Issue with wallet backup in Electrum

Hey guys, I could use some help here! A couple of weeks back, I imported my private key from Bitcoin Core into Electrum, and it was all smooth sailing. I even did two transactions without any hassle... until now! So, three days ago, I backed up my wallet, wiped my PC, reinstalled Electrum, and when I tried to restore my wallet, boom... my password just isn’t working! 😫 It makes no sense I wrote the password down twice, and before wiping my PC, I had no trouble logging in with the same password. Now it’s like it doesn’t even exist? Can anyone shed some light on this or lend a hand? I’d really appreciate any tips! 🙏

There are only 2 possibilities: The password is incorrectYou're using the wrong backupI can't tell you which one happened. My advice: get the private key from Bitcoin Core again, and do it again. I assume you still have a backup of your wallet.dat. Then move your funds to a new Electrum wallet, after writing down the 12 seed words. It's good practice to always test your backups before relying on them.

This could be very frustrating! I had a similar issue sometimes ago when I reconfigured my laptop. For me it was that my keyboard layout got changed from QWERTY to QWERTZ, and I didn't notice it on time. Aside from that, you could also try to login to another device (ensure it's a trusted device, so you don't expose your details to a third party) to see if it's your system's issue or password.

I think you should try to recover the wallet from the deleted files using some recovery software like TestDisk or Recuva. As LoyceV said, it might be a different backup or your incorrect key. An isolated case could be that your previous OS had a different keyboard layout, which might have changed symbols and shortcuts, potentially inserting invalid characters or letters like Ñ.

Electrum is desktop/mobile wallet, where the wallet file is located on user's device. So term "login in" isn't accurate, although OP could try copy his wallet file to another device (secure/clean ones) and try again if he's desperate. OP mentioned he reinstalled his PC. So i would extend your suggestion by shutdown his PC immidiately to prevent more file being overwritten and make RAW copy of his storage drive, where he should perform recovery attempt on the RAW copy.

Oh my goodness, I found the mistake, and it's actually a stupid one! I typed the password and didn't pay attention to the keyboard layout. I had previously set up the PC in English, and the keyboard layout was also English. Now I've set it up in my native German, with a German keyboard layout! Well, of course, there was a Y in the password, which is a Z in the German layout! That was the mistake 😣......thanks for the answers, and I'm really annoyed that I missed that 😆

How did you not notice that while typing this?

I am sceptical by nature and have been around the forum long enough to know things are not always as they seem. In the case of reading your lost password issue, I am not stating it is impossible to believe but I am sure I cannot be the only one that found it more unbelievable than amusing. Anyway, if you managed to access your funds you can lock the thread.

To me, this topic looks like 2 Newbies trying to earn Merit: one with a "problem", the other with the "solution".

To be fair password textboxes usually use a special character to show the characters you enter not the actual characters so you don't generally notice if you are entering wrong stuff. Electrum doesn't have the "show pass" option either to see what you've entered.

I use in most cases a German keyboard physical layout and would avoid in any case to use an English keyboard layout on top of that. It would be a mess as not only Y and Z are exchanged, but a lot of other symbols are not matching between both layouts, especially punctuation symbols. Such a keyboard layout mismatch is calling out loud for trouble.

You have issues with your Electrum wallet backups but you still have your Bitcoin private key. Asssume Electrum wallet backups are not accessible by wrong passwords, you can have another option, importing Bitcoin private key to Electrum wallet software again. Importing your private keys into Electrum. You can consider of create a new wallet with Electrum wallet software, and move your bitcoin from that old wallet (with private key you have now) to a new one. You can sweep private keys to Electrum. Sweeping your private keys into Electrum

The thought had crossed my mind too.

no the password is never visble. he could have typed the password in the clipboard and it would have shown the issue. i use mac a lot and when I have bizarre password issues i type the so called correct password word to see it in my note section. a lot of websites are a pain in the ass about entering passwords. you cant copy and paste the password and you cant see the password when you type it in. it can be a big issue if you have a long complicated password.

Of course. But any other computer activity, like posting here, should have shown the problem. There's no way you can reinstall your PC, install software, and use it for 3 days without realizing the keyboard layout is wrong.

There is always a possibility the OP was genuine but to be honest the likelihood of it being the truth is very low (or zero). Personally, I was suspicious of the newbie OP because of the way the post was written. Add to that the timing of the newbie helper that came along at the right time to give him the correct advice had only contributed to the suspicion.

Try and read through the thread before answering. OP issue has already been resolved. Is it a coincidence Also that their writing style is quite similar. Check their post history and it seems they are both fond of using exclamation marks On their first sentence Not to mention. The spacing and style 1-2-2 Again could be a coincidence. Write style could have similarities.