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I bought a couple of bitcoin in 2012 where they languished on my successive Mac Book Pros in a Bitcoin-QT v0.6.2.2 wallet. I now realise they are worth - ahem - something! The wallet still fires up even though it is still calls itself a beta wallet and so I thought I would first try to send my lovely bitcoin to a new and glossy Exodus wallet.

Now being completely new to this I got my receive address for my Exodus Wallet and tried sending 0.1 BTC to my Exodus wallet. Eventually (maybe 5 hours later) it showed it had arrived but with zero confirmations. This first transaction still shows with 0.1 BTC "Pending" in the Exodus Wallet (sent Friday Dec 1st 10.04.10 PM).

I realised I had not included any fee on this first send but I didn't see anything I could do about that.

Anyway I then sent the balance of BTC in my Bitcoin-QT wallet, but this time included a 0.0004 BTC fee to the same address. But, 34 hours later it does not even show it having arrived at the Exodus wallet.

Now I really do not know what to do. I assume if I leave my Bitcoin-QT wallet up and running it will keep broadcasting the transactions and so they may never disappear. So I have quit the wallet. But suppose I leave it for a few days. If I fire up the wallet then I assume it will broadcast again and I will be back in the same situation? I could start it up offline and restore from a backup I did just prior to sending the first transaction - I guess that would cut out the re-broadcasts. Would that be the thing to do?

The Bitcoin wallet reports that the Transaction Ids are:

(Second transaction with 0.0004 BTC fee):

60efa66a8aef482cc3f2ce2ae348427e74feb12db91b579ed4c7ea955fbea0bf

(First transaction with fee not added :-(:

a0a70213c2e94119357cdac865e404e1ca6f44cf40a4acf9a6e272d4f0dd3f21

However when I put those into https://blockchain.info/ I am told the transaction does not exist. The same with ViaBTC Transaction accelerator.

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  • Set an even higher fee.
    – MCCCS
    Dec 3, 2017 at 5:22
  • You simply can't use this software today, upgrade it.
    – Claris
    Dec 3, 2017 at 5:37
  • And thanks MCCCS about idea of setting a higher fee. But if Eponymous is right I can't use the software (although the earlier transaction shows, but unconfirmed) in the Exodus wallet. And even if I can use the software I am not sure how I could set a higher fee unless I just wait and hope that somehow the bitcoin will restore in the old wallet and then try again.....
    – Jozwolf
    Dec 3, 2017 at 10:06
  • Thanks Eponymous - I am not clear how to upgrade from the v0.6.2.2 version of Bitcoin-QT. I understand that the database structure changed around 8.0.0 so that you cannot do a direct upgrade from 6.2.2 to a higher version. However, I cannot find v 7.0.0 etc. I can find a repository of Bitcoin Core at github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/releases?after=v0.11.0rc3 so can I upgrade using these, and if so can you tell me how to go about it or where I can find that out? I really appreciate your help but of course I am nervous about corrupting the data that I have on my existing bitcoin. Tnx!!!!
    – Jozwolf
    Dec 3, 2017 at 10:23
  • Obviously if I could extract the private key from my Bitcoin-QT data then I could simply move the data to a new wallet like Exodus - but then I don't know how to extract it either!!! eeeeeek!!!!
    – Jozwolf
    Dec 3, 2017 at 10:25

2 Answers 2

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I don't know exactly what features are available on your version, but here are some ideas to try.

First, take a backup of your wallet.dat file.

  1. In the debug window (help menu?), make sure that your peer is actually connected to some other peers so that your transaction will be broadcast to the network.
  2. Make sure your node is fully synced to the latest block.
  3. Start the application with the -zapwallettxes=1 argument to delete the transactions that are not in the blockchain from your wallet.
  4. Start again with the -rescan argument to scan the blockchain for bitcoins assigned to your private keys. This will take a long time (hours possibly).
  5. Your bitcoins should be available again, so try to send the transaction again with a higher fee. You can use https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ to decide what an appropriate fee is.

If you really want to export your private keys, you can use the dumpprivkey "address" command from the console inside the debug window (if the console is available in your version). But be very careful when moving your private keys around, they could get stolen by a key logger, screen grabber, other malware, or phishing sites, etc.

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  • Wow - thanks Adam for this great information. Getting closer! But unfortunately the version I have does not have either a Help or Debug window. I have found a program called PyWallet which is a Python script which can run using MacPorts so that could help. But of course I would like to be able to perform these commands. The only way I can see to do that would be to somehow upgrade my v0.6.2.2 to the earliest version that has the debug/Help window. But so far I can't find any accessible higher versions... Tricky!!!
    – Jozwolf
    Dec 3, 2017 at 11:31
  • Also - Adam - I am not sure if this version I have (v0.6.2.2) actually can properly synchronise with the modern version of what the Bitcoin servers do.... Eponymous thinks it cant. But on the other hand the first transfer I did did show up in Exodus wallet, but since it had no fee attached it sits there unconfirmed. I notice that the transaction id has a -0000 at the end of it for both transactions. Is this supposed to carry the fee I wonder?
    – Jozwolf
    Dec 3, 2017 at 11:36
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    Tricky. Importing the key into a new wallet may be the easiest solution, although also the riskiest. Looking at the source code for 0.6.2.2, it has the dumpprivkey command, so it looks like you have some hope, if you can work out how to run it. github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/v0.6.2.2/src/…
    – Adam Millerchip
    Dec 3, 2017 at 11:44
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    @Jozwolf Remember the first thing Adam said in his answer: "First, take a backup of your wallet.dat file". It would even be sensible to make 2 or more, and keep at least 1 off site. You'll want backups of the new Exodus wallet too, in case the transactions get confirmed. With those (and any required passwords), you shouldn't have much risk of losing the lot.
    – Highly Irregular
    Dec 3, 2017 at 18:11
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    Thanks all of you for GREAT and expert advice. OK - so I have bitten the bullet, set up the XCode tools, MacPorts, set up python 2.7.7, set up the dependencies, downloaded pywallet.py, learned enough Unix and python to get the wallet.dat file in a folder with pywallet and navigated to it as Directory, and successfully run a python pywallet.py --dumpwallet > txt. So I have all the keys in JSON format in a txt file. Phew! Who says 71 year olds can't learn new tricks :-) So which one is the private address I import into a new wallet?
    – Jozwolf
    Dec 4, 2017 at 4:23
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Since your blockchain is likely very small and syncing up to the current point with modern software will be very quick, I highly suggest that you just upgrade to Bitcoin Core 0.15.1 and delete everything in the Bitcoin Core datadir except for your wallet.dat file.

This will cause Bitcoin COre 0.15.1 to download the entire blockchain, which will happen much more quickly than Bitcoin Core 0.6.x can sync.

The wallet database structure has not changed since Bitcoin Core 0.6.x, so your current wallet should work with the latest version of Bitcoin Core. You should make a backup of your wallet regardless.

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  • Thanks Andrew - it seems to have read the transactions from the old wallet.dat perfectly well and is now synchronising. And now I have the command window to do any of the little tasks I need. Thanks a HEAP. Everyone has been so helpful I could hug you all :-)
    – Jozwolf
    Dec 4, 2017 at 5:01

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