Backup

From Obyte Wiki

Recreating wallet overview

Obyte has two options for recreating your lost wallet funds, but both require preparatory actions before you lose the wallet.

Recover from the seed

If you write down the 12 wallet seed words (put them in a safe place!), then anyone will be able to use those words to recreate the public assets in your wallet. By "public assets" is meant Bytes and all assets detailed in the DAG. "Private assets" are those few like Blackbytes, which are detailed in your wallet but not in the DAG.

Please note that both multisig wallets and smart contracts cannot be recreated from the 12 seed words: they can be recreated only from a full backup.

See the Recover article.

Restore from a full backup

A full backup will allow you to recreate your full wallet, including Blackbytes and any other private assets, up to the date of the last private transaction before the backup. You should do a full backup every time you do a blackbytes transaction.

Backup details

This article is about backing up your wallet using the Main Menu items:

Full backup: Lets you set a password (don't forget it!) and export a full backup file. You should do a full backup every time you do a blackbytes transaction. Many people have lost funds because they didn't do a backup.

Restore from full backup: Note this will permanently delete all your existing wallets and replace them with whatever is in your backup file. If you created this backup on another device, you should have stopped using the original device platform immediately after creating the backup. Never clone platforms/wallets. If you must access your funds from several devices, use multisig.

Don't try to restore a 32-bit backup on a 64-bit machine

Per report: It will say that the restore was successful and then as you try to restart the wallet you will get an error message: Uncaught exception: Error: message encrypted to unknown key ... The error might be caused by restoring from an old backup or using the same keys on another device. [OK button]

When you click "OK" the wallet shuts down. When you start it again, you will get this error: Uncaught exception: Error: user version 21 > 20: looks like you are using a new database with an old client.

Paths

  • MacOS: Chosen by user each time, no apparent default
  • Android: Phone > Obyte > [backup doc] by default, no apparent choices available
  • Windows: defaults to C > Program Files (x86) > Obyte > [ backupdoc] on Windows 7 64-bit, but user-changeable.

Video tutorial

Here's a useful video, 10:14 long:
Byteball Tutorial - Backup Process - Multi-Signature Wallet

See also

Check this linked article about both options: http://dailybyteball.blogspot.com/2017/05/how-to-make-backup-your-byteball-wallet.html