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Need Assistance - Ethereum Password Not Working #982

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dbfrav opened this issue Jul 17, 2016 · 127 comments
Open

Need Assistance - Ethereum Password Not Working #982

dbfrav opened this issue Jul 17, 2016 · 127 comments

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@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 17, 2016

Greetings -

Forgive me if I've posted in the wrong place. I am a new user of Ethereum and decided to download the EtherBase wallet from Github. After the download I extracted the files and then opened the Ethereum wallet file and it immediately began syncing with the blockchain right out of the box. Once completed it was ready to go and while syncing it did prompt me for a password and I was very careful in typing it twice and recording it to my password book. So once the blockchain synced I loaded some ether into wallet and it credited fine.

Then, the next day I downloaded Geth and Eth-miner and created 2 additional accounts to the main wallet via CMD window prompt and those accounts prompted me to create a password each which I did and recorded those passwords. Next day I wanted to send some ether from the main EtherBase account and I was prompted for the password which I entered. I got error message "wrong password". So I then tried the passwords for each new account that I created in CMD prompt mode but neither worked.

I am very good with passwords. I've never lost a password in my life or even confused them with others. I copy them down immediately when I comprise them so this is not an issue of a "lost password" or a mistyped password as there is a preventative for this in requiring you to retype password when creating the wallet. I am absolutely certain that the password is correct but the EthereumBase main wallet will not recognize it. I'm thinking that adding the two new accounts to the wallet via Geth CMD prompt may have caused this somehow?

I searched and found others who have had the same issue and people reply saying this could be a bug in the system.

As mentioned, in searches I came across several others who have similar issues but I see no remedy and the threads are now old and inactive. Here is a link to someone else having the same issue #161 but no remedy seemed to have taken place and thread was closed so I am hoping someone can help me out. I'd be eternally grateful for any and all assistance.

Best regards,

dbf ~

@frozeman
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Hi,

to test if your really didn't misspelled your password, launch mist or geth directly. Then attach geth to it, by running:

  • cd path/to/mist/resources/node/geth
  • geth.exe attach

When you are in the geth console, you type personal.unlockAccount('account address', 'password') and see if you can unlock it.

If this doesn't work, then you certainly have a wrong password.

@luclu
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luclu commented Jul 18, 2016

@dbfrav I tried to look for code issues in Mist that could create accounts without the user being prompt for a password. I only found these two places - as expected - and added some explanation to them.
Also please make sure to update to 0.8.1 as the error messages were broken in earlier version and always fell back to the - often misleading - "wrong password" alert - regardless of the real error (#664).

Tl;dr looks good to me, I can't spot any possibility for a data-race, etc resulting in an incorrect account creation, but the code could be refactored though

Please make sure to follow these advices #669.

Code search for "personal.newAccount":

'submit form': function(e, template){  // execute this function when submit is clicked
        var pw = template.find('input.password').value,  // read out first password
            pwRepeat = template.find('input.password-repeat').value;  // read out confirmation password

        if( pw !== pwRepeat) {  // show a warning if they differ 
            GlobalNotification.warning({
                content: TAPi18n.__('mist.popupWindows.requestAccount.errors.passwordMismatch'),
                duration: 3
            });
        } else if (pw && pw.length > 1 && pw.length < 9) {  // show a warning if password is not empty and shorter than 9 characters
            GlobalNotification.warning({
                content: TAPi18n.__('mist.popupWindows.requestAccount.errors.passwordTooShort'),
                duration: 3
            });
        } else if (pw && pw.length >= 9) {  // proceed if not empty and longer than 8 characters
            TemplateVar.set('creatingPassword', true);
            web3.personal.newAccount(pw, function(e, res){  // create new account using the password
                TemplateVar.set(template, 'creatingPassword', false);

                if(!e) {  // update UI if no error during account creation (from node)
                    TemplateVar.setTo('.onboarding-account', 'newAccount', web3.toChecksumAddress(res));
                    TemplateVar.setTo('.onboarding-screen', 'currentActive', 'account');

                    // clear form
                    pw = pwRepeat = null;

                } else {  // show error if connection problem with node
                    GlobalNotification.warning({
                        content: TAPi18n.__('mist.popupWindows.onboarding.errors.nodeNotStartedYet'),
                        duration: 4
                    });
                }
            });
        }
}
'submit form': function(e, template){  // execute this function when submit is clicked
        e.preventDefault();
        var pw = template.find('input.password').value;
        var pwRepeat =  template.find('input.password-repeat').value;

        // ask for password repeat
        if(!pwRepeat) {
            TemplateVar.set('password-repeat', true);
            template.$('input.password-repeat').focus();

            // stop here so we dont set the password repeat to false
            return;

        // check passwords
        } else if(pwRepeat === pw) {

            TemplateVar.set('creating', true);
            web3.personal.newAccount(pwRepeat, function(e, res){  // create new account using the password
                if(!e)
                    ipc.send('backendAction_sendToOwner', null, res);
                else
                    ipc.send('backendAction_sendToOwner', e);

                TemplateVar.set(template, 'creating', false);  // update UI
                ipc.send('backendAction_closePopupWindow');
            });

        } else {  // show error if passwords mismatch
            template.$('.password').focus();

            GlobalNotification.warning({
                content: TAPi18n.__('mist.popupWindows.requestAccount.errors.passwordMismatch'),
                duration: 3
            });
        }

        TemplateVar.set('password-repeat', false);  // update UI
        template.find('input.password-repeat').value = '';
        template.find('input.password').value = '';
        pw = pwRepeat = null;
} 

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 19, 2016

                                                                                  Hi - Thank you very much for your efforts. I am very new to this. I will try my best to utilize the information you sent and will report back. Thanks again  dbf                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 19, 2016

Thank you Frozeman. I was traveling for business the last 24 hours and will apply these suggestions tonight and will report back to announce my findings. Thank you.

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 19, 2016

Hello -

Frozeman, I have to say that I am quite unfamiliar with both Geth and Mist, and quite honestly and brand new to Ethereum. I downloaded Ethereum fresh install and promptly afterwards loaded some ether in the wallet after downloading. I really do not know what the two programs "Mist" and Geth" do or really, anything about them. I see I have a file named "Mist" in my Ethereum folder but no file within it to open or launch Mist that I can see. And embarrassingly, I don't know how to open or launch Geth either as there is no launch application anywhere on my computer even when I run search for "Geth".

I want to try the approach you suggest but I need better guidance of what these two programs are, what they do and how to actually open them and launch the window to where you are directing me to type your suggested prompts. I appreciate yours and everyone's patience with me. I am otherwise very tech savvy and a quick learner but being totally brand new to Ethereum/Geth/Mist I am a total "Newbie", so if you work with me a bit I'm confident I can understand and catch on. Am willing to compensate for your help too. Thanks so much!

@luclu
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luclu commented Jul 19, 2016

@dbfrav there is some quite good documentation on the usage of geth (Mist's bundled default ethereum-client) at http://ethdocs.org/en/latest/account-management.html.

As an alternative I can recommend you to use https://myethereumwallet.com to unlock and transfer your funds. On a side note, this service is hosted directly on github and is running client side in your browser.

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 20, 2016

Luclu - Thank you sir. I really appreciate it, however, as I said above I really need to be helped in understanding the specific step by step actions I need to do with these programs before I can go in and apply your suggestions. Once I'm in https://myethereumwallet.com I do not get the lingo, I don't understand what I'm supposed to do. I need to be guided through this with the understanding that I am brand new and not familiar with these exact steps. If you or anyone could take the time and walk me through these promising remedies, I'm certain I can accomplish. Thank you again.

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 21, 2016

OK, so I've read up on Mist and I now better understand what Mist and Geth are. So thank you for the links Luclu. I really want to try what Frozeman suggested above first. However, when I launch Geth, I get the black window that loads up data and there's a blinking white cursor at the base presumably to type some code in? However, when I try to type what Frozeman suggests, nothing I type come out in the window. Nothing is displayed. So I now presume this is not the Console? How do I get to the Geth Console to type a command? This is the instruction I'm trying to follow but cannot find out how to do:

"In order to create a new account using geth, we must first start geth in console mode (or you can use geth attach to attach a console to an already running instance)"

I might also add that I contacted Dave at Wallet Recovery Service, just in case I may have made a typo of some sort when creating my password. He has not been able to BrutForce my password so I am more and more convinced that I am using the right password, but when I later created additional accounts through Geth after initial Ethereum Wallet setup, somehow my password has been corrupted. This further makes sense because others have reported this issue and here is a quote referring to this bug on the Accounts Management page which reads :

“Wrong password” notice. This seems to be a false notice on occasion on current Mist versions. Restart Mist and the problem should go away (if you indeed entered the correct password).

Restarting did not help me. So again I appeal to anyone for help here. I have a considerable amount of ether coins in this wallet and was willing to pay WalletRecoveryServices a percentage if they were able to succeed in unlocking but apparently they are unable. So I certainly would be willing to offer the same reward to anyone who can help me unlock this account to free up the coins.

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 22, 2016

Luclu - I was able to go into myetherwallet and use the JSON keyfile to attempt to unlock but it also asked for a password which when I entered it was also rejected. I'd like also to try Frozeman's suggestion above to verify if there was indeed a typo in my password when I created it but not being so familiar with Geth/Mist I cant find how to open Geth Command Box panel to type the command.

Also, I contacted Wallet Recovery Services to run BruteForce password cracker thinking that I may have typed a typo when I created the original password. Dave at WRS assured me that if I can give him as close to the password as possible, he'd most likely be able to decrypt the wallet. I would have used only one password and I recorded it instantly after creating it. I gave this password to Dave and after 3 days and millions of attempts with variations, he has said it doesn't look good. This suggests to me that somehow, when I created the additional accounts in the Main EtherBase wallet using Geth, that this somehow corrupted, deleted or caused the new account password to supersede the original password yet when we try the newly created account's password, it's also rejected.

TL/dr: I am 100% certain that I'm using the correct password that I used when creating the wallet. There are other users who have reported similar issues with passwords not working. For me, things became corrupted when I created a 2nd account using Geth Cmd Prompt window and creating a password for the new account. I have a sizable amount of ethers in this wallet and am now offering a reward of a healthy percent of them to anyone who can help me unlock it.

@dbfrav dbfrav changed the title Need password assistance Need password assistance (Reward Offered) Jul 23, 2016
@dbfrav dbfrav changed the title Need password assistance (Reward Offered) Need password assistance (reward offered) Jul 23, 2016
@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 25, 2016

Can anyone take me any further with this?

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 26, 2016

You know, I'm quite surprised that besides my own recent posts, this thread has basically gone cold for the past week. I'm surprised that this issue isn't being taken more seriously by others. This is not an isolated issue of a "forgotten password" or a "lost password". I am just one of a number of different people who have had the same or very similar issue with sudden "unrecognized" passwords.

I have never forgotten or lost a password in over 20 years. And especially for an account that holds monetary value, in my case 442 Ethers, I absolutely will know precisely what my password is. I continue to hold and trade bitcoins in a wallet since 2012 and never would be so careless as to "forget" or "misplace" my password. So this is not the sorry circumstance of some careless individual who lost his password and is now crying a storm about it on the forums.

I'd actually be too embarrassed to admit to anyone if I ever actually forgot or misplaced a password for such an important account. No, based on how many other users have shared this same issue, this is a obviously a bug in the Ethereum/Geth/Mist system and each and every one of you should be concerned of why this happens.

All was fine with my Ethereum Basewallet until the day I decided to add an account using the Geth program. Things changed from that moment on. The Geth system asked me to create a password for the secondary account which was done via the Geth Command black window which was a total change-up compared to the steps I took to create the initial Ethereum Base wallet downloaded via Github. So of course, I entered a different password unique to that new account. But immediately after that, my main password did not work. The password I created for the 2nd account, does not work either.

When this initially happened I realized that I wasn't all that familiar with the inner workings of Ethereum, Geth or Mist as I admitted in by my posts above, but I don't think I should have to be an expert with the systems involved just to simply create a wallet, a password and hold and trade my Ethers in the same fashion that I have been doing so with Bitcoin since 2012.

But after the few suggestions offered above last week, I wanted to learn more to show those who were trying to help that I wanted to help myself too, and so over the past week I've studied the system and it's related programs to a degree that I feel I'm much better informed than I was a week ago. I even contacted Wallet Recovery Services to help me with the password just in case of the unlikely chance that I typed a typo when creating the password (which I would have had to do twice because in creating a password you must retype it to insure they match). Dave from WRS assured me that if I just gave him a password that was even CLOSE to the correct password, he'd be able to crack it in minutes. After 4 days he told me it he was having no luck. So, out of desperation, I went further and gave him every password I've ever used in my life online (I have a password keeper) even for accounts I no longer have. None of those worked.

So at this point, I am absolutely convinced that my password was somehow corrupted after creating the additional account in Ethereum Basewallet using Geth. And although some may say "hey, it makes no sense and it's your problem buddy". Perhaps so. I know it makes no sense. But it's factual as I describe. And since this suddenly happened to me with no apparent rhyme of reason, and scouting around this forum you'll see other threads from several others who have had the same or very similar issue, this should concern each and every one of you too because unless we, or someone, can figure out what is happening, and why this is happening, even if it is a rare occurrence, any one of you could be next.

I would like to add that my main interest in solving this issue is not so much in recovering my 442 Ethers, but to correct this "bug" so it doesn't affect other innocent users who trust this wallet with their hard earned coins like I did. So as my thread title now states with a late edit, I am willing to pay 20% of my wallet's contents of 442 Ethers to anyone who can help me help me solve this issue.

I thank all of you who have already offered help above and I thank in advance to anyone else who may be able to shine some light on this.

Holding out hope,
dbf -

@supere989
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Dear Mr DBFrav,

First off, I would just like to say I am sorry that you are having such a rough time with this particular issue. Nothing grinds us harder than financial woes, then add technology to this mix.... Yeah I feel ya.

Couple of things I would like to clear up as I didn't see them when i was going through this post.

Exactly which version of Mist / Geth / EtherBase / etc and any applications have you installed that attempt to attach to the local chainstate?

So I know i just asked a lot, so lets break this down. I have ran into this password issue before and it has to do with data being overwritten in the ethereum geth data store.

  1. we need to know what Operating System you are using. (Windows Key + R, type in "msinfo32", go to file\export, then save the text file so it can be email/posted. I prefer zipping it up into a zip file with a password for security.)
    Some versions of windows in specific cases may have file history enabled. We may be able to utilize that.
  2. do you back up your computer to an external drive or use cloud backup software?
  3. We need to know what ethereum apps are installed that we may need to remove.
  4. Stop using this PC in Native mode for your Ethereum. Why?
    Well its simple really, Any software application that is of high value and is not well suited to fault tolerance, needs a place where it can exist that can be recoverable. That answer to this is Virtualization.
    Most computers have enough resources to do this, but many do not. By a copy of windows to use in a Virtualization platform, or rent one on AWS. (Amazon Web Services EC2)

I know how to fool windows into letting me run multiple copies of the chainstate in a singe Native environment, but it is messy and difficult to keep straight, especially when software updates occur and chainstates get ForKED! (Pun intended)

  1. we need a backup of your ethereum folder. Create a backup before modifying anything further.
  2. We may need to do some remote assistance and some data sharing.
  3. We need the password that is used to access the wallet.
  4. we then attempt to rebuild the chainstate with the private keys from your existing installation of geth\etherbase\mist - which may have to be done independently of each other. (This is where this process really gets time consuming.

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 29, 2016

                                                                                  Hi! I am so grateful for your contact. I am away from home at the present and will be home in the morning, at which time I will comply with all of your requests. You made my night, and I thank you. Looking forward to talking  tomorrow, Best regards, dusty ~                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

@supere989
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Also, I thought I would shed some light on why this issue happens. We want options. Because none of us like to have all our eggs in one basket. However, in the software realm of Ethereum, this is bad juju.

As you have already discovered, ethereum applications do not check to see if another ethereum application is installed and will use the same data store in your user profile regardless of what data may already be in there.

This is what I call obfuscated local awareness. And it is a problem in many software applications of this nature. Bitcoin never really had this problem because everyone who forked off the main branch renamed the data store folders for their specific coin. Ethereum apps do not do this.

Okay, so that is why you have this issue. We will see what can be done.

Regards,

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Jul 30, 2016

@ supere989. All required info forwarded to you. Thanks!

@shubrich76
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I am having this exact issue and I know my password is correct. I have a fair amount of ETH that is now locked up. I have come from Coinbase - I don't like their sharing of information.

OSX is El Capitan 10.11.5
Etherium-wallet version: 0.8.1
Geth: 1.4.10

What other info do you need?

@dbfrav
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dbfrav commented Aug 16, 2016

@ shubrich76 - I still have not resolved my issue. I am still awaiting for help from others.

@destenson
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destenson commented Aug 16, 2016

I don't know where OSX keeps user files, so if I were you, I'd do a global find on your hard drive for any files that contain the ethereum address of the account you're not having access to. It's possible there may be more than one on your hard drive & the one you believe you're using may not be the one you're actually using. Then using myetherwallet.com, I'd try to unlock each file found using your password (and a blank password, just to be exhaustive). If that still doesn't work, I'd suggest there is indeed a bug that may have caused your keystore file or encrypted private key to become corrupted. If so, definitely use this as a lesson to keep backups & know how to use and recover from them.

(IIRC, command-line geth & the geth embedded into the Ethereum-wallet GUI, at least on Windows, at one time used two different keystore paths. I don't know if they still do.)

@ursul0
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ursul0 commented Aug 25, 2016

Hey guys. I have the same problem here: I'm locked out of my ETH on coinbase.

  1. It's clean WinX, geth is being used with "--datadir CUSTOM_DIR" (I'd guess its also a part of the ghm... bug?)
  2. I have a second account, which was created in console.
  3. BOTH passwords I have must be 100% correct (as I have it backed up in TWO independent vaults, And I have entered it manually few times.
    EDIT: I have also backups, which I didn't try yest, so we'll see

@ursul0
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ursul0 commented Sep 15, 2016

well... it was fun, yet still unclear what it was.
I had a password and a backup of the key. BOTH apparently were proper!
Trying accessing my wallet (from here for instance: https://www.myetherwallet.com/#send-transaction) always failed.

  1. I've restored old system into VMWare VM - I had Acronis backup of the machine where account was initially created (supposedly before I fuck something up... presumably by moving geth to another drive, removing db...whatever...)
  2. for some reason there was no key in (C:\Users\your-user\AppData\Roaming\Ethereum\keystore) so I placed my backup there
  3. running "geth account update" and typing my password(that I always thought was the right one) in console allowed me to unlock and change password!
  4. inserting the new json into https://www.myetherwallet.com/#send-transaction with a new password just works now....

@kionio
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kionio commented Oct 1, 2016

Hi all, I've been having the same issue since I recently updated geth on OSX sierra using terminal commands:

$ brew update
$ brew upgrade
$ brew upgrade ethereum

I also removed the entire blockchain and redownloaded it because of the recent DDOS/synching issues and i've been locked out of my accounts ever since. Although I have 'special characters' like '$'. and '@' in my mist generated password I have used it dozens of times in the past without problems. Password doesn't work on https://www.myetherwallet.com/#send-transaction either.

A possible clue worth mentioning is that i'm getting 'Error: ethereum/ethereum/ethereum 1.4.13 already installed' when I try to update geth to 1.4.14 in my terminal window but according to my latest version GUI clients i'm already running 1.4.14 (Go)!

I will attempt to restore an old backup of my system and run 'geth account update' since it worked for ursul0, however, if I successfully run this command on my old system where exactly will the new json file/s be saved after it's generated? will it simply overwrite the corresponding existing json file/s in the keystore folder or will i need to dig around for it? How does it work?

I have lost access to a four figure sum of ETH but trying to deal with this rationally. Obviously any help, tips or suggestions will be greatly appreciated

@joniponi
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joniponi commented Oct 8, 2016

Hi all, same here - I'm absolutely sure I typed the correct password but it has been changed it obviously right after - hence, a significant amount of ETH is now locked in fact. Is this some sort of fraud pattern and the ETH are being nicked in all affected wallets in some point of time in future?

@kionio
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kionio commented Oct 8, 2016

What a relief.. typed my password out in textedit then pasted into myetherwallet.com. worked first go

@frozeman
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frozeman commented Sep 7, 2017

I do understand your frustrations.
Here are a few things you can consider when trying to unlock the account:

  • Have you had geth installed before Mist (in which case it would have created an ether base at its first start, use the password you used there)
  • Please also try unlocking via the command line: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/wiki/Managing-your-accounts
  • Or the console: $ geth attach (after running a node in an other terminal) -> personal.unlockAccount('0xmyaddress', 'mypassword')
  • Maybe you used another tool to install geth, back in the day, and this one created an account for you?
  • The accounts/keys can be found in
    Mac: ~/Library/Ethereum/keystore
    Win: %APPDATA%\Ethereum\keystore
    Linux: ~/.ethereum/keystore

Thats all the help i can give you. This software and the crypto space itself, states clearly that you are responsible for your keys and you need to know how to manage them properly.
Please ALWAYS send small amounts first and try sending out a bit again, before making large money movements!!

This space is ALPHA, and many of the user facing tools, to make all of that convenient and safe need to be build first. We at Mist work on improving the account management - but this is the work off many groups together rather than us only, to ensure the best security we can give.

Many of the issues, don't arise from the software, but the faulty usage over the last two years. Many of the accounts people generated were created a long time ago and with older versions of geth. Maybe you can also try using an old version to unlock the account (again: use the command line here, like stated above)

From my experience in helping people restore their funds, 99% of the case it was a wrong password.

I wish you all the luck, and please try all the above to see if you can finally unlock your funds. Sadly there is not much we can do, as we have no control over your keys, or passwords.

@ldrapeau
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ldrapeau commented Sep 7, 2017

@frozeman: Great post - I agree, may be one other recommendation, for important accounts, I think it's preferable to stick to [A-Z] [0-9] [a-z] characters only (if the software you are using allows it), this will prevent a lot of cases that ended up in here where special characters where used and caused problems. Not to say that special characters would not, work, just a conservative tip to put all chances on your side of not having any issues. Good luck to all, and remember that life is more important than ETH!

@abonn
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abonn commented Sep 13, 2017

Hi, thought I would join the conversation here as I have the same issue with regards to the Mist wallet. I have an Etherbase account created in March and quite frankly I do not remember ever setting up a password for it. However, I have a number of passwords that I have written down for crypto related things and absolutely none of these work. This is strange, as like others here I am meticulous about writing down my passwords somewhere.

I have tried using the Geth terminal and have probably tried 50 different passwords thus far. I tried using the python tool which checks all the permutations of possible passwords but am having trouble using it. I fortunately am not missing much on this account (only about 2500 DNT) but it's still worth over $150. I don't know if it is worth sending my info to one of the password crackers as even if they took a 50% fee it wouldn't be much for them.

I do know that I will only be using myetherwallet from now on.

@m-thomson
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Here's a tip in case it helps someone -

I couldn't figure out why my passphrase wasn't working for a long, long time. I eventually downgraded to 0.8.10 and suddenly it worked and I was able to transfer the ETH to a different account.

I'm 100% certain that I was trying the same password in recent versions :-/

@frozeman
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frozeman commented Nov 19, 2017 via email

@ldrapeau
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ldrapeau commented Nov 30, 2017 via email

@ghost
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ghost commented Nov 30, 2017 via email

@abonn
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abonn commented Nov 30, 2017

Hi, I downgraded to version 0.8 and then changed my password (it kept saying I had the wrong password in the most up-to-date version).

Thank you so much @m-thomson for this tip!

@p0mmi3
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p0mmi3 commented Dec 19, 2017

@abonn

Hi, did you use 0.8.10 to access your account as well?

@ldrapeau
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Hi, no I work with the geth CLI in linux.

@abonn
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abonn commented Dec 20, 2017 via email

@davimac
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davimac commented Jan 10, 2018 via email

@abonn
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abonn commented Jan 10, 2018

@davimac Check https://geth.ethereum.org/downloads/ and click to show older versions.

@m-thomson
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To clarify, I used https://github.com/ethereum/mist/releases/tag/v0.8.10 but that version may have worked for me because it was the version I used to create the wallet in the first place (I can't recall).

But downgrading to whatever version created your wallet is definitely worth a shot. If you can't remember which version it was, then I suggest starting with the above version. At least in my case there was a change introduced after that version that caused my password to no longer work.

Good luck.

@ursul0
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ursul0 commented Aug 16, 2018

Let me answer here to the "99% forgot their password" comments.

  1. Please note that I had two wallets initialised and I had no access only to the coinbase (one of them) the other always worked
  2. I have recovered my access to the coinbase wallet by rolling back the image of the entire machine with the node and using my EXISTING key backup and EXISTING password that I always thought was right.

@ali8889
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ali8889 commented Aug 18, 2018

Good

@philsmd
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philsmd commented Aug 19, 2018

@ursul0 it would be very interesting and maybe very helpful for others if you could analyze the two files (two different versions of the keystore/json file) and see what is different.
I think also @holiman could be interested to get a copy of the 2 files (privately and only after there are no funds left on those addresses). Of course you do not need to send the file to the devs for analysis, but it could help others a lot in understanding the problem (again: only send anything after there is no ether left on the accounts and only if you previously confirmed that you are securely/encrypted communicating with the real @holiman ). Otherwise, never send any wallet files around!

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ursul0 commented Aug 20, 2018

@philsmd The JSON file was always the same, just as the password was always correct. What changed is the geth node setup (it was rolled back to the earlier snapshot, no mist wallet was installed at this point... I think)
Also if I remember correctly the unlock still didn't work(the password was not accepted there) but account update did, allowing me to change the password and then all issues were gone

EDIT: probably worth mentioning that password problems appeared sometime after installing mist (was using console before just fine) ...and mist did worked for sometime properly too... Maybe it was mist version update?... The only thing I'm sure of now is that the password suddenly stopped working in mist

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philsmd commented Aug 22, 2018

so you are saying that the keystore file remained bit-by-bit identical and only the geth version changed (one older version of geth worked, while all newer versions of geth refused to work)?
Well, it could be still interesting to analyze/see what was the root cause in your case, because in theory also new versions of mist/geth should be compatible with older keystore files. It could be some fixed bug like this: ethereum/go-ethereum#2371 where newline characters were not stripped from the password etc... but I guess even then geth/mist should test both "versions" of the password even in newer versions.
@holiman what do you think? could this case/file be interesting to investigate?

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holiman commented Aug 22, 2018

So, there is definitely interesting information, but it's so vague.

  • So for one thing, I checked out the difference between update versus unlock -- and I couldn't find anything that differs in any essential way (it's the same code paths).
  • Is it that something stopped working in Geth, or Mist? If the latter, perhaps it always worked in geth? If this is the case, it would be very interesting to know what versions worked/did not work.

So, @ursul0 could you try to write down (to the best of your recollection) the sequence of events that you experienced, if possible with dates (helpful in determining potential bugs/fixes) ? Also, if you do not want to divulge your password, it would (possibly) be useful to know if the password contained anything outside of [a-zA-Z0-9].

I don't think there's any point in analyzing the json files before we have a clearer understanding of the events.

If, however, it indeed was "mist did worked for sometime properly", then it would be VERY interesting to obtain the json file + password and simply go through old versions of Mist and test it.

Related question: what OS?

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ursul0 commented Aug 22, 2018

@holiman
this is how I remember it:

  1. I've set up geth node on win10 around the block 2000000 of ETH
  2. the password(saved into password vault) for coinbase wallet, typed manually into console was: "186h!oUt$HeG8rn1PFBp$@3F"
  3. it worked for some time (I was able to unlock)
  4. another wallet was created on the same node (around here I did full image of the system)
  5. Not sure what is the significance of that but: I played around with the node and moved data dir to another location, and maybe resynced... not sure
  6. first time I noticed issues with password was when I installed/updated mist and it refused to accept my password (not sure 100% if mist ever worked properly, but maybe it did...)
  7. After that I lost access to this wallet completely - the password apparently "became wrong" everywhere, (while at the same time access to the second wallet was continuing to be fine)
  8. After restoring the machine with earlier setup of geth I was still not able to unlock the wallet, but surprisingly it allowed me to do the password change - "geth account update" (and because it's really weird I do remember this part well)

Note: and, nope there was no "consistent" mistyping of any kind.

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philsmd commented Aug 23, 2018

@ursul0 thanks for the info.
Do you think that you can find the version number of geth (and mist if it was installed) on your disk image and the same version numbers for comparison that stopped working ?

Ideally, it would be great if you could also try to download a fresh version of geth/mist with those specific version numbers (syncing is probably not needed) and try to unlock/update the (old) keystore file with both of these alternative versions. In theory this problem should be reproducible and we should be able to find out which versions do work and which versions don't work.

@holiman and @ursul0, till now nobody responded to my guess that it could be the newline problem (extra new lines at the end of the password which were incorrectly included by older geth versions). Therefore, it could also make sense to try do use some password cracking tools like hashcat etc and see if the keystore "hash" cracks with the newline character, while it fails to crack without the newline characters. This of course is only one possibility, but we should investigate this too.

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