I bought and have been staking Reddcoin for about a year. I keep it on my PC desktop computer running so staking will continue. Recently it has started crashing almost daily The 563K coins I originally bought have grown to 583K as of 4/3/20. That was when it crashed again. When I restarted it, it said it was 6 years out of date and had to update itself. This was the longest it had said it needed to synchronize itself and it proceeded to do so.
That took about 4 days, as the app kept crashing and had to be restarted repeatedly. When it was done, and I clicked on the “settings” dropdown menu, there was no selection to “Unlock Wallet”. I could only “Encrypt”. I did that, providing the passphrase I had been using from the beginning. When I did that, the wallet had no coins in it at all.
I have downloaded and installed v3.0 Wallet. When I unlocked it, it was the empty wallet.
I have the address of the wallet that I used to first deposit the coins. Is there some way to recover my coins using that?
Do you have a backup of your wallet.dat? Or a backup of your private keys?
Thank you for responding. I have the passphrase to unlock the wallet. I have the wallet address.
I do not have a backup or my private keys.
First rule of crypto: always make a backup.
Second rule of crypto: always make a backup.
Third rule of crypto: make sure you have made a backup.
Fourth rule of crypto: make sure you have a backup.
Fifth rule of crypto: backup regularly.
In the future, please make backups. You can read here how to do that. You can easily recover if anything goes wrong, in this case, for example.
For your information:
- A wallet addres (public Reddcoin address) is just an address to receive and store Reddcoins on. You can’t use it to recover any of your funds.
- A passphrase is only useful to access the Reddcoins in the wallet. It can’t be used to recover any of your funds (if your wallet is empty, deleted, gone etc etc).
First, what I think has happened:
- After the crash, Reddcoin Core somehow can’t find or use the files that it previously used, including the wallet.dat file.
- This is the reason why your wallet is now empty, it’s couldn’t find an existing wallet, so it started with a fresh wallet.
- This is also the reason why you needed to sync the whole blockchain again, as it couldn’t find the blockchain you had earlier.
- As said earlier, it’s what I think has happened. The actual situation may differ.
Question:
- Do you remember if you had manually selected a different data directory when you installed Reddcoin Core (before the crash)?
What I would suggest to do:
- Use ‘Everything’ to search your hard drives for a
reddcoin folder. This tool is quick and easy to use.
- Download the portable zip file from here: https://www.voidtools.com/downloads/ (try the 64-bit version, assume that will work without issues). Using the portable version means nothing will be installed on your computer.
- After downloading, open the software. And search for
reddcoin, and wallet.dat.
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Let me know what you find. Screenshots would be nice, make sure to remove any personal info. If hope you find more than 1 wallet.dat file.
Yavuz -
Thank you for your detailed and precise help. I will certainly follow the first five rules of crypto in the event I survive this ordeal.
Here’s the screenshots of the searches:
I tried a couple of ways to get these to you. I hope they work better than they look.
!
Everything - Reddcoin|690x344
I’m encouraged by the Reddcoin.dat file dated 4/2. That would be before the loss. I copied it to my Reddcoin folder.
The search for wallet.dat provided unexpected results. I have wallets with Neblio and NLC2 but apparently no dat file for NLC2.
Thank you for sending the information on backing up the file and extracting private keys. I had not seen that before and would have done it if I had. Other apps with private keys have seemed a bit more forthcoming on their importance.
Trying to fix my problem myself, I opened up my Reddcoin Wallet looking for a way to load a dat file. It was 40 hours behind and renewed itself. However, none of the menus offered a novice like me that opportunity.
If we can do anything with the Reddcoin.dat file, I’ll need your help to do it.
Thank you.
Can you tell me what the difference between the two Reddcoin folders is?
So, the difference between Reddcoin and Reddcoin1.
Which one do you use to run/start Reddcoin Core?
And, could you tell me if you have a wallet.dat file in those folders?
Reddcoin Core uses this wallet.dat file to load all your wallet data (your addresses/keys etc).
It looks like the Reddcoin.dat file is a backup of a wallet, we might be able to use it to recovery your coins. For now, make a copy of that Reddcoin.dat file, to make sure nothing happens to it. We can use this file later on, after the previous questions are answered.
I made the second folder after the original one came up empty of coins. The only difference between the two is that it has the document on how the problem we are addressing occurred.
The each have the same reddcoin-qt file so I use either one.
As the Everything-Wallet.dat search revealed, there is no wallet.dat file in either folder. It appears the only dat file for reddcoin is the reddcoin.dat file.
I did copy the reddcoin.dat file into the Reddcoin folder.
Thank you for not giving up on me. I am a novice in navigating around crypto files.
I have noticed that I don’t see the blockchain related folders (like ‘blocks’ and ‘chainstate’). Before we try to recover with the Reddcoin.dat file you found earlier, I would to try one last thing.
Could you please follow these steps and post the results?
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I want to find your ‘Reddcoin data folder’. The debug log file will be used to find it.
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To make sure we miss nothing, I want to see the debug log file of the two Reddcoin Cores that are installed.
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Do the next steps for the first reddcoin-qt, make sure to exit Reddcoin Core that is running. Then, run the second reddcoin-qt (you may exit the second one after finishing).
Steps:
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Open this tutorial I’ve written, you will need a part of it: https://www.reddit.com/r/reddCoin/comments/hizl08/tutorial_how_to_bootstrap_the_reddcoin_blockchain.
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Scroll down to the following part:
“If you can’t find your Reddcoin data folder, try this method:”.
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Follow the steps mentioned there, for both of the reddcoin-qt files (as I mentioned earlier).
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After finding your Reddcoin data folder(s), please open the folders with Windows Explorer. Make a screenshot (make sure to remove any personal info).
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Post your finding here.
This will also be the folder you need to put the Reddcoin.dat file in, in order to see what’s in it in Reddcoin Core.
200701a
All the files we have looked at in relation to Reddcoin are on drive N. This is an independent, separate plug-in drive I have all my regular files on. When I switch between using my laptop and my desktop, I take the standalone drive N with me. This way I have all my files regardless of which computer I am using. It seems that “everything” didn’t search on the C drive or it would have found the wallet.dat file.
When I searched for “using data directory” I found that the data directory was on the desktop drive C. That drive also has the wallet.dat file we couldn’t find on N.
At this point, should I just copy the “blocks” and “chainstate” folders to the Reddcoin data folder?
Or follow the instructions you provided that do that?
It seems that I did do a backup of the wallet, which is the Reddcoin.dat file in the Wallet folder on drive N. I just didn’t remember that I did.
All right, that gives some hope.
Regarding Everything, it might be because of a setting or it needs to be installed, it might need some extra permissions. Everything is an awesome software, if you like it, you can install it and then try searching again after installing it.
- The Reddcoin Core software runs from your N: drive.
- The data that Reddcoin Core needs (the blockchain) is stored on your C: drive.
- The wallet.dat needs to be in your data folder (where your blockchain files are also located).
- It seems that currently, when you run Reddcoin Core, the wallet.dat file on your C: drive is used. I assume this is an empty wallet.
Please do the following:
- The folder in your C: drive (data folder, with blockchain) has a wallet.dat file. Rename this file (for example to
wallet_empty.dat.
- Now copy the
Reddcoin.dat (from N: drive) you have found earlier to the C: drive, to the same folder as the renamed wallet_empty.dat file.
- Rename the Reddcoin.dat file to
wallet.dat.
- The data folder should now have a wallet.dat (used to be Reddcoin.dat), and wallet_empty.dat (used to be wallet.dat).
- Now, start Reddcoin Core. Wait until it’s fully loaded, and fully synced. If the Reddcoin.dat you found was indeed a backup, you should see your coins back.
Let me know how it goes.
Followed your instructions, which were very clear and easy. I started Reddcoin Core from the app file on drive C. The wallet opened up without any syncing, with 247K RDD. I immediately backed it up. Then unlocked it so it is staking again.
This is the amount of RDD that I originally purchased back in April 2019. It had grown to 583583.45598612 by April 2020.
At least I got back what I had at the beginning. I just lost all the growth. I’ll be backing it up monthly from now on. My other wallets as well.
Thank you very much for your help. You hung in there with me when all seemed lost. I need to go extract my private keys now.
Glad to hear that you at least have recovered some of your coins.
Such a growth cannot be achieved by staking, so I assume you grew it by sending the RDDs to your wallet. Did you send it to the same address, or did you send it to different addresses within your wallet?
If you send it to different addresses, it might be that these addresses where added after creating the backup (so not included in the backup).
You were talking about a “wallet address” (singular, not plural). So, one address… Try this: enter your Reddcoin address in the Reddcoin blockchain explorer (https://live.reddcoin.com/), and check the “final balance”. What do you see? Is the amount 247K or 583K?
Another option you still have is to search all your disks for a wallet.dat. You can install Everything, and use that to search all your disks. Make sure to check the ‘Options’ (Menu: Tools -> Options…) to see if your partitions/volumes are included in the indexed locations. Screenshot here. I would recommend doing this.
By the way, backing up your wallet.dat (method 1) is enough to recover everything on that wallet. But, in case your backup(s) gets corrupted (which can happen), you can use the private keys (method 2).
So, method 1 (backup wallet.dat) is absolutely mandatory. Backing up the private keys (method 2) is highly recommended.
Also, always backup after creating new addresses. And try to backup regularly.
I put the single RDD address I have into the Reddcoin blockchain explorer you gave me. It showed this:
I’m not sure what that indicates. The final balance of 586K is close to the 583K I had but the 4.94M received and the 4.88M sent are unexplained. The 583K I recorded on 4/3 could have grown to 586K by the time it crashed but the other received and sent are a mystery.
I installed Everything and got this:
Can you post a screenshot of the Debug window?
Via the menu Help -> Debug window. It should show the Information tab.
I assume your blockchain isn’t fully synced. Your wallet should show 586K.
By the way, this is also the address that you have as a recieving/request address in your wallet, correct?
Has to do with staking. You’ll have transactions like the ones you see when you’re staking.
Thanks for sticking with me. Here’s the debug window:
And here’s the wallet itself. I don’t believe it is doing any syncing. How do I tell if it is?
Transaction window just shows the original deposit:
The address I have used is the only one I have.
Try starting Reddcoin Core with the -rescan option/argument.
I think the easiest option is:
- Open the folder of where reddcoin-qt.exe is in.
- Right click on the .exe file and select ‘create shortcut’.
- There should be a new file on the folder, the shortcut. Right click on the shortcut and select ‘Properties’.
- In the properties screen, there is a ‘Target’ field. It should point to the location of the reddcoin-qt. The value is between " " -> add a space and -rescan behind it. So it will look something like this:
"C:\...\...\reddcoin-qt.exe" -rescan
- Open thr shortcut by double clicking it.
- Reddcoin Core will be started, it will rescan the blockchain for relevant transactions. Wait until it fully loads.
Let me know how this goes…
Once again I followed your clear instructions. Here is the result:
You saved my wallet and recovered everything. I backed up the wallet immediately.
Can I send you some RDD as a thank you?
I have to say that it was really easy to help you, as you were willing to follow instructions and even made efforts to provide the requested screenshots. So, we both did a good job!
I am really glad that you have recovered all your Reddcoins. Don’t forget to backup regularly, :).
Good luck with staking! You will earn a lot more soon, when PoSV v2 is activated, so keep on staking, hehe.
You don’t have to send me anything, but a tip is always appreciated of course. My address:
RcoDw86oYBRf4sUzy3z7b4dbFU6S4ccWv3
Thanks!
