This is meant to be a catch all blog post that can point you to different resources depending on your issue.

First, if you lost your wallet.dat, or your 12 words, or your encryption password for your wallet.dat, I cannot help you. Nobody can. Chalk it up to a learning experience. You're not the first, and you will not be last person to lose value because they misplaced or never backed up their private keys. That may be of little comfort if you feel you've lost a lot, but this "be your own bank" technology is not for the disorganized. I've seen many ignore my advice of writing down their 12-words when the value is under $10, and later kick themselves when it becomes life-changing value.

Ok, the rest of this post is broken up into sections. Find the header that most closely matches your situation.

You used the original Android Wallet and your funds don't show up in the new Android wallet
The original Android RVN wallet used a different derivation path, so the 12-words gave different addresses/keys.

or

You used the iOS Wallet with 12-word seed and new phone but you don't see your RVN
We tried to solve this one by keeping a flag on your phone and deriving BIP32 or BIP44, but on a new phone the flag is lost and you'll have the same issue as the Android phone above.

or

You have the RVN wallet and it isn't syncing
There are some issues with the RVN Wallet. Check some of the obvious measures like making sure RVN Wallet can use cellular data if you're on a cell network and not WiFi. Make sure you have a strong signal (LTE, 5G, WiFi)

If it still isn't working, it may not be connecting to good Ravencoin nodes.

Add IP address for a node:
  • In RVN Wallet, go to Settings->Advanced->Raven Nodes->[Manual Mode] and enter an IP Address and port of a good node. If you're not sure of the port number, then leave it blank or use 8767.
  • Add an IP address of an active node. Use this list: https://www.ravennodes.com/nodes/ or use 35.166.222.70

You have your wallet.dat and entered entered password on Ravencoin Core and it will not send RVN

This is a new problem we've seen.

Make sure your password is correct. Make sure you don't have CAPS-LOCK on.

Does your password (passphrase) have a space in it? If so and you're having trouble, e-mail contact@ravencoin.foundation. We haven't seen it a lot, in fact I only know of two at the time of this writing, but we're trying to find a common thread.

Other Solutions
If you have your 12-words and you've been using a newer RVN Wallet (iOS or Android), or Ravencoin Core, then your 12-words are compatible with the BIP44 spec. This allows you to use wallets that follow the same spec.

Also, your 12-words from Ravencoin Core should work with RVN Wallet (iOS and Android), and the other way around.

Also try these BIP44 compatible wallets that will accept your 12-word backup:

My Ravencoin Core stopped syncing, and I can't get it past block XYZ.
This can happen if you upgraded late and the chain forked, and your chaindata has some bad blocks, according to the new and improved consensus rules. There are some RPC calls and some tech-heavy solutions to remove just one offending block, but it is easier to do the following:
  • Locate your DataDir (see FAQ below)
  • Back up your wallet.dat file (important)
  • Remove all files in the DataDir except for wallet.dat, and let Ravencoin Core sync. This may take quite a while and depends on both the speed of your computer for signature and transaction verification, and also your Internet Provider's speed for block download.

I found my RVN using the https://ravencoin.org/bip44 site, but I can't sweep it with my Android Wallet.
There have been reports that the sweep causes a crash. Hopefully this is fixed now, or will get fixed soon, but here are some other options:
  1. Use the iOS RVN Wallet to sweep the addresses instead.
  2. Use the Desktop Core Wallet on Windows, Linux, or Mac. Go to Help->Debug Window->[Console], and type:
importprivkey <your private key> "" true
If you have lots to import, use "false" instead of "true" at the end to prevent it from re-scanning, and then on the last one, use "true" and it will scan through the blockchain to find the funds for the imported addresses. Once you do this though, you need to back up your wallet.dat because even if you've got it backed up with 12-words, the imported addresses are not backed-up by the 12-word seed.


FAQ:

Q: Where's my DataDir OR How do I locate my wallet.dat?
A: Your wallet.dat on your desktop or laptop is the file that stores the seed to generate a list of private keys, or that directly stores a list of private keys. It is in a different location depending on which operating system you're on:
  • Linux: ~/.raven
  • Mac: /Users//Library/Application Support/Raven
  • Windows: C:/Users//AppData/Roaming/Raven/

Q: What do I need to recover my RVN and Assets?
A: Just your wallet.dat and a passphrase (if you've encrypted it)
OR
12-word seed phrase (you were given on mobile, or on newer Ravencoin core)

Q: How can I see if my RVN is in my wallet without syncing?
A: If you have 12-words, you can enter them at https://ravencoin.org/bip44
Only use this if you've had trouble with other methods. This can help you determine whether your funds are in addresses derived via BIP32 or via BIP44. Check here for BIP32 or BIP44: https://tronblack.medium.com/ravencoin-recovery-of-old-mobile-wallet-eb5a6dfc1539

Q: I've tried all of the above AND I was on Android, and my 12-words contains the word 'address'
A: This is a super rare case, but it could happen because of a bug in the Android wallet. Solution: https://tronblack.medium.com/ravencoin-bug-in-12-words-android-wallet-only-3ebc8a4143c9

Q: What is sweeping vs. importing?
A: If you have your private key for an address, then some wallets will let you sweep it. The iOS RVN wallet will let you do this. Sweeping is where the wallet uses the private key, and takes all the funds (and hopefully assets) and transfers them to a new address for which your wallet has the private keys. There is a minimal transaction fee for this on Ravencoin.

Doing an import takes the private key and imports it into the wallet and the RVN stays in the same address, but now the wallet can spend from the address because it has the private key.

Q: What is a wallet vs. an address?
A wallet is a collection of addresses. The way these are stored can vary. Some wallets hold a list, some hold just a seed from which it can generate a list of addresses/private keys.

Q: What is the relationship between a Ravencoin address and a private key?
A: They are 1-to-1. If you have the private key, you can get the address. If you have only the address, you CANNOT get the private key.

Q: Why is there a password for the wallet.dat?
A: It encrypts the wallet.dat so that if someone steals that file, they can't spend your RVN. It is not required, but it is recommended.

Q: I have an address. How do I check if it has (or had) RVN in it?
A: Jump over to https://api.ravencoin.org and paste the address into the search bar. You'll see amount in and amount out and the total remaining in the address.

Q: Why are my funds in lots of addresses?
A: This is a normal thing. Most good wallets will use new addresses for each receipt so that it is harder to correlate personal information on-chain.

Q: Attempting to obtain private keys for a corrupted unencrypted Ravencoin wallet.dat file?
A:
  1. Download https://github.com/Dwerg/walletaid and https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-2716/
  2. Install python 2.7, select "Add python.exe to Path" during installation.
  3. Unzip walletaid.
  4. Make a copy of wallet.dat and place in walletaid folder.
  5. Open config.ini and change parameters appropriate to the coin as below.
pubkeyprefix = 3C
privkeyprefix = 80
compressed = yes

  1. Run "Extract keys.bat"
  2. Choose whether to dump all keys or search for specific key(s). We recommend searching for a specific public rvn address and associated private key to minimise the number of private keys import into a new wallet.
  3. If search is chosen, paste each individual address to seach for on a new line and click "OK".
  4. Open "foundkeys.txt" to see the recovered keys and addresses.
  5. To import the found keys into a new wallet I would suggest using the below method.
- Close your wallet
- Press Windows+R
- Type %appdata%\Raven and press enter
- In that folder delete everything BUT NOT WALLET.DAT(!!!) Ensure even "corrupted" versions are backed up for potential future professional recovery. Move all wallet.dat files to another location.
  1. Reinstall the Ravencoin QT wallet using newly generated seed words. Sync the blockchain completely.
  2. Go to Help > Debug Window > Console. In the console type
importprivkey ############
Replace the hashes with the private key found in Step 9.
  1. Please note that we recommend using the new 12 word seed phrases to protect your ravencoin wallet. Note the imported address are NOT protected by the seed words and therefore we recommend sending the ravencoin on imported addresses to another address in your new wallet that can be recovered using the seed phrase alone.
(credit to LSJI07 - BWS)