The Wallet Pass Phrase I Saved Is Not Working!
The Only Time I Typed My Pass Phrase By Hand
I've used several qt wallets for different altcoins now and this is the first one I actually created the pass phrase for. I like the idea of staking and seen the Exclusive Coin (EXCL) doing well in the market, so I thought, lets put some to work and see what happens.
After carefully - or so I thought - typing the several word passphrase, I typed it again in a file and saved it. This was a couple days ago and I tend to use my clipboard dozens of times in a day! After adding some more funds I decided to lock it and unlock it again for staking.
No Dice.
Recovering A Passphrase
I tried several combinations of the words I had copied down in a file... Adding an 's' here and a space there. Capitalizing. I even tried other combinations that may have been in my clipboard, just in case. Nothing. Locked out.
While 50 EXCL is not a lot now (roughly $34), it may be in the future. That is part of the reason I diversify. So I sought answers on Google and came up with some interesting results. Most from bitcointalk.org or sites offering cracking software.
Turns out, the best way to recover a lost passphrase and unlock a wallet, is to guess or generate a combination of possible matches based on the combination of words you think it is.
Solution And Hindsight
While I have yet to get the combination right (I will compile a dictionary file), I learned a very valuable lesson. Never hand type a passphrase, one. Two, Copy and Paste the passphrase. I added the second part because the first part is that important. :)
I'll let you know if I figure it out and how I did it in a future post.