I've got a general question about my wallet.
So I am late to the crypto game, and really I'm only an internet end user, I have little technical knowledge beyond making my way around the internet.
So I guess I have been a bit spoiled coming late to the game since HD wallets (bitcoin) have been available, and all I need to transport my wallet from device to device is a seed (usually 12 word)
Anyway, I bought some Blocknet a while back, and would prefer to keep some in my own wallet on my computer and not an exchange. So I downloaded the Blocknet github wallet a few days ago. There are 6 .exe. files (2 testnet). I opened up blocknetdx-qt.exe, let it sync to the network, and sent a couple of Blocknet tokens to my wallet. Success, all is good. I then encrypted my Blocknet wallet UI
However, before I send more tokens to my computer's wallet, I want to make sure my wallet is backed up so I don't lose my tokens if my computer crashes beyond repair.
So, non-technical me, I saved a wallet.dat backup using File --> Backup Wallet on the wallet UI, and the .dat is now placed with the other 6 .exe files.
I uploaded the 4 non testnet .exe files and the .dat file to dropbox (I know, terrible idea, but I just want to verify I can move my wallet to another computer if necessary)
I created a new folder in the 2nd computer I wanted to download my wallet to, and downloaded the 4.exe files and .dat file from Dropbox. I then clicked the blocknetdx-qt.exe file, and was disappointed to see that a new wallet was syncing up, but without the transactions I made on the first computer. It's just basically a brand new empty wallet
Did I do something wrong? Am I somehow supposed to link the wallet.dat file to the.exe file? I understand it's the .dat file that contains addresses, private keys, wallet ID info, etc. Can anyone provide info on any steps I may have missed? (BTW, I tried to open the wallet on my Windows 7 machine Notepad, and it was just a long list of garbled, jumbled symbols).
FYI, I actually first downloaded blocknetdx-qt.exe to the second computer thinking that may be enough to see my transactions. When I saw it wasn't, I then downloaded the wallet.dat file. When that didn't help either, I then checked forums to see if any similar problems were documented, and one similar problem (for bitcoin wallet.dat) (see
https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/14401/how-to-use-backup-dat) was given the advice to re-scan the blockchain (if a saved old wallet.dat containing coins before computer crash was downloaded to overwrite new wallet.dat downloaded after computer crash). Any chance this may be the problem? If so, how do I go about re-scan to the Blocknet blockchain? I don't see anything in the "File" "Settings" or "Tools" in the UI.
Well, you should join Blocknet Slack for further advice on this, but two points immediately jump to mind:
1. It does take a while in general to sync the chain in a new wallet, and transactions and associated tokens in the wallet start appearing in temporal order as it syncs. Couldn't tell for sure if you actually waited to see what happened when you were completely sync'd, but since you are in the new chain which is still now only a few days old then that shouldn't take very long, so I doubt that's your problem (but just thought I should mention it anyway).
2. Reading between the lines, it appears that you do not realize that the directory where you have your exe files is not the target data directory for your wallet, so a wallet.dat file placed there will not be used by the wallet software - most likely this is your problem. The target directory will be by default inside your system user AppData folder if you are in Windows OS. When starting up on a new computer you can let the wallet create a target directory upon first startup (it will prompt you for a path, or you can just let it go to AppData by default). Then shut down the wallet, go to that newly created wallet data directory and either overwrite just the wallet.dat file, or you can also overwrite the entire target directory with one copied from your previous machine. If you only use the wallet.dat, then the chain will have to download and sync again. If you use the whole directory then the blockchain data from previously sync'd wallet is retained and your new installation will sync much faster. (You could also copy in your whole directory before even starting the wallet for the first time, and then just target its path if not in the default path when you start the wallet up.)
Hope that helps.
PS: if you are not that technical, then you may also not know how to find the AppData directory because it is often hidden in Windows. If you go in Explorer to your user directory, and then type \AppData after your name in the path bar, then that directory should appear.