Troubleshooting: What to do When Your Wallet Won’t Sync
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While bitcoin core is the original and most recognized bitcoin wallet, it is also extremely bulky and requires a ton of resources to run. With the bitcoin core wallet you have to download the entire bitcoin blockchain over 8 years of bitcoin transactions and keep it synced to be able to spend your bitcoin. The bitcoin blockchain is over GB in size which is too large for most users to store and can still take weeks for some people to download before they can use the wallet.
Many people accidentally send bitcoin to their core wallet without realizing how long it will take bitcoin out of sync sync, then decide they would like to use another wallet.
This guide will help you recover your bitcoins from bitcoin core, then transfer them to a lightweight wallet that is easier to use. For this tutorial I will be moving coins from Bitcoin Core to Electrum.
The Electrum wallet only takes a few seconds to sync so it is easy to recover and spend your bitcoins from. Here is a download for ElectrumI will explain how to use it later in the guide. If your bitcoin core wallet is years bitcoin out of sync from being synced to the blockchain, you probably will not see your coins in the wallet even bitcoin out of sync they are stored at your bitcoin address. This can be very scary for new users, but rest assured your coins are safe and recoverable.
The first step is to identify which bitcoin public address you need to recover coins from. Bitcoin core automatically generates your first bitcoin address for you but you can create as many new ones as you want. Once you have your bitcoin bitcoin out of sync, use a blockchain explorer website to check the balance of the address and make sure your coins are still there.
A blockchain explorer will tell you the live balance of your bitcoin address even if bitcoin core cannot display it yet. Here is my bitcoin address on Blockchain. Now that I know my bitcoins are safe and I have identified which address they are stored in, I can start the recover process. To export your bitcoin you will need to use the debug console to dump your bitcoin private key.
Once you have your bitcoin private key you can import it to electrum and spend your coins. Here is a step by step guide to exporting your private keys from bitcoin core:.
From here you can use the bitcoin core command line which has tons of complicated features. The two commands we will be using are:. When you started your bitcoin core wallet hopefully you encrypted your wallet with a password. That is the phrase needed here. To use this command you need to copy your bitcoin public address like we did in an earlier step. If you have done it right an even longer string of numbers and letters will appear, this bitcoin out of sync the private key to unlock your bitcoin.
If someone else gets your private keys they can spend your bitcoin and there is no way to recover them! I censored a portion of my private key but you can see roughly how long it should be. Now that you have your private key, time to open up Electrum wallet. In the next screen you will be prompted for your recovery seed or private keys. This is where you paste that long string of characters that you exported from bitcoin core wallet.
Click next, where you will be asked to create a new password for the wallet. Once you have recovered your bitcoins by using your private key, it would be best to not use that bitcoin address ever again. You can create new addresses easily so either spend your bitcoin or just send them bitcoin out of sync another bitcoin address in electrum for safe storage. My balance is 0. The string of characters display here bitcoin out of sync your bitcoin transaction ID.
If you copy and paste that into blockchain. As you can see I successfully moved the bitcoin from my bitcoin core address to a bitcoin out of sync bitcoin wallet. For bitcoin out of sync safest bitcoin storage, we suggest buying a KeepkeyTrezoror Ledger wallet. They are external hardware wallets that store your bitcoins off of your computer. Then you can connect the device to your computer via USB and use electrum to spend your coins. November 18, January 20, Bitcoin CEO bitcoin coreelectrumprivate keyrecover bitcoin.
