there is normally absolutely no need for a rescan when restoring a wallet backup.
Really?
Odd. I thought a rescan was often necessary after restoring a backup. I'll have to search through threads and see if I can find evidence of that.
It was needed at one time. It hasn't for some time now. The wallet file maintains a copy of all txs it knows and it also maintains the block height (and best chain hash) of the last block it saw. With those two pieces of info the wallet can update itself by just checking all "new" blocks. I can confirm this works as expected. I use it on an almost daily basis. Now the older the backup the more blocks it will need to parse but this will always be less than a full rescan and often it will be significantly less. If the backup was from yesterday it only needs to scan one day's worth of blocks instead of four years.
As for why do people keep recommending -rescan? I don't know. Urban legends never die? The only time a rescan should be needed is if something "breaks". Now that you know you can join the fight against superstition and false solutions.
