Old wallet format or backup format

[Mark van Cuijk]

I have just recovered a wallet backup file from Oct 2012, created using the Android Bitcoin Wallet app.

However, the backup file doesn't seem to be loaded by the current Bitcoin Wallet version. I get the error message "Could not parse input stream to protobuf." The password seems to be correct, since supplying any other password results in a message that the bytes cannot be decrypted.

Looking back in the Git repoes of the Android Wallet app and BitcoinJ, it looks like before using protobuf, a Wallet was stored using Java serialization. However, using a checkout of BitcoinJ from that time and invoking Wallet.loadFromFile() doesn't seem to work, since the decrypted file does not start with the 0xaced magic.

Using base64 and openssl command line tools I have been able to obtain the plaintext file. It seems to be a binary file starting with the four bytes 036a 402e. Can someone point me in the right direction using this information?

/Mark

[Andreas Schildbach]

Just copy the file to /sdcard/Download/ and use Options > Safety >
Restore wallet.

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[Jim]

You could try using one of the old MultiBit versions that also used the same serialised format.
They are available a https://multibit.org/releases

Obviously keep a copy of that wallet and don't use that old code on any other MultiBit wallets (do a File | Close in MultiBit beforehand).

I would pick a version of around the same date and then immediately export the private keys.
The older versions may not even connect to the bitcoin network but if it reads the wallet you'll be good.

Good luck.

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[Mike Hearn]

The format in question is something specific to Andreas' app I think. It's not a bitcoinj wallet.

[Mark van Cuijk]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the tip. I’ve downloaded MultiBit 0.4.17 and tried to import the file.

However, with an incorrect password a click on ‘Unlock' shows 'The private keys unlock failed. The error was “Could not decrypt input string”.’
With a correct password, a click on ‘Unlock’ shows no error message and a subsequent click on ‘Import private keys’ shows ‘The private keys unlock filled. The error was “Could not understand address in import file”.’

As a final option, I tried to interpret every sequence of size 32 bytes in the file as a private key and computed the corresponding Bitcoin address for both compressed and uncompressed keys. However, none of those addresses seem to have any transactions in the block chain. I’m really puzzled about what has happened, but I think I should start to accept the coins as lost.

Thanks to anyone that tried to help!

/Mark

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[Jim]

A long time ago I wrote a post on how to interpret the unencrypted, serialised bitcoinj wallets at the hex level to find the private keys which might help you

It's here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43616.msg909038#msg909038