Lost my masternode - i hate it when that happens

Kevin Stalker

Kevin Stalker

Active member
My pc crashed - everything got lost. Woe is me.

I have a dash backup on a usb, so I installed dash core qt wallet on my mac, which came up with 0 dash. I found my backup usb and all it has on it is a dash.dat file. I am surprised by this because I was expecting a masternode.conf and perhaps a wallet.dat.

I copied dash.dat into the dashcore folder, nothing. I renamed it to wallet.dat. Wow - when I restarted the wallet it seemed to find dash.

It found +.1 dash (a test I did), then +100, then +900 making 1000, then -1000, then nothing, leaving a balance of .1

The problem is that when I was setting all this up I did a final transfer of 1000 to myself, because I heard it had to be a single transaction. This one shows the outgoing but no incoming.

The following transactions, which would be the profits from the running masternode, are not showing.

The backup was from february 2017.

Is there a way to get my dash back? My masternode is being run by splawik.

Many thanks
 
Kevin Stalker said:
The problem is that when I was setting all this up I did a final transfer of 1000 to myself, because I heard it had to be a single transaction. This one shows the outgoing but no incoming.
Click to expand...

Does your Masternode address still contain 1000 DASH?
Have you created another wallet for your Masternode? Do you have wallet.dat file (or private key) that contains your Masternode address with 1000 DASH?
 
Hi all, I tried all the different wallet repair options in the console. They don't find additional dash. My masternode is still running and seeing the dash though, so thats a good sign.

I didn't have a lot of addresses, probably three, but I only have two now, so the one with the 1000 is missing.
I don't think I created another wallet, but I can sometimes get confused by this whole multi-address thing. As far as I know I have one wallet with three addresses.

The whole thing with the wallet.dat file is described above. I don't have my masternode.conf file, but I can see an outgoing transaction for 1000 dash and I can see the address it goes to, so I know the address I am missing.

I am going to take to hard drive of my broken computer to a shop and see if they can recover any of the files. I am hoping it is readable, even though it won't boot.
 
SirHikmat said:
Try to rescan the wallet.

Do you have a lot of addresses? What date was the final transfer done?
Click to expand...
The backup was taken about 30 mins before the final transfer. It seems to me that the extra address is not backed up. A question... does each address have its own private key? If so I dont have that last private key, otherwise, if the same private key works with all the addresses I can see the address that the dash went to, so I should be able to get it back.
 
Kevin. Copy the backup folder and wallet.dat files from the appdata folder to other place with client is switched off.

Then, try loading the wallet one by one from backup folder in your appdata to see if you see the coins.
 
splawik21 said:
Kevin. Copy the backup folder and wallet.dat files from the appdata folder to other place with client is switched off.

Then, try loading the wallet one by one from backup folder in your appdata to see if you see the coins.
Click to expand...
Hey splawik21 - there's a coincidence - I just sent you an email. I didn't have any backup folder, cos the whole computer went down. But I have been into a shop today (just this morning in fact) and they got my original wallet.dat file from the original disk. Fortunately the disk was still readable. So all my dash is back. Woohoo.

Issue resolved, although to be honest I think the whiole thing with the lack of a single address for the wallet is hard to understand. I need to read up perhaps.
 
Really glad to hear you solved it. As a general note: always verify you backups are actually working right after you created it to avoid surprises in the future. And of course, consider moving at least huge chunks of funds like MN collaterals to hardware wallet. You can then import this single privkey back to Core to manage your MN (or use some other external tools).
 
UdjinM6 said:
Really glad to hear you solved it. As a general note: always verify you backups are actually working right after you created it to avoid surprises in the future. And of course, consider moving at least huge chunks of funds like MN collaterals to hardware wallet. You can then import this single privkey back to Core to manage your MN (or use some other external tools).
Click to expand...
UdjinM6 - an official Dash dev - while you are listening then. I am a programmer by trade, but I work in business systems, so this is all new to me. However I know that this stuff has to be easy to understand. My comments are:

1 - I can't see a simple way of verifying that a backup is working. In fact I can't even see a way to restore from a backup. I spent ages browsing around trying to find how to restore my file. Can you explain how I might verify my backup?

2 - I did agree about the hardware wallet thing. I was told at the time, however, that only a dash core wallet would work. Now I have bought a Ledger Nano S, but I am having trouble being confident that the dash will be accessible on there, and that my masternode can be transferred. You will say it will be ok, but I have been finding that the ledger sometimes just will not open. It say "use wallet software to access" but the the app just sits there. I don't feel safe with it.

3 - I had a lot of money in an exodus wallet, and it was brilliant. It supports a 12 word phrase, which didn't work because I had written it down wrongly (I wrote buyer instead of burger - oops), but that's ok, because it restored from an email I had sent myself. Wow - how easy does it get - we could learn a lot from that. OMG when I think of all the crap I had to understand to get my dash core wallet back, even though I had a backup.

4 - Ok, importing a single privkey, I don't even know where to start with that. Its obviously beyond me, and my grandma. I can't see any privkeys, and I can't see how to get all the dash back that is linked to whatever privkey is stored. And the wallet.dat file is not readable, and there is no 12 word recovery option. Its all very off-putting. I have enough Dash now to buy more masternodes, but I am putting off, because its a lot of money.

Maybe there is a help page you can direct me to. Don't try to explain it all here, I want to know it all, but there is so much, and I have a day job.

Kevin
 
I am glad you sorted it. I was starting to feel a bit sick reading from the start of the thread down. As the core wallet isn't deterministic I thought it was 1000 dash gone forever. A lesson to everyone, if you generate a new address, back it up!
 
Acedian said:
I am glad you sorted it. I was starting to feel a bit sick reading from the start of the thread down. As the core wallet isn't deterministic I thought it was 1000 dash gone forever. A lesson to everyone, if you generate a new address, back it up!
Click to expand...
Indeed. I think the dash core dev need to understand the experiences of the average joe here. When you use the wallet is says "not recommended" when you try to re-use an existing address, but in fact if you create a new address to receive money that money is at risk until you create at least one backup on a usb. I feel thats a bad feature. The money is on the blockchain - you don't expect to lose it.
 
Kevin Stalker said:
UdjinM6 - an official Dash dev - while you are listening then. I am a programmer by trade, but I work in business systems, so this is all new to me. However I know that this stuff has to be easy to understand. My comments are:

1 - I can't see a simple way of verifying that a backup is working. In fact I can't even see a way to restore from a backup. I spent ages browsing around trying to find how to restore my file. Can you explain how I might verify my backup?

2 - I did agree about the hardware wallet thing. I was told at the time, however, that only a dash core wallet would work. Now I have bought a Ledger Nano S, but I am having trouble being confident that the dash will be accessible on there, and that my masternode can be transferred. You will say it will be ok, but I have been finding that the ledger sometimes just will not open. It say "use wallet software to access" but the the app just sits there. I don't feel safe with it.

3 - I had a lot of money in an exodus wallet, and it was brilliant. It supports a 12 word phrase, which didn't work because I had written it down wrongly (I wrote buyer instead of burger - oops), but that's ok, because it restored from an email I had sent myself. Wow - how easy does it get - we could learn a lot from that. OMG when I think of all the crap I had to understand to get my dash core wallet back, even though I had a backup.

4 - Ok, importing a single privkey, I don't even know where to start with that. Its obviously beyond me, and my grandma. I can't see any privkeys, and I can't see how to get all the dash back that is linked to whatever privkey is stored. And the wallet.dat file is not readable, and there is no 12 word recovery option. Its all very off-putting. I have enough Dash now to buy more masternodes, but I am putting off, because its a lot of money.

Maybe there is a help page you can direct me to. Don't try to explain it all here, I want to know it all, but there is so much, and I have a day job.

Kevin
Click to expand...
TL;DR: yes, it's a long way from where we are now to a good user experience but we understand this and we are making some progress (hopefully)

1. Let's say you just copied your wallet.dat to some safe space and it's USB stick. These few step should ensure you (to some degree) that wallet is recoverable:
(Unplug you USB stick, reboot)
- Rename wallet.dat in DashCore folder to smth else e.g. wallet_original.dat
- Plug USB stick, copy wallet.dat to DashCore folder (*wallet.dat is physically readable - good)
- Open DashCore Qt wallet (*wallet.dat is not corrupted - good)
- Try to unlock your wallet (*no keys were lost, wallet.dat encryption/decryption works - good)
- Now you should be pretty safe. Delete wallet.dat in DashCore folder and rename wallet_original.dat back to wallet.dat

2. I had no problems with Ledger... You should probably ping Ledger support about this. But anyway, even if browser app has some bugs like that - it holds no keys, all it does is only passing messages back and forth and nothing is signed until you verify it yourself and click these buttons on HW. As long as hardware itself is ok, it's a much safer way of storing your coins IMO (plus you can restore from backup phrase if hardware dies).

3. Not sure how it's implemented in Exodus but sending passwords/recovery seeds/phrases in plane text via email is not a very good idea imo... I personally would consider such passwords/seeds/phrases compromised and move funds to a new one ASAP.

4. True, exporting private keys from HW probably requires usage of some additional tools. I can recommend https://iancoleman.github.io/bip39/ to generate addresses/keys from mnemonic (12/18/24 words), it works offline. And true, that on the other hand, Core wallet can't use mnemonic as an option. But we are working on it https://github.com/dashpay/dash/pull/1405 :)
 
Thanks for the reply.

1. I have huge difficulty browsing to the backup folder. A search for wallet.dat on my mac fails. It is hidden somewhere in the depths. I found it once, who knows where it went. I am not a mac expert. Oh well. I will survive. The greater good is more important. I suggest you talk to people about getting a "verify backup" button added. These instructions simply couldn't be followed by normal mortals.

2. I finally worked out what was wrong with my ledger wallet. You have to disable browser support. Who knew. I would have thought enabling browser support would be a good idea, since the app is accessed from the browser. Apparently not. Oh well - works now. That's down to ledger.

3. I did worry about that, but it depends on entering my exodus password at the other end, so anyone looking at the email would not be able to use it unless they knew my password. Well, it saved me a huge amount of money - considerably more than the masternode thing - so I am very grateful for it.

4. I will investigate the mneumonic thing. A phrase would be brilliant. But I have to work out what my private key is first. Dear knows how I get at that. Is there only one? I don't see that question being anserwed. I wonder how much the support team we are paying know about all this, or whether the job is actually being done by core dev.

By the way, on the subject of Grandmas, I am trying to set up a masternode linked to a Nano Ledger S, and Splawik linked me here https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=106885788

You have got to be joking.

I can't make sense of it. And I read it twice.

I am a Software Director by trade. That is a bit like being a programmer, but without the geeky bit. Thnk of me more like somebody's mum.

k
 
Kevin Stalker said:
Thanks for the reply.

1. I have huge difficulty browsing to the backup folder. A search for wallet.dat on my mac fails. It is hidden somewhere in the depths. I found it once, who knows where it went. I am not a mac expert. Oh well. I will survive. The greater good is more important. I suggest you talk to people about getting a "verify backup" button added. These instructions simply couldn't be followed by normal mortals.

2. I finally worked out what was wrong with my ledger wallet. You have to disable browser support. Who knew. I would have thought enabling browser support would be a good idea, since the app is accessed from the browser. Apparently not. Oh well - works now. That's down to ledger.

3. I did worry about that, but it depends on entering my exodus password at the other end, so anyone looking at the email would not be able to use it unless they knew my password. Well, it saved me a huge amount of money - considerably more than the masternode thing - so I am very grateful for it.

4. I will investigate the mneumonic thing. A phrase would be brilliant. But I have to work out what my private key is first. Dear knows how I get at that. Is there only one? I don't see that question being anserwed. I wonder how much the support team we are paying know about all this, or whether the job is actually being done by core dev.

By the way, on the subject of Grandmas, I am trying to set up a masternode linked to a Nano Ledger S, and Splawik linked me here https://dashpay.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=106885788

You have got to be joking.

I can't make sense of it. And I read it twice.

I am a Software Director by trade. That is a bit like being a programmer, but without the geeky bit. Thnk of me more like somebody's mum.

k
Click to expand...

1. Tools -> Show Automatic Backups
2. They mention this in Getting Started guide I believe ;)
3. Ah, so it's smth encrypted. Well, should be ok then, I agree.
4. Every address has a (different) corresponding private key

5?. Re Grandmas: Masternodes are for techies atm, that's true. Maybe it's a good thing however.
 
Acedian said:
I am glad you sorted it. I was starting to feel a bit sick reading from the start of the thread down. As the core wallet isn't deterministic I thought it was 1000 dash gone forever. A lesson to everyone, if you generate a new address, back it up!
Click to expand...
I always thought that when the wallet is created, around 100 private keys are randomly generated and stored in the wallet. Isn't this correct?
 
SirHikmat said:
I always thought that when the wallet is created, around 100 private keys are randomly generated and stored in the wallet. Isn't this correct?
Click to expand...
No, only 1 private key is created.
You can view your addresses by going to (Dash-Qt) File > Receiving Addresses...
You can manually created a load of addresses when you first open your wallet and a backup would have these addresses, they don't have to have funds to be backed up.
 
To be honest when you start a new wallet it contains 1000 addresses in default. So when you backup you do it for 1000 keys. When asking get for a new address in the receive window by pressing "request payment", the wallet shows you a public address from actually generated pool of keys.
 
UdjinM6 said:
1. Tools -> Show Automatic Backups
2. They mention this in Getting Started guide I believe ;)
3. Ah, so it's smth encrypted. Well, should be ok then, I agree.
4. Every address has a (different) corresponding private key

5?. Re Grandmas: Masternodes are for techies atm, that's true. Maybe it's a good thing however.
Click to expand...
1. The automatic backups thing is good. I missed it. From that I expect most people could manage to restore - I suppose. Although in the modern world people expect something more automated.
2. I must have forgotten. I have a habit of not blaming myself when things go wrong, because I suggest that the software should have made it idiot proof.
3. Backups via email are very easy to make and find afterwards. Maybe they could be automatic and daily?
4. I see, well I am thinking the idea of creating one for every bit of dash received is not ideal. Surely I should be managing a small list of wallets.
5. OK - I will learn more. It will be fun.
 
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