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Mnemonic recovery #56

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permport opened this issue May 23, 2017 · 35 comments
Open

Mnemonic recovery #56

permport opened this issue May 23, 2017 · 35 comments

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@permport
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Hi, first of all thank you for this tool. It could be very helpful for me.

My Blockchain wallet is locked. It seems that my password is wrong.
Now I am trying to recover the wallet with the mnemonic words but it's also wrong.

I am 100% certain off the words because it's the only mnemonic I have ever written down. I have checked the spelling of the words here ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=694521.0 ; in the code-field ) and they all are listed in this list. So no typos I guess.

I wander if I could use btcrecover in my search for the mnemonic to make combinations with my mneminc words? Because maybe I have misplaced them.

Thank you in advance.
@gurnec
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gurnec commented Jun 12, 2017

Assuming that you created your wallet sometime after February 2016, yes seedrecover might be able to help. You will need to know an address in your wallet, preferably one of the first few addresses you created (or you'll need to have written down your wallet's "xPub").

If you have this info, follow the instructions here to attempt to find any mistakes in the mnemonic you wrote down. Let me know if you have any specific questions, and good luck!

@permport
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Thank you for the reply and the good luck gurnec.

Unfortunately the wallet is from 2014. I think the wallet is lost.

@gurnec
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gurnec commented Jun 16, 2017

I might have some good news for you. I took a look at the word list you posted, and discovered I completely jumped to the wrong conclusion.

If your mnemonic words are from that word list as you described, and if you're sure they're from Blockchain.info, then it's is probably a Blockchain.info legacy v2 mnemonic.

This tool on their website can decode the mnemonic back into your login password which you can use to log in as normal (assuming you have the wallet ID that is): https://blockchain.info/wallet/recover-wallet

Hope this helps.

@viceversas
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Hi gurnec, I want to ask.

What if......
I only have 17 words mnemonics from legacy wallet (blockchain) and don't have the 12 words passphrase like from blockchain legacy v.2. I have the xpub key.

Can I know the 12 words passphrase from the 17 words mnemonics?

@gurnec
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gurnec commented Aug 17, 2017

I'm not sure...

If you have a 17 word mnemonic, it's probably from a version 2 or earlier Blockchain.info wallet. These version 2 wallets did not support the 12 word seeds which most modern wallets support. You should try Blockchain.info's older recovery tool here.

You also have the xpub, but an xpub comes only from version 3 Blockchain.info wallets, so I'm a bit confused as to what's going on here....

@DamianMajor
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Hi gurnec,

Along with permport, I have the exact same issue. My wallet was created November 2013. It's a 19 word recovery list, the only one I've ever had. All of the words exist on this list, which blockchain.info denied even existed until about two months ago. They seem to be incompetent.

In any case, my strong suspicion is that their legacy password recovery tool does not actually work as intended, and does not reference the correct words list. I get a "unknown word error" for 16 out of the 19 words, yet when I leave only the three words which it seems are known, the error returned is: "Unknown Mnemonic Version 68".

Permport, were you able to recover? If not, I believe there are others with the same exact issue and maybe we can all discuss a way to put pressure on blockchain.info to support their legacy users in the same situation.

Any guidance would be appreciated. Thank you!

@permport
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permport commented Feb 9, 2021

First of all, I would like to offer my sincere apologies to gurnec for the lack of response. Believe it or not, I've been looking for your identity to do something, but there are many Christopher Gurnee's.

Indeed, it is thanks to the link he provided that I was able to recover the wallet.

After 2 years of searching and trying I started this topic. So never give up.

In my case it was 12 words but you have more. Could you have written too many?
Have you contacted Blockchain.info with the question what you can do since it is a legacy wallet?

I hope for you that you can still open your wallet. It was a great relief for me then and for you it will be that great again given the current prices.

But again, never give up hope!

@nicoschtein
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I've used one of those 16 word seeds last week for a friend's wallet. It's an old proprietary backup format for what used to be blockchain.info

It contains your wallet identifier and first password if any, so don't share it online.

It's not even encrypted.

I'll check if 19 words follows that same format too.

@DamianMajor
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I'd appreciate that very much, nicoschtein!

I've finally gotten in touch with the head of crypto engineering at blockchain today. Yesterday the customer support team gave me a very blame-the-user answer of "You've got the wrong seed phrase" because "the first three words of the recovery seed need to come from the (v2) words list, even if the remaining words come from (v3)". Not sure how they even came to the conclusion that my first three words weren't from (v2), as I haven't told them any words.

Then, I did a simple test on the legacy wallet recovery page -- (https://login.blockchain.com/wallet/recover-wallet):

When attempting recovery, if the user inputs an incorrect seed phrase, with all words existing on the (v2) word list, the error message returned is:
"TypeError: Cannot read property 'toLowerCase' of undefined”

However, when inputting a seed phrase with the first three words existing on the (v2) list, and any of the remaining words existing on the (v3) list, as soon as the first word from the (v3) list is reached, the error message returned is:
Unknown word [whatever the word from the (v3) list is]

This seems to be clear indication that after the first three words, the recovery page is not treating the remaining words the same, and likely not referencing the (v3) list at all.

I was shocked at how little effort they made in hearing my concerns or validating that their recovery link actually works as it should. I'm not a developer, but this simple test shows that (v3) word list is not part of their legacy recovery tool. Hoping they do the right thing and dedicate some time to this. I've read several accounts from others having the same issue, so I'm sure I'm not the only one.

BTW, I should mention that I have the original wallet.aes.json backup file, in case that helps. I'm trying to decrypt simultaneously, but am very very lost, in that regard, as I'm a videographer by trade, not a dev.

Anyway, thanks very much, nicoschtein. Please let me know what you come up with.

@cameronh0
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Hey Damian- I am having a similar problem to you- my old legacy wallet 19 word recover seed is not working with blockchains recovery tool.

Have you had any luck/ any other ideas as to how to go about fixing this? I type mine in and it says invalid checksum and or wrong word which you have specified below if I do it in a different order.

@DamianMajor
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Hey Damian- I am having a similar problem to you- my old legacy wallet 19 word recover seed is not working with blockchains recovery tool.

Have you had any luck/ any other ideas as to how to go about fixing this? I type mine in and it says invalid checksum and or wrong word which you have specified below if I do it in a different order.

Hi cameronh0,
Do you have any idea of what the original password you used might be? If you do, I highly recommend reaching out to the guy who runs the Crypto Guide channel on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEviBQwLv-yfv3BErm0ojHg) He's legit and very helpful.

He helped us using a program called BTC recover. If you're someone who can code, you may be able to use it yourself, but for us it was well worth it to have him help.

If you don't have any clue about what the password may be, I'd dig and dig further with Blockchain. It is my strong suspicion that early mnemonics (the ones that reference the user password, not the actual wallet seed phrase) don't work properly with the Blockchain.info recovery page because their page does not actually reference the v1 words list, hence the different error messages depending on what words from what list are used.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

@cameronh0
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cameronh0 commented Jun 11, 2021 via email

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Dec 4, 2021

hello
where can we find the wordlist V1 because I found V2 and V3 ?

@DamianMajor
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V1 word list can be found here:

blockchain/unused-My-Wallet@85db520#diff-23d8f4a362e47137459c75c3a2a6557b6eadd78dfe0fcb757d44970e17973d52R104

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Dec 4, 2021

this list is V2 it contains 1626 words. unless I do not see the V1? Can you help me please

@DamianMajor
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DamianMajor commented Dec 4, 2021 via email

@DamianMajor
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DamianMajor commented Dec 4, 2021 via email

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Dec 5, 2021 via email

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Dec 6, 2021 via email

@DamianMajor
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DamianMajor commented Dec 6, 2021 via email

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Dec 7, 2021 via email

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Dec 8, 2021 via email

@DamianMajor
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DamianMajor commented Dec 8, 2021 via email

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Dec 8, 2021 via email

@DamianMajor
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Happy to discuss further outside of a public forum, if you want to.

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Dec 8, 2021

do you know which version was used by blockchain.info between 09/2011 and 07/2012? V1 or V2 orV3 ......

@DamianMajor
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I've recovered due to the same issue. The V1 wordlist recovery phrase had an issue with a bug in the sign in page. Even if you have the correct seed phrase, it may not work properly. The phrase you have is NOT a mnemonic seed phrase used to interact with the BTC blockchain. It is a password recovery phrase that is specific to blockchain.info's login. If you want to discuss further, you can reach me at @DamianMajor on telegram or twitter. Otherwise, I'll leave this as my last comment. Publicly announcing that you have that number of BTC is a security risk. Please BE CAREFUL with who you share information with! Good luck.

@isieditors
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@Mis785
I have all versions of words send me a telegram message and I will forward you the the words
telegram: @Btclover10

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Jan 13, 2022

Hello
Anyone have any info on coinbase recovery phrases?

@Mis785
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Mis785 commented Jan 16, 2022

hello
someone know where i can find wordlist coinbase ?

Repository owner deleted a comment from Scortland14 Jun 30, 2023
@madbury42
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madbury42 commented Nov 1, 2023 •
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Blockchain's legacy mnemonic tool (https://login.blockchain.com/wallet/forgot-password?guid=) still works (for correct legacy mnemonics) as of Nov 1, 2023.

The simplest explanation for why you might get the "Unknown word" or "Invalid Checksum" error from this tool is that you have written down your legacy mnemonic incorrectly. That could be that you:

  • wrote an incorrect word
  • skipped a word
  • wrote the words down in an incorrect order

There was a question in this thread about where the v1 wordlist is -- it isn't clear to me that Blockchain ever publicly released a version of this tool that used a v1 wordlist. We have worked on quite a few of these legacy mnemonics, and they have all either used the v2 wordlist or a combination of the first 3 words from the v2 wordlist and the remaining words from the v3 wordlist.

You can read more about solving these sorts of errors in legacy mnemonics here: https://cryptoassetrecovery.com/posts/how-to-recover-blockchain-legacy-mnemonics

@CryptoRecoveryWorldwideCZ
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Hi, same issue here. 2 clients, 2 recovery 12 word mnemonics, and support from Blockchain isnt talking anything, which is suitable for recovery. Any others here? Tool from their "recovery" doesnt work, support only say: Your clients need to write us, but when wrote them, nothing happens. I need a tool, ideal in .py to recover encrypted data from 12 word mnemonic. BUT. NOBODY ever post script even. I want to spam Blockchain.com for illegal hold my clients funds. Jiri.

@madbury42
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Hi Jiri,

I'm a bit confused -- for your 2 clients that have 12 word mnemonics -- are these BIP39 recovery seeds? Or are they Blockchain legacy mnemonics?

Blockchain legacy mnemonics can have 12 words -- but, the mnemonic would likely be encoding a relatively short password. Most of the legacy mnemonics that we have seen are longer than 12 words (although we've seen one as short as 9 words).

Typically, the way to tell is to compare the 12 words against the BIP39 English word list (assuming that the words are English words), which you can find here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt

If all 12 words are in that word list, it's very likely to be a BIP39 recovery seed and not a legacy mnemonic.

The next question (assuming that all 12 words are in the BIP39 word list) is whether you get an error (like "invalid mnemonic") when you try to recover the wallet. If you get an error, then there's a good chance that a tool like seedrecover.py can help you recover the correct mnemonic.

More common, though, is that you don't get an error, you just get an empty wallet.

By far the most likely answer for this is that your client has two wallets: one with a balance but no recovery seed; and a second with a recovery seed but no balance.

Thanks, Chris

@CryptoRecoveryWorldwideCZ
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Hi Jiri,

I'm a bit confused -- for your 2 clients that have 12 word mnemonics -- are these BIP39 recovery seeds? Or are they Blockchain legacy mnemonics?

Blockchain legacy mnemonics can have 12 words -- but, the mnemonic would likely be encoding a relatively short password. Most of the legacy mnemonics that we have seen are longer than 12 words (although we've seen one as short as 9 words).

Typically, the way to tell is to compare the 12 words against the BIP39 English word list (assuming that the words are English words), which you can find here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt

If all 12 words are in that word list, it's very likely to be a BIP39 recovery seed and not a legacy mnemonic.

The next question (assuming that all 12 words are in the BIP39 word list) is whether you get an error (like "invalid mnemonic") when you try to recover the wallet. If you get an error, then there's a good chance that a tool like seedrecover.py can help you recover the correct mnemonic.

More common, though, is that you don't get an error, you just get an empty wallet.

By far the most likely answer for this is that your client has two wallets: one with a balance but no recovery seed; and a second with a recovery seed but no balance.

Thanks, Chris

Hello, the words are from the BIP39 dictionary, but through tools for recovering derivation paths, private keys, etc., they are not valid. These are seeds from Blockchain.info/.com. Their tool does not work, and they are 100000% in the correct order. How would seedrecover.py be useful to me? I'm not dealing with missing or swapped words.

@CryptoRecoveryWorldwideCZ
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CryptoRecoveryWorldwideCZ commented Mar 31, 2024 •
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Hi Jiri,
I'm a bit confused -- for your 2 clients that have 12 word mnemonics -- are these BIP39 recovery seeds? Or are they Blockchain legacy mnemonics?
Blockchain legacy mnemonics can have 12 words -- but, the mnemonic would likely be encoding a relatively short password. Most of the legacy mnemonics that we have seen are longer than 12 words (although we've seen one as short as 9 words).
Typically, the way to tell is to compare the 12 words against the BIP39 English word list (assuming that the words are English words), which you can find here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0039/english.txt
If all 12 words are in that word list, it's very likely to be a BIP39 recovery seed and not a legacy mnemonic.
The next question (assuming that all 12 words are in the BIP39 word list) is whether you get an error (like "invalid mnemonic") when you try to recover the wallet. If you get an error, then there's a good chance that a tool like seedrecover.py can help you recover the correct mnemonic.
More common, though, is that you don't get an error, you just get an empty wallet.
By far the most likely answer for this is that your client has two wallets: one with a balance but no recovery seed; and a second with a recovery seed but no balance.
Thanks, Chris

Hello, the words are from the BIP39 dictionary, but through tools for recovering derivation paths, private keys, etc., they are not valid. These are seeds from Blockchain.info/.com. Their tool does not work, and they are 100000% in the correct order. How would seedrecover.py be useful to me? I'm not dealing with missing or swapped words.

Regarding this issue, there's almost nothing on the internet, except few people with the same problem. Support from Blockchain.info/.com is silent, and tools do not exist. Many people had an older "seed" with 16, 17, or sometimes more words. My 2 clients have the same problem, 12 words from the BIP39 dictionary, but the checksum for BIP39 does not match. Quite an interesting situation, and I'm surprised that it hasn't been discussed here before, hence there is no extraction tool for it. In the first case, I have the client's UUID of the wallet and basically everything, in the 2nd, we only have the "seed." I deliberately write in quotes because it's not a real seed.

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14 participants
@nicoschtein @gurnec @DamianMajor @permport @viceversas @cameronh0 @Mis785 @isieditors @CryptoRecoveryWorldwideCZ @madbury42 and others