Darksend: Where are my coins ?

[Pipy]

I recently tried the DarkSend feature (new to me).
I've launched a mix the 12th in the night to mix them during the night. In the morning, I realised the computer had crashed, and I had to backup my wallet again. (because I work on live USB)
Since then, all my drk are gone from my wallet, and they're not in the darksend balance either. (see screenshots)
I had ~620 drk. I launched a 1000 drk/2 rounds.
Please tell me they're not gone forever.

 

[AjM]

Hi Pipy!

Please give more info:

-Wallet downloaded from?
-Wallet version?
-Os (Linux?)
-Any other info?

Please save current wallet.dat and debug.log to safe place.
Have you tried your backup wallet.dat file?

I call devs for you: flare vertoe eduffield UdjinM6

 

[oblox]

If you started DS, your wallet will be generating new addresses for the coins to go to. If you do not have a wallet.dat file backed up containing these addresses, your coins are lost. Live environments are dangerous in this regard.

 

[Pipy]

Crap, so it's not looking so good, is it ?

-I downloaded the wallet from the official website. (darkcoin.io) I didn't check de hash sum, but I'm very careful about my security, and I'm 100% sure not being infected with any sort of RATs nor being victim of any kind of MITM attack.
-The wallet version is (and was) the last stable one: 0.11.1.24
-I'm using Mint (linux) via live USB

I desperately tried to make another darksend mixing (with 5 drk). I was hoping to get back the previous darksend balance. It is actually mixing, pretty sure it won't work..
I did backup my old wallet.dat file, that's why you can see the transactions. But no coins are present.

 

[UdjinM6]

I recently tried the DarkSend feature (new to me).
.....I realised the computer had crashed, and I had to backup my wallet again. (because I work on live USB)

Can you clarify what you mean by this ^^^ ? What's your exact config: any of - datadir or -wallet params? How do you backup it?

Crap, so it's not looking so good, is it ?

-I downloaded the wallet from the official website. (darkcoin.io) I didn't check de hash sum, but I'm very careful about my security, and I'm 100% sure not being infected with any sort of RATs nor being victim of any kind of MITM attack.
-The wallet version is (and was) the last stable one: 0.11.1.24
-I'm using Mint (linux) via live USB

I desperately tried to make another darksend mixing (with 5 drk). I was hoping to get back the previous darksend balance. It is actually mixing, pretty sure it won't work..
I did backup my old wallet.dat file, that's why you can see the transactions. But no coins are present.

hmm.. btw, .24 is not announced yet, it's 1 hour old
You need exactly the same wallet.dat you had when your computer crash or the older one. Not an earlier backup.

 

[Pipy]

Indeed my version is actually : v0.11.1.23-5907263-beta (64-bit)
I don't know what it was at the time I did the mixing. Probably the same.

What I mean is that I had a backup of my wallet before the mixing. Of course as I'm on a live USB, when my computer crashed I couldn't get the current wallet back...
So I understand that my coins are lost ?

 

[UdjinM6]

Indeed my version is actually : v0.11.1.23-5907263-beta (64-bit)
I don't know what it was at the time I did the mixing. Probably the same.

What I mean is that I had a backup of my wallet before the mixing. Of course as I'm on a live USB, when my computer crashed I couldn't get the current wallet back...
So I understand that my coins are lost ?

Well, I guess so... I completely agree with oblox - this kind of environment is a very dangerous option for mixing.

 

[AjM]

Wallet automatic backup would be nice function.

 

[UdjinM6]

Wallet automatic backup would be nice function.

In live environment that wouldn't help anyway. Unless you save wallet.dat (backups) to some external disk every time... but why can't you run live with -datadir=/some/external/path then?.. and that would be a safer solution then the one Pipy had btw....

 

[Pipy]

Well, I guess so... I completely agree with oblox - this kind of environment is a very dangerous option for mixing.

Well don't you think this is something that should be mention somewhere ? Like in the Darkcoin 101 ?
Do you know how many people are using darkcoin on live environment, on TAILS ?

I was putting a lot of faith in the drk. Now it's like my coins: all gone...

 

[oblox]

Well don't you think this is something that should be mention somewhere ? Like in the Darkcoin 101 ?
Do you know how many people are using darkcoin on live environment, on TAILS ?

I was putting a lot of faith in the drk. Now it's like my coins: all gone...

Live environment or not, maintaining backups on an external disk that isn't live is good practice. It just seems it was a poor timing for your live environment to crash without you having a recent backup after all the new addresses were added to the wallet.dat file.

 

[UdjinM6]

Well don't you think this is something that should be mention somewhere ? Like in the Darkcoin 101 ?
Do you know how many people are using darkcoin on live environment, on TAILS ?

I was putting a lot of faith in the drk. Now it's all gone...

Yes, I guess it would be nice to mention it somewhere and no, I have no idea how many people run Darkcoin in one or another kind of environment.
There is no single guide I can remember mentioning using Live USB for mixing btw. Why didn't you ask before doing this?
There are a lot of people here who could help you to prevent this kind of situation...
I'm sorry for your loss but that was you choice to setup things this way.

 

[Sub-Ether]

Well, I guess so... I completely agree with oblox - this kind of environment is a very dangerous option for mixing.

My question might overlap this, Udjin. If I was changing settings where the wallet was stored (due to testnet lol), and when I updated to latest version it 'appeared' lost, but it was not, because I had messed with data directory path somehow.
For example when I run version .0.11.1.22 it gets the right wallet but when I run version .0.11.23 from the same folder it finds (from where?) an old wallet I thought I'd deleted forever from the roaming folder and I also deleted the peers and ran reindex as well.
I am thinking should I start darkcoin-qt.exe in cmd and assign the data path to it? If so, what is the command structure in Windows, thanks :grin:

 

[UdjinM6]

My question might overlap this, Udjin. If I was changing settings where the wallet was stored (due to testnet lol), and when I updated to latest version it 'appeared' lost, but it was not, because I had messed with data directory path somehow.
For example when I run version .0.11.1.22 it gets the right wallet but when I run version .0.11.23 from the same folder it finds (from where?) an old wallet I thought I'd deleted forever from the roaming folder and I also deleted the peers and ran reindex as well.
I am thinking should I start darkcoin-qt.exe in cmd and assign the data path to it? If so, what is the command structure in Windows, thanks :grin:

I don't think I get it. You can run exe from anywhere you want. datadir option in darkcoin.conf (or whatever you want with -conf option) or -datadir in cmd line will tell where to store.. well.. data: blockchain, wallet, peers, logs. For testnet that will be the same folder + /testnet3/ (added automatically by wallet, you should not add it to datadir option). And all data for testnet will be in that testne3 folder. Anyway there is a "command-line options" in Help menu that will give you full list of options and some description. Or you can run daemon with --help.

 

[AjM]

In live environment that wouldn't help anyway. Unless you save wallet.dat (backups) to some external disk every time... but why can't you run live with -datadir=/some/external/path then?.. and that would be a safer solution then the one Pipy had btw....

Yes, no help with live environment, but in general auto backup would be very nice,
especially if user can configure diskdrive and folder, preferable different disk where darkcoin is installed.

 

[Pipy]

Yes, I guess it would be nice to mention it somewhere and no, I have no idea how many people run Darkcoin in one or another kind of environment.
There is no single guide I can remember mentioning using Live USB for mixing btw. Why didn't you ask before doing this?
There are a lot of people here who could help you to prevent this kind of situation...
I'm sorry for your loss but that was you choice to setup things this way.

A lot of people are using darkcoins for its anonymous purposes, so a lot of us are worried about our anonimity, therefore using live environments...
I didn't ask because that's not mentioned anywhere that mixing could be a very dangerous thing to do. I thought (like a lot of my friends using drk) that having my wallet backed up on different drives I was safe for any transactions. Sure that setup was my choice, but that's really not written anywhere that you should save your wallet after the mixing operation. And that's fucking great...

 

[oblox]

A lot of people are using darkcoins for its anonymous purposes, so a lot of us are worried about our anonimity, therefore using live environments...
I didn't ask because that's not mentioned anywhere that mixing could be a very dangerous thing to do. I thought (like a lot of my friends using drk) that having my wallet backed up on different drives I was safe for any transactions. Sure that setup was my choice, but that's really not written anywhere that you should save your wallet after the mixing operation. And that's fucking great...

Chances are if you specified your datadir somewhere off the live drive that allowed the written files to be saved in the event the live environment crashed, you would have your coins still. The decision to keep the datadir enclosed in the live environment when DS creates new addresses to the wallet.dat file is asking for trouble. I thought it was well known that the DS process creates new addresses but perhaps it needs to be better disclosed.

 

[UdjinM6]

A lot of people are using darkcoins for its anonymous purposes, so a lot of us are worried about our anonimity, therefore using live environments...
I didn't ask because that's not mentioned anywhere that mixing could be a very dangerous thing to do. I thought (like a lot of my friends using drk) that having my wallet backed up on different drives I was safe for any transactions. Sure that setup was my choice, but that's really not written anywhere that you should save your wallet after the mixing operation. And that's fucking great...

Actually to be completely safe you should backup any bitcoin-like wallets after each send operation because the leftover moves to some newly generated change address you had no private keys for before doing this. Mixing is no exception here - it's the same send operations but performed automatically.
Once again, I'm sorry for your loss but that's how things works.

EDIT: there is actually a keypool of 1000 keys so you have a gap of 1000 sending operations (one mixing round takes few 10s of them)

 

[AjM]

I thought it was well known that the DS process creates new addresses but perhaps it needs to be better disclosed.

Indeed, how about that first run info, stated in there: DONT USE LIVE ENVIRONMET OS!

EDIT: i mean this: "As this is the first time the program is launched, you can choose where Darkcoin Core will store its data."

I am going to add live os warning to finnish translation.

 

[oblox]

Indeed, how about that first run info, stated in there: DONT USE LIVE ENVIRONMET OS!

EDIT: i mean this: "As this is the first time the program is launched, you can choose where Darkcoin Core will store its data."

I am going to add live os warning to finnish translation.

I think that makes sense to prompt a user the ability to specify where they want their datadir and/or wallet.dat file saved at. The default could be as normal but being able to specify could help prevent these sorts of losses.