Wallet Issues After Editing.dat File, Need Help!

Hey everyone, Got a wallet issue. My wallet addresses aren’t showing the right balances... I messed with my wallet.dat file a bit: Used a program that changed the file type, Modified a letter in the file, Tried some encryption with bitcoin-qt, Then switched it back to the original. I also created a new address for receiving bitcoin. Thought this might be where the problem is.

Wait, so you changed the wallet.dat and now it’s acting up? You should’ve backed it up first. Try swapping it out with your original if you have it.

Uh, why would you do that? You’ve probably corrupted your wallet.

Is what you see in your wallet matching what shows up in a block explorer? Like mempool.space or something similar?

Honestly, if you did all that, you might’ve lost your coins. Got a backup?

Quick question, where did you get that wallet file? If someone sold it to you, you might’ve been scammed. Do you have a seed phrase?

No backup before messing with.dat file. I’m confused... What’s the actual problem here? I feel bad about this.

From what I gather, this wallet came from an old bitcoin-qt version. Doesn’t seem like you have a backup seed either. Honestly, you keep making new threads but no one responds in the old ones. Maybe check back there for answers?

Didn't quite catch their answers, but yeah it seems the file’s corrupted. I do have an HD seed. What can I do about this "non-pure" file? Is a basic backup enough? Should I activate some software options? I tried a few things but don’t wanna mess up more.

If you’ve got that HD seed, you can recover it by importing into wallets like Electrum. But how’d you get that seed? Because BitcoinCore doesn’t create one.

The HD seed from Bitcoin Core is exported in a WIF format. You can’t really import it to Electrum unless it’s converted to an xprv due to incompatibility with hard addresses.

I read that encrypted wallets don’t alter the HD seed. Is that true? I did some tweaking and tried altering my wallet's creation date. If I have a backup or a recovery tool, how do I use it?

Nah, what you read isn’t right. Encrypting a wallet changes the keys. That’s why an unencrypted backup becomes useless after you generate new keys.

Not exactly. Coins that were in the wallet before encryption remain in the backup. But using new addresses means those aren’t in the old backup.

That’s the point, unencrypted backups won’t recover the new keys you've generated. It seems like that’s what you’re facing.

I remember Bitcoin Core has a tool called bitcoin-wallet. You can salvage data from a corrupted wallet. You can create a salvage.txt file to check.

Still no good answers for me.

How did you even edit a letter in a.dat file? If you opened it in a text editor, you might’ve messed up the actual data since it’s not plain text. Could’ve broken the whole thing.

Try getting a wallet file from the same version you have. Install it on a different PC and see if you can copy the.dat file.

Looking back at your posts, it’s clear you modified the file, which likely corrupted it. Now the QT is showing new addresses instead of the original ones. Honestly, no undo button for this, and you should’ve backed it up first. Lesson learned.