Topic: Unconfirmed Stuck Transaction QT/Core / Network Synch Issue (Read 588 times)

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Electrum takes only a few seconds to sync (it only needs data on your own addresses).

Your wallet.dat holds all private keys. It's as easy as unlocking the wallet in Bitcoin Core's console using walletpassphrase, and using dumpprivkey to get the private key to your address(es).


The prune option is what you're looking for.

Yes: don't use a fake website! People have lost their funds that way.

You don't. It will send the addresses to the server and the downside being you're exposing your privacy to whichever server you're using. The process can be slightly complicated as well.
You can dump your private keys in its entirety. Install the latest Bitcoin Core and go to Help>Console and type in :
Replace D:/ with the directory you want. The output will be a file named wallet with all of the private keys in it, you can open it with a text editor. Since you're downloading Bitcoin Core anyways, just synchronize it fully and transfer your funds elsewhere.

If you are not familiar with Linux or running a dual boot, I really recommend you to not do so. It'll probably end up complicating things more than it needs to be. You can prune the blockchain as well, if size is of any concern.

There is next to no point. The unsigned binary is as safe if you can use certutil to check the SHA256 sum of the file, and if it matches with the signed PGP message (which you can verify), then it would be safe. Electrum's binaries are signed but it doesn't mean that it is safe, you still have to validate it using PGP. I'm hoping your helper knows what he is doing.

Remember to validate your installation: https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/guide-how-to-safely-download-and-verify-electrum-guide-5240594

(Bitcoin QT, technically)  I’m actually thinking now that this is the way to go for me.
I checked out https://electrum.org/#home .  They mention “Electrum is fast, because it uses servers that index the Bitcoin blockchain.”  So, am I correct that I would not need to resync?  I probably should have done this in the first place. 

Where do I find my private keys?  Are they somewhere in the “wallet.dat” file?

No I don’t want to blame him for the terminology.  His proposal was to set up a Linux component on my PC and install the Linux version of Core then copy over the blockchain and the rest of the wallet info and run it that way.  I have decided that this solution is too elaborate to be appealing.  Also, I don’t really have 500GB of free space to play with, so would need to address that.  Also not sure if I could have just copied the blockchain or would have had to resync?  I am not interested in doing that again.   
HCP wrote
In weighing my options I feel that installing and importing my keys to Electrum is less out there than the above. 
My helper recommended not installing an unsigned .exe which is not something I was thinking about originally but I definitely see his point.  I’m assuming the Electrum .exe is signed?

This is over my head but have sent this to the person helping me for comments.

We’re nearing the end of this if the whole Electrum thing goes smoothly.  Does anybody have any other Electrum info that I need to know? 

Thanks again, everyone. 

Be very careful here: are you sure you can trust this person? Your problem seems quite basic and doesn't look like something you need to pay someone for.
But since you're stuck at this for 3.5 months already, I get the desperation Your problem sounds like something that could have been resolved much quicker.

Considering your wallet was 4 years behind: wouldn't you be better off moving your funds to Electrum and getting rid of Bitcoin Core entirely?

If the reliable person literally called it "virtual Linux Core wallet", that's not very promising.

The simple solution is:

- Install the latest version of Bitcoin Core
- Let it fully sync
- Make a copy of your old wallet.dat and put it in the Bitcoin Core data directory
- Open the copy of the old wallet.dat in Bitcoin Core and let it rescan

After doing that, you should be able to see the full history of the wallet.dat and the current and correct wallet balance. You should then be able to send transactions as "normal".


Note that going with a "virtual Linux Core wallet" (I assume they mean using a Virtual Machine running Linux), will likely result in a longer time to sync the blockchain due to the overheads of running the VM and it not having full access to the processer/IO of the machine it is running on.

If your main OS is Windows, you'd be better off simply making some backup copies of your wallet.dat and installing the latest Windows version of Bitcoin Core and running it natively.

---

I'm not sure why you're so hung up on needing a "signed" Windows version of Bitcoin Core? All it does is stop Windows UAC from complaining that you are running unsigned code... and can be worked around. It is functionally identical to the "unsigned" version... and you can still verify the unsigned version released by the Bitcoin Core team by checking the SHA256 checksum of the unsigned .exe, comparing it to the one listed in the sha256sums.asc file and verifying the digital signature of that .asc file using the release keys.

Which you should be doing for "signed" versions of the .exe as well!

I’m actually paying someone reliable now to help me with this.  He is proposing we set up a virtual Linux Core wallet.  I am okay with this but I can’t just make a transaction by sending payment from one wallet to the next.  Payment could and has disappeared in the QT wallet and not been recovered, so it will probably be needed to import or copy my wallet info and blockchain to the new wallet. 
One other question before I do this, though.  Is a signed Windows version of Core forthcoming?  I am willing to wait a little while, but if not then I will go with the Linux.   


My QT btw is a very old V 0.8.6.0-g03a7d67-beta designed apparently to just be experimental. 

The Core team had the certificate they used to sign the Windows Binaries revoked because of an issue with the Certificate Authority: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/gui/issues/252#issuecomment-802591628

So, the choices are:

1. Let users try and run the "signed" installer and get scary Windows warnings unless you run it as an admin
or
2. Tell users to run the "unsigned" installer.

Note that this issue is only affecting "Windows Code Signing"... versions on other OSes are unaffected... and you can still check the SHA256 hashes and verify them with GPG signed checksum file: https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.21.1/SHA256SUMS.asc (which you should be doing regardless of whether or not the Windows code signing is being used)

An associate of mine pointed out that the Core installation file is unsigned.  (bitcoin-0.21.1-win64-setup-unsigned)  Apparently this is very easy to do.  I’m wondering if there is a reason for this?   

You can just download the non-codesigned installer. Download bitcoin-0.21.0-win64-setup-unsigned.exe from https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.21.0/. You just need to click through a few warnings to install it. A new SHA256SUMS.asc file was uploaded to the same folder which covers the non-codesigned installer too.

The warnings to click through are shown in the third section of this post: https://github.com/bitcoin-core/gui/issues/252#issuecomment-807400048

Note that it's nothing to do with Antivirus or anything like that... unfortunately, the Bitcoin Core devs ran into an issue where their code signing key was accidentally revoked... so the cert that the Windows installer is signed with is "Expired" and so Windows now blocks it by mistake

I am having the same issue with the 0.21 installer... the solution is:

1. Press Win+X
2. Select "WIndows Powershell (Admin)"


3. Navigate to the folder where the 0.21 installer .exe is located using the "cd" command. For instance, I downloaded it to C:\Downloads, so I use:


I can check the name of the file using the dir command and it displays a list of the files/folders


4. Run the 0.21 installer .exe by entering the name of the installer and pressing enter:


TIP: if you start typing the first few letters of the filename and press TAB, it will autocomplete the name

The installer should then start up:




Refer: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/m7rc5b/how_to_fix_bitcoin_cores_installation_error_this/gsy99q8/

Unfortunately... "Run As Administrator" doesn't work in this situation... but running from an elevated cmd/powershell window does??!?

I made two backups of my wallet.  
Then I downloaded "bitcoin-0.21.0-win64-setup" from https://bitcoin.org/en/download
I have never had this happen before, but my PC will not let me run it.
I get the error message "An administrator has blocked you from running this app.  For more information contact the administrator."
I am the only one who uses this PC and am the administrator.  I tried running it as administrator but get the same message.  
I found a Windows security setting called Developer Mode to install apps from any source that I enabled then restarted but get the same message.  
Any ideas how to get around this?
I am running Windows 10 Home 64-bit.    

The most important consideration when making the backtup is to make sure that either:

a. You shutdown Bitcoin Core before attempting to make a backup copy of the wallet.dat file
or
b. You use the "Backup wallet" option within Bitcoin Core to make a backup copy of the wallet.dat file


If you make a copy while Bitcoin Core is busy writing data to the file, your backup copy might be corrupt and/or missing data... which could be catastrophic if you ever need to recover using the backup!

By shutting down Bitcoin Core (or using the wallet backup option within the app), you can be sure that the wallet.dat file will not be in use when you make the backup copy.

There's nothing fancy to it, just go to your file manager and locate the wallet.dat file and copy it to some other folder. Exactly where does not matter, but you must remember where you placed it, so somewhere like your Documents folder or perhaps on a USB stick as LoyceV mentioned is suitable.

No. Give or take a few MB.

Okay, I see.  Is it typically a large file size?

A (safe) backup is a backup on a device that's no longer connected to the same computer (for instance a few different USB-sticks).

Okay I am going to do all of this on Friday.
I will make two backups of my wallet.
Is there anything I need to know about when backing up a wallet?
And does it mater where I save it?   I’m thinking I should just use wherever the default location is. 
I will let everyone know how all of this works out.   

Given you're using an "older" version of Bitcoin QT/Core... it's possible that you would need to do the old "abandontransaction" + rescan method to get the funds to show... otherwise, the unconfirmed transaction is likely to just remain in your wallet forever, even though it has effectively disappeared from the rest of the network.


Correct.


As ranochigo and LoyceV have both mentioned... the upgrade process should be relatively easy... Bitcoin "Core" is essentially just the new name for what you know as Bitcoin QT... the .exe is still actually called "bitcoin-qt.exe"

So, the newer version will simply use the existing data directory with the blocks and wallet.dat etc. It should be as simple as downloading and installing the new version and starting it up and it should just work.


Again, just make sure to make a backup (or two) of your wallet.dat and you'll be fine.

Just to be sure: make another backup of your wallet.dat before upgrading.