glitch in Electrum for Android. I've tried to create watching-only wallets several times. Two of them under Linux and one under Android work perfectly, but another one under Android shows the only transaction to the wallet as "Not verified" despite more than 90 confirmations.

The watch only function of electrum on android seems slightly buggy for me too. I have ~30tx on the addresses I watch and it seems like electrum doesn´t remember that it received that the tx is already confirmed (it has to refresh it on each start). The more tx I get the longer it takes to refresh (show me that the tx is confirmed).

For my 30 tx which are displayed in my watch wallet, it takes ~ 15 seconds to load, maybe you got more tx and close before the app has finished loading.

I've encountered that glitch in a wallet with only one transaction.

User365

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Activity: 434

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physics, mathematics and engineering

Quote from: A1exander on November 29, 2017, 03:39:50 AM

It seems I've found a bug or glitch in Electrum for Android. I've tried to create watching-only wallets several times. Two of them under Linux and one under Android work perfectly, but another one under Android shows the only transaction to the wallet as "Not verified" despite more than 90 confirmations.

The watch only function of electrum on android seems slightly buggy for me too. I have ~30tx on the addresses I watch and it seems like electrum doesn´t remember that it received that the tx is already confirmed (it has to refresh it on each start). The more tx I get the longer it takes to refresh (show me that the tx is confirmed).

For my 30 tx which are displayed in my watch wallet, it takes ~ 15 seconds to load, maybe you got more tx and close before the app has finished loading.

A1exander

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Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: Abdussamad on November 29, 2017, 03:38:52 PM

Quote from: A1exander on November 29, 2017, 03:39:50 AM

It seems I've found a bug or glitch in Electrum for Android. I've tried to create watching-only wallets several times. Two of them under Linux and one under Android work perfectly, but another one under Android shows the only transaction to the wallet as "Not verified" despite more than 90 confirmations.

This is a known issue on the PC version. You just restart electrum to make it sync properly. I guess on android you would go to the app view (right most button at the bottom), close and then restart electrum. Alternatively changing the electrum server you are using sometimes does the job.

Restarting did not help, but then it suddenly began to work normally. Well, it's a minor inconvenience.

Quote from: Abdussamad on November 29, 2017, 03:38:52 PM

Quote from: A1exander on November 27, 2017, 02:04:31 PM

The cold wallet will not be syncing with servers anyway, because the system will never be online. The only potential problem may be with wallet, seed or signature formats, not with server connections.

There have been bug fixes related to offline signing too since 2.7.9

Quote from: jackg on November 27, 2017, 03:48:44 PM

Also, the issue with networking with servers is generally fairly easy to fix.

The only fix is to install the latest version of electrum on tails. Simply changing servers doesn't do the job.

I suppose it is possible to install the latest version to the Tails permanent storage and it should read the wallet properly, without the need to restore from the seed. Maybe it is better to do it right now.

Another question. Is it possible to export an incoming transaction from the watching-only wallet and import it to the cold wallet to make it show the correct amount without connecting to servers?

jackg

copper member

Activity: 2856

Merit: 3071

https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory

Quote from: Abdussamad on November 29, 2017, 03:38:52 PM

Quote from: A1exander on November 29, 2017, 03:39:50 AM

It seems I've found a bug or glitch in Electrum for Android. I've tried to create watching-only wallets several times. Two of them under Linux and one under Android work perfectly, but another one under Android shows the only transaction to the wallet as "Not verified" despite more than 90 confirmations.

This is a known issue on the PC version. You just restart electrum to make it sync properly. I guess on android you would go to the app view (right most button at the bottom), close and then restart electrum. Alternatively changing the electrum server you are using sometimes does the job.

Quote from: A1exander on November 27, 2017, 02:04:31 PM

The cold wallet will not be syncing with servers anyway, because the system will never be online. The only potential problem may be with wallet, seed or signature formats, not with server connections.

There have been bug fixes related to offline signing too since 2.7.9

Quote from: jackg on November 27, 2017, 03:48:44 PM

Also, the issue with networking with servers is generally fairly easy to fix.

The only fix is to install the latest version of electrum on tails. Simply changing servers doesn't do the job.

He can do "the only fix" once he connects to the Internet anyway at the point he wants to clear the entire wallet.

How drastic are the signing bugs exactly also? I was using an old version for quite a few months before updating.

Abdussamad

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Activity: 3710

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Quote from: A1exander on November 29, 2017, 03:39:50 AM

It seems I've found a bug or glitch in Electrum for Android. I've tried to create watching-only wallets several times. Two of them under Linux and one under Android work perfectly, but another one under Android shows the only transaction to the wallet as "Not verified" despite more than 90 confirmations.

This is a known issue on the PC version. You just restart electrum to make it sync properly. I guess on android you would go to the app view (right most button at the bottom), close and then restart electrum. Alternatively changing the electrum server you are using sometimes does the job.

Quote from: A1exander on November 27, 2017, 02:04:31 PM

The cold wallet will not be syncing with servers anyway, because the system will never be online. The only potential problem may be with wallet, seed or signature formats, not with server connections.

There have been bug fixes related to offline signing too since 2.7.9

Quote from: jackg on November 27, 2017, 03:48:44 PM

Also, the issue with networking with servers is generally fairly easy to fix.

The only fix is to install the latest version of electrum on tails. Simply changing servers doesn't do the job.

A1exander

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: jackg on November 29, 2017, 01:31:29 PM

Quote from: A1exander on November 29, 2017, 03:39:50 AM

It seems I've found a bug or glitch in Electrum for Android. I've tried to create watching-only wallets several times. Two of them under Linux and one under Android work perfectly, but another one under Android shows the only transaction to the wallet as "Not verified" despite more than 90 confirmations.

What is the nature of that Android device? How full is it storage wise, how many transactions should it load?

Also, what is the operating system you're running, an old OS may not function as well as a new one (I had it on jellybean and it kept crashing).

Google Nexus 5 with Android 6.0.1. More than 1GB free, 1 transaction only. After a few hours it finally showed the transaction as confirmed. I send another one and it displayed its confirmation progress normally.

Quote from: jackg on November 29, 2017, 01:31:29 PM

It's useful to know that in older versions, if you send a tansaction and the address is not in the offline sandboxed wallet, the transaction won't be able tobe signed unless you make the wallet aware of the new address (using a gap_limit command).

You can do this by doing either ^[1]:

Code:

wallet.create_new_address(False)

or

Code:

wallet.storage.put('gap_limit',n)

Where n is the number of your addresses lus the nuber of addresses you want to make. If you have a lot of space, you may want to set this to something like 1000.

In case if I send coins to some new addresses created in watching-only wallet and later want to spend them?

jackg

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Activity: 2856

Merit: 3071

https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory

Quote from: A1exander on November 29, 2017, 03:39:50 AM

It seems I've found a bug or glitch in Electrum for Android. I've tried to create watching-only wallets several times. Two of them under Linux and one under Android work perfectly, but another one under Android shows the only transaction to the wallet as "Not verified" despite more than 90 confirmations.

What is the nature of that Android device? How full is it storage wise, how many transactions should it load?

Also, what is the operating system you're running, an old OS may not function as well as a new one (I had it on jellybean and it kept crashing).

Quote from: A1exander on November 29, 2017, 01:22:00 AM

Quote from: jackg on November 28, 2017, 05:13:43 PM

~

Thanks, I have a similar feeling and I'll follow this advice. It is not a spending wallet and will be used only when I decide to 'cash out' (partially) or need to move the coins to another cold wallet.

It's useful to know that in older versions, if you send a tansaction and the address is not in the offline sandboxed wallet, the transaction won't be able tobe signed unless you make the wallet aware of the new address (using a gap_limit command).

You can do this by doing either ^[1]:

Code:

wallet.create_new_address(False)

or

Code:

wallet.storage.put('gap_limit',n)

Where n is the number of your addresses lus the nuber of addresses you want to make. If you have a lot of space, you may want to set this to something like 1000.

A1exander

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 102

It seems I've found a bug or glitch in Electrum for Android. I've tried to create watching-only wallets several times. Two of them under Linux and one under Android work perfectly, but another one under Android shows the only transaction to the wallet as "Not verified" despite more than 90 confirmations.

A1exander

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: jackg on November 28, 2017, 05:13:43 PM

Quote from: A1exander on November 28, 2017, 02:45:32 AM

Quote from: jackg on November 27, 2017, 03:48:44 PM

Also, the issue with networking with servers is generally fairly easy to fix.
And to confirm, along with the above posts of people who have used it with tails successfully, there should be no signature differences for legacy transactions and you should also be able to send coins to segwit addresses, just not sending a segwit transaction from your wallet.

Thanks, that's probably all I need. Maybe I'll want to move my coins to a new Segwit address in the future, but now it is not needed at all.

I'd recommend not using SegWit anyway yet at all in a wallet you're not going to spend from by any large rate as it doesn't save very much and there should be more to come so updating at every hard fork faced would just be to much of an arduous task to keep doing every hard fork (as there may be more to come and there's always segwit2x if that gets rescheduled.

Thanks, I have a similar feeling and I'll follow this advice. It is not a spending wallet and will be used only when I decide to 'cash out' (partially) or need to move the coins to another cold wallet.

A1exander

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: User365 on November 28, 2017, 02:36:07 PM

Well, considering that when you install tails you have to follow those steps, it is more or less time consuming:

- download the iso file
- install it on a USB drive
- boot from that USB drive
- install tails on the other USB stick
- format the first one

Compared to an over the air update which I imagine like that:

- Boot from your already existent tails
- press a button

Even if you have it not online except you need your money from cold storage, I would prefer over the air updates.

AFAIU, it can also be upgraded from a system running in a virtual machine, which is OK for me.

A1exander

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Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: adaseb on November 28, 2017, 01:42:11 PM

It should work fine with online version 3.x
I tried.

Good. I installed it and tried to send a small sum to it. Watching-only wallets work, both under Linux and Android.

jackg

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Activity: 2856

Merit: 3071

https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory

Quote from: A1exander on November 28, 2017, 02:45:32 AM

Quote from: jackg on November 27, 2017, 03:48:44 PM

Also, the issue with networking with servers is generally fairly easy to fix.
And to confirm, along with the above posts of people who have used it with tails successfully, there should be no signature differences for legacy transactions and you should also be able to send coins to segwit addresses, just not sending a segwit transaction from your wallet.

Thanks, that's probably all I need. Maybe I'll want to move my coins to a new Segwit address in the future, but now it is not needed at all.

I'd recommend not using SegWit anyway yet at all in a wallet you're not going to spend from by any large rate as it doesn't save very much and there should be more to come so updating at every hard fork faced would just be to much of an arduous task to keep doing every hard fork (as there may be more to come and there's always segwit2x if that gets rescheduled.

User365

sr. member

Activity: 434

Merit: 251

physics, mathematics and engineering

Quote from: A1exander on November 27, 2017, 02:00:43 PM

Quote from: User365 on November 27, 2017, 11:29:27 AM

The only downsides are that up to now you can´t use segwit and if there is a newer version of tails, you will have to install the update manually, because there are no over the air updates.

Tails system is never going to be online anyway, so manual update is perfectly suitable.

Well, considering that when you install tails you have to follow those steps, it is more or less time consuming:

- download the iso file
- install it on a USB drive
- boot from that USB drive
- install tails on the other USB stick
- format the first one

Compared to an over the air update which I imagine like that:

- Boot from your already existent tails
- press a button

Even if you have it not online except you need your money from cold storage, I would prefer over the air updates.

adaseb

legendary

Activity: 3808

Merit: 1723

It should work fine with online version 3.x
I tried.

A1exander

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: jackg on November 27, 2017, 03:48:44 PM

Also, the issue with networking with servers is generally fairly easy to fix.
And to confirm, along with the above posts of people who have used it with tails successfully, there should be no signature differences for legacy transactions and you should also be able to send coins to segwit addresses, just not sending a segwit transaction from your wallet.

Thanks, that's probably all I need. Maybe I'll want to move my coins to a new Segwit address in the future, but now it is not needed at all.

jackg

copper member

Activity: 2856

Merit: 3071

https://bit.ly/387FXHi lightning theory

Quote from: A1exander on November 27, 2017, 02:04:31 PM

Quote from: Abdussamad on November 27, 2017, 01:35:51 PM

Don't use tails because it has an old version of electrum that has trouble synching with servers. Use a debian live CD and install the latest electrum on it as per the instructions on electrum.org/#download i.e. using pip3.

The cold wallet will not be syncing with servers anyway, because the system will never be online. The only potential problem may be with wallet, seed or signature formats, not with server connections.

Also, the issue with networking with servers is generally fairly easy to fix.
And to confirm, along with the above posts of people who have used it with tails successfully, there should be no signature differences for legacy transactions and you should also be able to send coins to segwit addresses, just not sending a segwit transaction from your wallet.

A1exander

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: Abdussamad on November 27, 2017, 01:35:51 PM

Don't use tails because it has an old version of electrum that has trouble synching with servers. Use a debian live CD and install the latest electrum on it as per the instructions on electrum.org/#download i.e. using pip3.

The cold wallet will not be syncing with servers anyway, because the system will never be online. The only potential problem may be with wallet, seed or signature formats, not with server connections.

A1exander

full member

Activity: 336

Merit: 102

Quote from: User365 on November 27, 2017, 11:29:27 AM

TailsOS with electrum as cold storage is a perfect idea, I use it for my coins too. Furthermore, I like the "watch wallet" function which I use on my phone.

Yes, that's very convenient.

Quote from: User365 on November 27, 2017, 11:29:27 AM

The only downsides are that up to now you can´t use segwit and if there is a newer version of tails, you will have to install the update manually, because there are no over the air updates.

Tails system is never going to be online anyway, so manual update is perfectly suitable.

Abdussamad

legendary

Activity: 3710

Merit: 1586

Don't use tails because it has an old version of electrum that has trouble synching with servers. Use a debian live CD and install the latest electrum on it as per the instructions on electrum.org/#download i.e. using pip3.

Topic: Tails with old Electrum (2.7.9) for cold strorge? (Read 633 times)