installed the newest electrum

[MoparMiningLLC]

thankfully the electrum wallets I use are all watch only wallets but I found it interesting that updating to the new electrum removed at least 10 wallet files I had - completely erasing all the work I did to label thousands of transactions. I have updated electrum in the past and do not recall ever losing all the wallet files. why would installing an update delete all existing wallet files?

[Knight Hider]

Which installer/OS did you use?
Is it possible the location changed and its looking on the wrong place now?

[MoparMiningLLC]

Which installer/OS did you use?
Is it possible the location changed and its looking on the wrong place now?

direct from electrum website - the windows installer.

and it deleted the wallet folder from the "Electrum" folder that was on my external drive (where elctrum was installed) and placed a new wallet folder in my OS drive and that new folder is empty while the old folder is simply just gone. System restore and windows previous versions are both incapable of replacing the folder - they see it but when the option to restore is selected the folder comes back but no wallet files. I have lost no funds just years and years of transactional data - I use electrum to put descriptions on each transaction.

[Charles-Tim]

I do not know what actually happened but I am using the latest version of electrum which is version 4.5.8, I have all my wallets files not deleted but intact. I am not using drive but all directly on my computer and mobile phone. I guess the fault is from your side.

[Mia Chloe]

thankfully the electrum wallets I use are all watch only wallets but I found it interesting that updating to the new electrum removed at least 10 wallet files I had - completely erasing all the work I did to label thousands of transactions. I have updated electrum in the past and do not recall ever losing all the wallet files. why would installing an update delete all existing wallet files?

Lemme guess you make use of windows? Electrum updates actually shouldn't delete your wallet files, which are typically stored in a separate data directory but it happens sometimes on windows. Sometimes it's because of a new installation path kinda created during the installation process or a corrupted update process where the new installation might not correctly recognize or migrate the old wallet directory.
This is one of the reasons you should always back up your wallet files and seed phrases before any software updates to prevent such kinda data loss. You should try to roll back the update to fix it.

[MoparMiningLLC]

I do not know what actually happened but I am using the latest version of electrum which is version 4.5.8, I have all my wallets files not deleted but intact. I am not using drive but all directly on my computer and mobile phone. I guess the fault is from your side.

perhaps. My external drive held all the files - so within the electrum folder at D:\Electrum there was a wallets folder which held all my wallets. I downloaded 4.5.8 and ran the installer, it asked for install location and I gave it D:\Electrum upon installation being completed the wallets folder was gone and is now at C:\Users\mmllc\AppData\Roaming\Electrum and there are no wallet files.

This is one of the reasons you should always back up your wallet files and seed phrases before any software updates to prevent such kinda data loss. You should try to roll back the update to fix it.

Agreed and normally I would have. And if these were anything more than watch only wallets, I would have regardless. However, in the past, I have done updates and it would do the same thing, well sort of the same thing - it would create a wallets folder in C:\Users\mmllc\AppData\Roaming\Electrum but it would also leave the wallets folder in D:\Electrum alone and upon opening electrum I could always point it to the existing folder.  Basically, updating had never deleted any old watch only wallet files so I had no expectation that it would do so this time.

[Mia Chloe]

C:\Users\mmllc\AppData\Roaming\Electrum but it would also leave the wallets folder in D:\Electrum alone and upon opening electrum I could always point it to the existing folder.  Basically, updating had never deleted any old watch only wallet files so I had no expectation that it would do so this time.

Then probably you installed wrongly. What I guess typically happened was instead of moving files your installation process replaced them. It's almost like uninstalling your old wallet and then reinstalling the newer versions. Those replaced directories had the lost files. If it's not possible for you to roll back check if the files lost are in your recycle bin probably you can get them from there and move them to the right directories.

[MoparMiningLLC]

C:\Users\mmllc\AppData\Roaming\Electrum but it would also leave the wallets folder in D:\Electrum alone and upon opening electrum I could always point it to the existing folder.  Basically, updating had never deleted any old watch only wallet files so I had no expectation that it would do so this time.

Then probably you installed wrongly. What I guess typically happened was instead of moving files your installation process replaced them. It's almost like uninstalling your old wallet and then reinstalling the newer versions. Those replaced directories had the lost files. If it's not possible for you to roll back check if the files lost are in your recycle bin probably you can get them from there and move them to the right directories.

I simply picked the directory - same as always and as I stated now several times, in the past the installation would leave existing folders alone. This time it deleted the existing folders.  I wish they were in the recycle bin but they are not.

No funds and no Bitcoin has been lost here - these are simply watch only wallets which can be reloaded, the only thing lost is the description I gave ea transaction. There are approx 10k transactions so will take some time to replace but is doable.

My question is only why did it delete the existing wallet folder when it never has in the past (have probably done at least half a dozen updates to electrum since using this drive)

[dkbit98]

No funds and no Bitcoin has been lost here - these are simply watch only wallets which can be reloaded, the only thing lost is the description I gave ea transaction. There are approx 10k transactions so will take some time to replace but is doable.

I learned this a hard way before, and after that I started making my own backups of all labels from my Electrum wallet.
This is simple by going to Wallet tab and clicking on Export into .json file.
You can easily import this file later.

My question is only why did it delete the existing wallet folder when it never has in the past (have probably done at least half a dozen updates to electrum since using this drive)

It was probably just overwritten files, that is why they didn't go to recycle bin.

 

[Findingnemo]

~
My question is only why did it delete the existing wallet folder when it never has in the past (have probably done at least half a dozen updates to electrum since using this drive)

It's strange, electrum doesn't have any reason to delete the existing files if it's installed in the same directory or if a different one is created then it will just leave the existing one untouched on windows.

C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming\Electrum is the default directory for Electrum on Windows, and that's what you picked too so I don't understand where the previous files went.

Worth scanning for a folder on the whole system, including every drive connected, that's convenient compared to labeling 10K TXs.

And I read that it is possible to recover previous versions of folders in Windows 10 and later

File History will backup user files and allow you to restore previous versions, however by default it only backs up folders in libraries (documents, pictures, video etc) and not external or flashdrives. it will also need to have been set up and turned on before the deletion.

[BitMaxz]

Can you let us know what Electrum version you used before you upgraded it to the latest version?

I have 7 watch-only wallets monitored, and I upgraded them to the latest version. I checked the PC Electrum default folder, but it doesn't affect anything after upgrading it to the latest version.

Can you check if the PC and external drive are clean from malware and viruses? Also, check if they're hidden; you can enable or show hidden files in the file explorer options. Let's hope it's just hidden; if not, then possibly the external drive might be corrupted because I never heard that Electrum will delete old wallet data.

[MoparMiningLLC]

Can you let us know what Electrum version you used before you upgraded it to the latest version?

I have 7 watch-only wallets monitored, and I upgraded them to the latest version. I checked the PC Electrum default folder, but it doesn't affect anything after upgrading it to the latest version.

Can you check if the PC and external drive are clean from malware and viruses? Also, check if they're hidden; you can enable or show hidden files in the file explorer options. Let's hope it's just hidden; if not, then possibly the external drive might be corrupted because I never heard that Electrum will delete old wallet data.

it was 2.4.xx - I don't recall what was after the 4.

It's strange, electrum doesn't have any reason to delete the existing files if it's installed in the same directory or if a different one is created then it will just leave the existing one untouched on windows.

C:\Users\<name>\AppData\Roaming\Electrum is the default directory for Electrum on Windows, and that's what you picked too so I don't understand where the previous files went.

Worth scanning for a folder on the whole system, including every drive connected, that's convenient compared to labeling 10K TXs.

And I read that it is possible to recover previous versions of folders in Windows 10 and later

File History will backup user files and allow you to restore previous versions, however by default it only backs up folders in libraries (documents, pictures, video etc) and not external or flashdrives. it will also need to have been set up and turned on before the deletion.

yea - did the scan, no luck - previous versions was turned off for the external drive.

I learned this a hard way before, and after that I started making my own backups of all labels from my Electrum wallet.
This is simple by going to Wallet tab and clicking on Export into .json file.
You can easily import this file later.

yea - very glad just watch only wallets lol - I will be backing up the labels going forward.

[nc50lc]

I guess the fault is from your side.

perhaps. My external drive held all the files - so within the electrum folder at D:\Electrum there was a wallets folder which held all my wallets. I downloaded 4.5.8 and ran the installer, it asked for install location and I gave it D:\Electrum upon installation being completed the wallets folder was gone and is now at C:\Users\mmllc\AppData\Roaming\Electrum and there are no wallet files.

This sounds like you were using a shortcut with -D or --dir pointed to 'D:\Electrum' since the file and folder structure is that of an electrum data directory.
But during update, instead of pointing the installer to the electrum "Installation directory", you've selected that custom electrum "Data directory" instead.

I've successfully reproduced that to be sure:

• Install to an existing electrum datadir and not in the install directory;
  
• After install, "wallets" folder and other files are removed and replaced with Electrum install files;
  

But I don't think it's a bug since it's supposed to install the files to either a fresh folder an existing Electrum install and remove unrelated files.

[pooya87]

Have you tried searching your entire hard disk for the "wallets" folder which is the name of the folder where Electrum stores all the wallet files? Maybe it was stored some weird place before and now you are just not finding it. If you are on Windows 10 just type this in your Windows Explorer search box:

Code:

kind:=folder wallets

[satscraper]

why would installing an update delete all existing wallet files?

When I used Electrum on Windows machine I had the habit of installing each new version as the portable app into separate directory. This way I didn't have to worry about any wallet files being accidentally deleted during the update. If I ever needed wallet files from the older version, I’d just copy them over to the new directory. ^{Now I use Sparrow instead, and I’ve noticed that its updates never touch or delete existing wallet files/sup].}
 

[MoparMiningLLC]

I guess the fault is from your side.

perhaps. My external drive held all the files - so within the electrum folder at D:\Electrum there was a wallets folder which held all my wallets. I downloaded 4.5.8 and ran the installer, it asked for install location and I gave it D:\Electrum upon installation being completed the wallets folder was gone and is now at C:\Users\mmllc\AppData\Roaming\Electrum and there are no wallet files.

This sounds like you were using a shortcut with -D or --dir pointed to 'D:\Electrum' since the file and folder structure is that of an electrum data directory.
But during update, instead of pointing the installer to the electrum "Installation directory", you've selected that custom electrum "Data directory" instead.

I've successfully reproduced that to be sure:

• Install to an existing electrum datadir and not in the install directory;
  
• After install, "wallets" folder and other files are removed and replaced with Electrum install files;
  

But I don't think it's a bug since it's supposed to install the files to either a fresh folder an existing Electrum install and remove unrelated files.

I installed the the external drive - same drive used for countless previous installations - this is the first time it created a wallet folder in C drive while being installed on D drive. Pretty sure I did nothing different than I have done in the past. I have updated approx 2k of 10k txns with their descriptions - so like 20% caught back up lol

why would installing an update delete all existing wallet files?

When I used Electrum on Windows machine I had the habit of installing each new version as the portable app into separate directory. This way I didn't have to worry about any wallet files being accidentally deleted during the update. If I ever needed wallet files from the older version, I’d just copy them over to the new directory. ^{Now I use Sparrow instead, and I’ve noticed that its updates never touch or delete existing wallet files/sup].}
 

good idea - one I will use or I will at least just make a copy of the wallet files so as to keep the txn descriptions.

[nc50lc]

-snip-

I have updated approx 2k of 10k txns with their descriptions - so like 20% caught back up lol

Yikes, 8k to go.
If you want, you can enable Electrum's "LabelSync" plugin that can do that automatically for you (if it happen again)
It's in "Tools->Plugins->LabelSync".

Your label data is sent to a server but it's encrypted for your privacy and the decryption part is done by your Electrum client, not within that server.
So privacy-wise, it's not worse than what the wallet can offer by default.
Here's its source that can be audited: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/tree/master/electrum/plugins/labels

And it's worth mentioning that there's a PR in Electrum that's trying to push BIP329 standard: BIP-0329: Wallet Labels Export Format
But the author seem to be inactive on its development since July last year.

[mcdouglasx]

What you could try to recover your files would be to right-click the folder where they were stored and select Restore Previous Versions, or download low-level data recovery software like Recuva or Diskdrill if reorganizing everything is going to take a long time.

If you want, you can enable Electrum's "LabelSync" plugin that can do that automatically for you (if it happen again)
It's in "Tools->Plugins->LabelSync".

Your label data is sent to a server but it's encrypted for your privacy and the decryption part is done by your Electrum client, not within that server.
So privacy-wise, it's not worse than what the wallet can offer by default.
Here's its source that can be audited: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/tree/master/electrum/plugins/labels

If he installs to a new location, should he install the plugin before entering the backup data, or will that data be deleted?
This feature is confusing.

https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/a042eb9eac8a61cd8228e835bebc9e8bd60b70e5/electrum/wallet_db.py#L1732-L1741

[MoparMiningLLC]

What you could try to recover your files would be to right-click the folder where they were stored and select Restore Previous Versions, or download low-level data recovery software like Recuva or Diskdrill if reorganizing everything is going to take a long time.

Already stated above that won't work in this situation.

If you want, you can enable Electrum's "LabelSync" plugin that can do that automatically for you (if it happen again)
It's in "Tools->Plugins->LabelSync".

Your label data is sent to a server but it's encrypted for your privacy and the decryption part is done by your Electrum client, not within that server.
So privacy-wise, it's not worse than what the wallet can offer by default.
Here's its source that can be audited: github.com/spesmilo/electrum/tree/master/electrum/plugins/labels

interesting - may try this once completed. thanks.

I only use electrum for watch only wallets - never with any private keys.

[nc50lc]

If you want, you can enable Electrum's "LabelSync" plugin that can do that automatically for you (if it happen again)
-snip-

If he installs to a new location, should he install the plugin before entering the backup data, or will that data be deleted?
This feature is confusing.

It's all automated, he can enable the plugin before or after the wallet is restored.
(it's not a third-party plugin but included to the official release so he don't need to install it)

The encrypted backup data is requested from the server granted that the hash of the wallet's master public key matched (wallet_id).