Decrypting wallet file

[dirk1101]

I have an old Electrum wallet file but I've lost the seed. However, I do have the password needed to decrypt the wallet. A few weeks ago, it was functioning properly, but then I encountered a parsing error while opening it. Despite this issue, I was able to access the wallet successfully several times afterward. Unfortunately, the parsing error has now become persistent. Is there any way to resolve this issue?

I am offering a 100 Euro bounty for assistance in resolving this problem.

[bulsan]

Sounds fishy.

You give no information about your OS and Electrum version used.

While you were able to access the Electrum wallet, you would have been able to make it show it's seed again. You didn't do that?

You later encountered parsing errors and did not keep a backup of the wallet file in an accessible state?

You did not google for possible ways to resolve this problem? At this point I would not trust your judgement enough to expect you to safely and successfully follow any recovery attempt procedure either.

You could begin here and then look at the decrypted wallet in a text editor. If it still looks like a half-way readable json file, you or someone else might have a chance to recover. If not, your wallet is fubar.

[dirk1101]

Thank you for your response and for pointing out the aspects that needed clarification. Let me provide some additional details to paint a clearer picture. The issue at hand concerns a friend's Electrum wallet. Despite what it might seem, he has a very limited understanding of how cryptocurrency wallets function. After the wallet seemingly fixed itself from the initial parsing error, he was under the impression that the problem was permanently resolved, hence he did not think of resecuring the seed.

I have personally checked the backups he made, but they seem to be for a different wallet, as they all show an incorrect balance even after being fully synchronized with a full node.

He was using Electrum on a Windows platform, although I'm not sure about the specific version of the software he used. Importantly, after the wallet became inaccessible again, I attempted to load the wallet file with various versions of Electrum, but consistently encountered the same parsing error in each case.

I've also conducted extensive online research for a solution to this unique issue, but haven't found any methods that seem to apply or work effectively, which is why I'm reaching out for help on this forum.

[bulsan]

Well, there are only two possible ways.

One is physical, working file backups, which you say you've already covered.

Or de-crypting the damaged wallet and see if the clear-text version just has a minor problem like a flipped bit in one character, or if it's totally garbled. I do not know of any one-click software to decrypt a password protected Electrum wallet. You need at least a working Python installation and some modules from Electrum's source distribution. The link I posted leads down this way. Full disclosure: I haven't tried this yet.

If you cannot do this by yourself, you'd have to give your wallet file and password to someone else, thereby giving them complete control of the wallet in case of success. So you'd open yourself up to being scammed big-time. I'm reading this into your post, but it seems you don't even know any of the addresses of the damaged wallet. So you couldn't even watch the blockchain to check if transfers happen after your "friendly helper" claims to have failed, but really succeeded.

Sorry to say, but this has "educational expenses" written all over it.

[..::. o.Z.o.n.e .::..]

If in doubt ask Dave! ;o))

https://www.walletrecoveryservices.com/

 

/No Phun intended!

[RGarbach]

vor 17 Stunden schrieb dirk1101:

I have an old Electrum wallet file but I've lost the seed. However, I do have the password needed to decrypt the wallet. A few weeks ago, it was functioning properly, but then I encountered a parsing error while opening it. Despite this issue, I was able to access the wallet successfully several times afterward. Unfortunately, the parsing error has now become persistent. Is there any way to resolve this issue?

I am offering a 100 Euro bounty for assistance in resolving this problem.

You need to respect the fact, that pretty much all of these cases like yours, are fishing 🎣 attempts. Your way of communication is not making it any better.

However a company with an acceptable reputation is this:

https://rewallet.de/

[dirk1101]

There is nothing suspicious about my intentions. I am uncertain whether scammers would actively seek out corrupted wallet files to decrypt them while already having the passwords, maybe there are other ways how that is fishy, but I really dont have any clue about that. But you are right, I could communicate it definately in a better way.

 

Anyway, a big thank you to everyone for your help! It seems like I'll need to delve a bit deeper into this and figure out a way to decrypt files outside of Electrum.

Bearbeitet 18. Januar von dirk1101

[Cricktor]

I've rarely heard that a genuine version of Electrum actually corrupts the wallet file to produce parsing errors. I'd suspect that those parsing errors are due to some other underlying problems with the OS, storage device, interfering software/malware, ...

What I was able is to build Electrum wallets that have issues to load properly, but those issues are mostly due to overwhelming the Electrum server that the Electrum wallet communicates with, e.g. with huge address histories.

[alesoft]

Here are a few steps you might consider to address the issue:

Backup: Before attempting any fixes, make sure to create a backup of your wallet file. This ensures that you don't lose any data in case something goes wrong during the troubleshooting process.

Update Electrum: Ensure that you're using the latest version of Electrum. Sometimes, software updates include bug fixes that could resolve parsing errors or other issues.

Check File Integrity: Verify the integrity of your wallet file. It's possible that the file became corrupted, leading to the parsing error. You can try using file recovery tools or utilities to repair any corruption.

Recovery Options: Since you have the password, you may still be able to recover your funds even without the seed. Consider reaching out to Electrum support or consulting with cryptocurrency experts for guidance on potential recovery options.