How to find .onion address on Windows?

So I'm a newbie, running a full node on Windows and kinda regretting it. I finally got it working with Tor hidden service, but I've got zero incoming connections and 10 outgoing ones. Here’s the deal: I don’t have access to my router, and I wanna connect to my node using Specter, but I can't seem to locate the .onion address anywhere. All the info I find is geared towards different Linux distros.

Have a look into the debug.log file (the standard location is in the data directory of Bitcoin Core which on Windows should be %APPDATA%\Bitcoin\). When the node starts the log entries start off with lines like: After some lines and you might find a line like this near the above "init message: Done loading" entry You should see there the onion address of your node. You can also execute in a command line window bitcoin-cli.exe getnetworkinfo or getnetworkinfo in the console tab of the Bitcoin Core GUI window. The mostly last record of the above command's output for "localaddresses" also contains your local .onion address.

Appreciate the reply sir but Ive tried all that. Here is my entire node start from debug getnetworkinfo in console I tried in command prompt but that only started bitcoin core? Here is my peers window showing onion outbound connections Anyone got any ideas why my tor hidden service is really hidden?

You should pay attention to close your Bitcoin Core GUI gracefully via File menu and Quit, wait until it actually all closes. I don't run Bitcoin Core in Windows, I run my Core in Linux and not with the GUI. Unfortunately I can't tell you if the Windows version does or doesn't log the node's hidden service onion address. My Linux version does and I don't have a special debug log setting in my bitcoin.conf file, except for Your setup only allows connections via tor (same as mine) and all your peers have indeed only onion addresses. So, that part is working properly. What did you install for Tor? Maybe you can find there some log entries indicating the onion address of your node? I'm not sure if the reason could be that your Core can't properly communicate via the torcontrol. A log entry that torcontrol thread started is in your debul.log. Check if you have your Tor properly configured for Windows environment (can't help here much, but there are certainly thread on the topic Tor setup on Windows in this forum, too). That's not what I wrote in my post: You don't want to start another Core GUI as this can mess up your data directory. Not sure if your second GUI detected the presence of the first one and exited gracefully. Anyway, running in Console window or command line should give same result and in yours "localaddresses" is empty for whatever reason. In my /etc/tor/torrc I have the following settings: All other stuff in my torrc is commented out and defaults apply accordingly. My Bitcoin Core doesn't use the deprecated settings rpcuser=..., rpcpassword=... or rpcauth=..., instead cookie file authentication is active.

I have Bitcoin Core in Windows, I've copied your config to reproduce the issue and the line mentioned by Cricktor shows up in the debug.log: I have to mention that I set the 3 lines under "Control Port" instructed in the tutorial below, without it, the onion address wont show up: Try to follow either instruction number 2 or 3 from this tutorial: github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/master/doc/tor.md If you decided to follow number 3 instead, your onion address would be the one you set in -externalip.

noted Yeah Im kinda regretting the decision to run this node on windows as I'm not at the linux level however most of the guides out there are linux based so prob would have been easier. As a novice a lot of these guides omit steps on the expectation that you should know..which I dont All I did was copy that bitcoin.config file save and run. The node crashed so I tried looking for solutions. This guide https://miloserdov.org/?p=1839 alerted to the fact that I needed to install TOR as a service to keep it running. Soon as I did that and started bitcoin core I got oputbound running peers. I havent configured tor and I have no torrc file in the tor directory and have no idea what torcontrol is Yeah sorry I assumed that was the executable for linux or something cuz the only exe I have in is bitcoin\bitcoin-qt I found bitcoin-cli in the daemon folder and this is what I got

Appreciate the reply As I was telling Cricktor above I'm feeling this is a little over my head - I dont have a torrc file in my tor directory so I tried saving a torrc file there with those 3 lines. The node crashed so I deleted it again That tutorial is a hard follow. In number 2 'Cookie authentication' where is the CookieAuthFile and how do I enable read access? Number 3; I save as torrc file and run from what location? and how do I generate my onion address?

How about this guide as a starting point to setup Tor on Windows: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Setting_up_a_Tor_hidden_service#Windows --- I took only a quick look and didn't spot immediate problems, don't sell your car by my words.  I'm pretty sure the Tor project also has a decent tutorial or how-to available. Youtube likely has a ton of tutorials for Windows, too.

my node already has tor enabled, I just dont seem to have an onion address anywhere to plug into specter to hook up to the node

The directories in the tutorial is geared towards Linux; for Windows, use Windows folder structure. So, in number 3 (preferred for your use-case), for example. Your torrc file should have something like this if you want to save your "Bitcoin Onion Service" directory to Drive D: After you restart Tor, you'll see such folder in D:/ and you can find a "hostname" file containing the onion address that you need to set as --externalip.

In addition to what nc50lc wrote, I found this: https://superuser.com/questions/1631178/how-to-configure-tor-as-service-on-windows/1631196#1631196 (my link to Bitcoin wiki alone isn't sufficient now that I took a closer look) In the directory where you installed Tor files you create a text file (without extension .txt of course) torrc which you fill with config options as indicated by nc50lc. My above link shows then how to start Tor as a Windows service and checking it's running properly.

excellent, that worked!

Could you summarize what worked out for you, so other users may benefit from your final working solution?

The guides suggested are great and self explanatory for most ppl I just fell into the usual normie traps; not being cmd savvy, not knowing I had to dl python to run rpcauth to get the output, not restarting tor and setting torrc as a txt file So yeah if your like me and have tor running and cant find that onion address, get that torrc file sorted as above