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FAQ
Hive development has stopped and it's not being maintained anymore. There are no plans for any further updates or bug fixes.
The app still works in the current state, because it doesn't rely on any server-side components managed by Hive, but it might stop working after a breaking change in the Bitcoin protocol, and it will almost certainly stop working on the next version of OS X which drops support for old Java. It's recommended that you migrate your funds to a different wallet.
I've downloaded Hive, but it doesn't open. The icon just appears in the dock and disappears immediately.
You probably need to install Java first. You should be getting an error message telling you about that, but for some reason it sometimes doesn't appear. Try installing Java from here: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1572
The backend part (wallet management, network connections etc.) is handled by bitcoinj, which is a Java library. We've chosen it because it was (and probably still is) the most mature SPV implementation of a Bitcoin client. The UI is completely native though, written in ObjC using Apple's SDKs and frameworks.
- Make sure you've moved any bitcoins you had in the wallet to another address :)
- Delete the
~/Library/Application Support/Hivedirectory. - Delete the
~/Library/Preferences/com.hivewallet.Hive.plistfile. - Delete
Hive.app.
Hive is an SPV client, so it only downloads block headers - like e.g. Multibit or Electrum. This should take between a few minutes and half an hour depending on your connection and machine.
If you're worried that something's wrong with the sync, open the Tools > Debugging Tools dialog, and at the bottom of it there's a progress bar that shows the sync progress.
No, Hive only supports a single address and private key.
The change goes back to the same address. It's not an ideal solution, but it allowed us to keep things really simple.
You can't, the fee is calculated automatically by bitcoinj and can't be changed. Currently it's 100 bits for most transactions.
There is no import feature. As for exporting the wallet, you should be able to open the Hive wallet file in other bitcoinj-based wallets like Multibit Classic (look for a bitcoinkit.wallet file inside Hive's Application Support folder). Warning: opening the wallet file in Multibit makes it unreadable for Hive, so make a copy of it first and open the copy in Multibit.
You can also export the private key to a file.
It's theoretically possible but not recommended. You could achieve this by manually copying the Hive data folder to another computer (though things like your contact list and transaction metadata won't be synced).
No, only a hot wallet. Try Electrum or Armory if you want to create a cold storage.
No, only Bitcoin.
You set the password in the welcome wizard dialog that you go through at the beginning when you start Hive for the first time. On the second page of the wizard, you have to enter the password twice (you can always change it later by choosing Wallet -> Change Password from the menu, but you have to know the old password). If Hive is asking you for the password somewhere, it means you must have already set the password in the welcome wizard.
You can't. If you lose the password, you lose access to your money. None of your data is stored on any remote server controlled by us, the wallet is only stored on your computer in an encrypted form, so if there was any way to unlock the wallet without knowing the password, this means anyone with access to your computer could do that. The whole point of the password is to make sure that only the person who knows the password (i.e. you) can do anything with your bitcoins - but this means you HAVE to know the password to access them.
The only thing that's actually encrypted in the wallet file is the private key. It's encrypted with a symmetric AES key generated on the fly from the password you enter using Scrypt algorithm. When you enter the password later, Hive generates the AES key again and decrypts the private key temporarily in memory.
All the wallet management code, including encryption/decryption algorithms, is provided by bitcoinj, a popular Java Bitcoin library written by Mike Hearn and used in multiple wallet apps.
It should be as safe as you can get with a desktop wallet. Which means pretty safe, but with hot wallets there's always a risk of getting your computer compromised with some kind of malware.
However, since it's not being maintained anymore, it's possible that there are vulnerabilities in bitcoinj that are fixed in latest versions of the library, which won't be patched in the version that's included in Hive. For that reason, it's recommended that you migrate your funds to a different wallet app in near future.
If you have a lot of bitcoins, it's also recommended that you move some of them to a cold storage.
By default it's saved in ~/Dropbox/Hive-xxxxx, where xxxxx is a prefix of your address. If you have an Apps folder inside your Dropbox folder, then it's saved there instead. The backup folder contains two files: bitcoinkit.wallet (wallet data, including the encrypted private keys) and Hive.storedata (database with things like contacts and transaction info).
Important: the wallet file in the backup is encrypted with the same password as the original wallet file, so if you forget the password, the backup won't help you (but this also means your coins can't be stolen by just hacking your Dropbox account, which unfortunately happens sometimes).
If you want to do that, hold the Alt key when clicking the "Enable" button in the Backup Center - then you will see a save file dialog where you can set the location for the Dropbox backup.
Something went wrong with my wallet, but the Dropbox backup is done at startup so it has overwritten my old backup...
Dropbox stores all previous versions of files for at least a month. Open the backup folder in Finder, find the bitcoinkit.wallet file, right-click it and select "View Previous Versions" - this should open your Dropbox account in the browser and show you at least a few previous versions of the wallet file. You can then revert to any of the old versions.
The Hive data folder is kept in ~/Library/Application Support/Hive, and it's best to back up the whole folder. The most important file is BitcoinJ.network/bitcoinkit.wallet, it's the wallet file that keeps your private keys - this is the only thing that's absolutely required to get your coins back.
It's not possible to do that from the UI. You'll need to create a Hive folder manually in ~/Library/Application Support and copy the files from the backup into that folder. Then start Hive, and it should detect the existing wallet and send you straight to the main window without going through the welcome wizard (note: you'll have to wait a bit for it to resynchronize with the Bitcoin network again).
Since version 1.4.1, you can do that by accessing Wallet > Export Private Key… from the top menu.
It means Hive is unable to connect to the Bitcoin network for some reason. Check your network connection, and make sure you can connect to the Internet from other applications (e.g. in the browser). If all other apps seem to work fine, then it might be your firewall - Hive connects to other Bitcoin peers on port 8333, so your system must allow connections on this port. You can also check the newest log file in ~/Library/Logs/Hive, there should be some error messages at the end that might give you some clues.
This is a workaround for a problem that happens sometimes, Hive just needs to resynchronize with the Bitcoin network. This should take several minutes (up to half an hour), and when it's done everything should be back to normal. To avoid further problems, try not to send any transactions until it's finished (you can track the progress by checking the progress bar in the Tools > Debugging Tools dialog).
Make sure you have a reliable connection when making a transaction. Try restarting your Hive app and wait for 10-20 minutes. It should confirm the transaction after the standard confirmation time.
See: Sending Bitcoin from a pending transaction.
Incoming transactions should normally appear almost immediately as pending on the list, but sometimes there might be a delay. First, wait for the transaction to be confirmed (check its status on blockchain.info).
If Hive still doesn't show the transaction, restart Hive, wait a bit and see if that changes anything. Make sure you don't see a "network connection error" message.
If restarting didn't help either, then Hive might have missed the transaction because of some kind of bug. Open the Debugging Tools window (Tools > Debugging Tools) and run "Rebuild all wallet data" at the bottom - this will resynchronize the wallet with the Bitcoin network (it might take 10-20 minutes). During that time your displayed balance will change, but when it finishes (watch the progress bar at the bottom) everything should be back to normal and the missing transaction should appear on the list.
First, check the status of the transaction on blockchain.info (there's a link in the popup that appears when you click the transaction on the list).
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If the transaction is shown as pending there, it just means you have to wait patiently. There might be a longer transaction queue at the moment and all transactions might be taking more to confirm. Transactions are normally confirmed in less than 10 minutes, but it might take as long as a few hours if the Bitcoin network is overloaded.
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If the transaction is shown as confirmed but Hive shows it as pending, then either Hive didn't receive a notification about that yet, or it just got lost somewhere. Wait a few minutes or try restarting Hive, and see if that helps.
If it's still not confirmed after a restart, then follow the steps described above in "A transaction was sent to my wallet, but it didn't appear" to resynchronize the wallet.
- If the transaction that you sent does not appear on blockchain.info at all, then it means Hive has failed to send it. Again, restart Hive and it should try resending it - check if it appears on blockchain.info now.
If it doesn't appear on blockchain.info after a while, then as above - follow the instructions in "A transaction was sent to my wallet, but it didn't appear" to resynchronize the wallet. This will probably cancel the transaction completely and free up your funds so you can send them again.
This sometimes happens if you're regularly receiving a lot of very complex transactions from some services that send them to many recipients at once. Unfortunately there's no quick fix for this. The only thing you can do at this point is import the wallet or the private key into another wallet app and manage the funds from there.
If you have a reasonably new version of Hive, you can go to Tools > Debugging Info and click the "Open log directory" button at the bottom. The files are located in ~/Library/Logs/Hive.