Topic: Wallet recovery (Read 356 times)

My old wallet was empty since 2015. I checked if I may have had the Wallet app installed on that phone before (and Android may have left some settings), but I bought the (old) phone I used in 2017, years after I used that wallet.

Strange indeed. Well, yours is strange Mine works as expected

That's strange. I recovered an old back up and was only given segwit addresses. The only way for me to view legacy addresses was to go in to options and select "Request to legacy address" repeatedly, as I suggested OP tried above. My old back up did have old transactions, but it was long emptied - maybe that's the issue? Did your back up still have coins on it?

Well, in any case, if OP has managed to get as far as "decrypting" the wallet backup file using openssl... then they can very easily load their wallet/keys into a BIP39 compatible wallet that allows you to specify the derivation path (such as Electrum). If you simply open the "decrypted" file in a text editor, you should see "org.bitcoin.production" (as you say you are recovering from a PROTOBUF wallet)... and then shortly after that, you should see 12 plain english words... this is your 12 word seed.

Here is an example of a decrypted wallet backup:



If you load that seed into Electrum... ("New/Restore -> Standard Wallet -> I already have a Seed -> Enter seed, click options -> select the BIP39 seed option) and then on the derivation path screen select "legacy" and then set the derivation path to: m/0' ^[1] then it will load up all your old legacy addresses.



 







[1] NOTE: this derivation path is slightly different to the one used by ian coleman's tool below because of the way Electrum works

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Alternatively, you can put the seed into iancoleman's BIP39 mnemonic code convertor... click the "BIP32" tab, and then select the "MultiBit HD" option from the "Client" dropdown box (This will automatically set the derivation path to m/0'/0 for you). Then it will show all your legacy addresses/private keys at the bottom:


All your keys displayed below:

That's not what happened when I restored my old backup:  all legacy transactions from 2015 showed up just fine.

Wait what??!? It only recovers SegWit addresses and does not also check the legacy addresses generated from the backed up keys for transaction history etc??!?

That is ridiculous!

Maybe. However, OP's original addresses were all legacy (since they were from 2014). At some point between then and now, the Schildbach wallet switched to only recovering segwit addresses, which is what he now generates when he recovers his wallet file. Requesting to legacy addresses as I suggested above might not reveal the correct addresses, as Schildbach wallet does not follow BIP44 conventions. The only way to know for sure is to dump his private keys and import them in to a new wallet.

Honestly, I think you're wasting your time mucking about with Linux/Ubuntu and attempting to decrypt the file manually.

If you were able to successfully import the backup file into "Bitcoin Wallet for Android" and use your password and it didn't give you any errors, then the app will have already decrypted the file correctly and loaded in all the private keys from the file.

So, if, after importing the backup file, the wallet was showing as zero balance, then the wallet is likely empty. If it also showed zero transaction history, then chances are that you have the "wrong" backup file... and the backup file you have is for a wallet that never contained any coins

Thanks for the links, I'm going to study it.

Command 'pwd' prints the name of folder in which you are (path)
But HOME in Ubuntu could be different than your Windows HOME.
I think it is well described here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/759880/where-is-the-ubuntu-file-system-root-directory-in-windows-subsystem-for-linux-an
and here: https://www.howtogeek.com/261383/how-to-access-your-ubuntu-bash-files-in-windows-and-your-windows-system-drive-in-bash/

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https://linuxize.com/post/how-to-install-gradle-on-ubuntu-20-04/


If you do not want to play with Ubuntu, there is another tutorial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGgY0MFtLFU
but still expects some extraordinary (for normal user) actions.

So change - I succeeded.
I am now in this chapter:

RECOVERING FROM PROTOBUF WALLET FORMAT

But something is wrong:

kamiil@vitasekk10:~$ cd bitcoinj/tools
kamiil@vitasekk10:~/bitcoinj/tools$ ./wallet-tool
./wallet-tool: line 19: gradle: command not found
kamiil@vitasekk10:~/bitcoinj/tools$ ./wallet-tool reset --wallet=/tmp/bitcoin-wallet-decrypted-backup
./wallet-tool: line 19: gradle: command not found
kamiil@vitasekk10:~/bitcoinj/tools$

I followed the instructions - I installed Ubuntu from the Windows Store.
But I still don't know where to copy the backup file to my computer :-(



kamiil@vitasekk10:~$ openssl enc -d -aes-256-cbc -md md5 -a -in bitcoin-wallet-backup-2014-08-18 > bitcoin-wallet-decrypted-backup
Can't open bitcoin-wallet-backup-2014-08-18 for reading, No such file or directory
139925001474688:error:02001002:system library:fopen:No such file or directory:../crypto/bio/bss_file.c:69:fopen('bitcoin-wallet-backup-2014-08-18','r')
139925001474688:error:2006D080:BIO routines:BIO_new_file:no such file:../crypto/bio/bss_file.c:76:

I hope I have the right backup.
If I make a backup before buying bitcoins, do I always need to make a new backup?

Yes, that's normal. Every time you request coins to an address, it considers that address "used" and will generate the next address in the wallet when you request another one. If the first handful don't match any of your old addresses, then you can stop going down this path.

I think your best option at this point is going to be to decrypt the wallet file as discussed above and dump the raw private keys. How are you getting on with using Ubuntu?

When I do this twice in a row, the old address is always different.

First:
113EEBvAoP16AZtmsL6UjUdtvCxY8xdNYM
Second time:
18QRDZbjEbmPojspNqvEMsBpgmMxmwjwL6
Third:
18x23KHaTwmuA72VSVoBWkSQd6GAcGoFmg

This is a segwit address. The address you had before, beginning with "1", is a legacy address. This is why your wallet cannot see your coins. In your wallet, try going to Options (three small dots at the top right) and click on "Request to legacy address". Then hit the share button and look at the address which pops up. Does this match any of your old addresses?

How have you installed Ubuntu? In a virtual machine? You can copy it anywhere your Ubuntu install can see it. I would just stick it in /home/ for ease.

For what it's worth: my old transactions showed up when I restored my backup. If there are no transactions: any chance you have the wrong backup?

Still decrypting the wallet. I don't know where to upload the backup file. I have Windows (C: \ ..) and installed Ubuntu on Windows. I'm sorry, I'm an amateur in Linux.



Thank you, I'll look into it

The new address is "bc1qve5gf6juven........"


Yes, I am prompted for a password. I know the password. Nothing more to choose from.


But where should I copy the file to disk if I have Windows with Ubuntu installed?
By the way - thank you for your willingness!

What step you are now following? Is that the "RECOVERING FROM BASE58 KEY FORMAT" or "RECOVERING FROM PROTOBUF WALLET FORMAT" or are you still decrypting the wallet?

Anyway I found an old guide and maybe it can help you [HOW-TO] Export seed and private keys from your Bitcoin Wallet for Android

Does the new address in the restored wallet being with "1", or with something else ("3" or "bc1")?

That is OpenSSL encrypted Base64 data. The initial string U2FsdGVkX1 decodes to "Salted_". This is normal for a backup from Schildbach's Bitcoin Wallet.

When you open the wallet file with your Bitcoin Wallet app, are you prompted for your password? Do you get an option to choose an address type or derivation path?

/path/to/wallet/bitcoin-wallet-backup-2014-08-18