You absolutely need to sync everything with bitcoind.
As for your mobile wallets, maybe they have trouble finding peers (which wouldn't surprise me since it's testnet).
thanks
importing the private key does indeed give me the correct public address, and using a testnet block explorer, i can see that this public address has indeed funds... So chances are indeed large that i'm missing some peers or that i'm not correctly synced.
EDIT:
- i installed bitcoind on one of my servers and ran bitcoind -testnet
- i used https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/bitcoinpaperwallet/generate-wallet.html?design=alt-testnet# (validate or decrypt) to decrypt my bip38 encrypted private key
- then bitcoin-cli -testnet importprivkey mydecryptedkey
- then i waited a couple of hours for the synchronisation to happen
- my coins showed up
However, i did not manage to sweep the paper wallet with shildenbach's android wallet, mycelium testnet wallet, greenbit testnet wallet,... I've tried almost all testnet wallets in the android store, none of them wanted to sweep my paper wallet
Hope my real paper wallet will work fine... I'm thinking about creating a paper wallet and transferring 0.005BTC to it, then sweep it, then burn it... Afterwards i'll download the sourcecode of https://bitcoinpaperwallet.com/bitcoinpaperwallet/generate-wallet.html, turn off my internet, generate a wallet offline, print to a pdf on an usbstick, print from the usb stick, scratch the usbstick, reboot my pc and put a chunk of my funds on the paper wallet